The Happiest Place On Earth
Did you vote to expand Crown Casino by 43 percent? To increase their permitted number of tables from 350 to 500? You did if you voted for the Labor, Liberal or National parties at the last Victorian election.
Baillieu and O’Brien, for their part, spent months criticising aspects of Labor’s ”secret deal” with Crown.
They were particularly energised when it was revealed Packer had written to and telephoned Brumby and Treasurer John Lenders weeks before the Government announced the deal. ”All it took were two phone calls from James Packer – one to the Premier, one to the Treasurer – and all of a sudden the deal could be concluded very happily,” O’Brien told Parliament. ”Is that not extraordinary?”
Yet Baillieu and O’Brien subsequently agreed to support the legislation – after a private meeting with Packer at Crown’s request in Baillieu’s office!
The only people who opposed this bill in the upper house were the three Greens (and one DLP) MLCs.
So no Jamie friendship for them. They’ll just have to console themselves with my vote instead. Serves them right.
Moved On 
It is odd that the political principle is so scarce when it is apparently so cheap.
jamie must have threatened them with the wrath of xenu
LOL karl!
Hi Jeremy – a post on stop and search might also be relevant. I’ve a feeling that the DLP supported that one…
All the bombs in the world falling down killing innocent poor people in the thousands and we can’t find a few for Australia’s casino’s.
These bloody things do more damage than the war room of Al-Qaeda.Pox on the lot of them.
I have never understood the extreme aversion to gambling, which seems to reach its height in Victoria and South Australia. While gambling causes social problems, it is a minor issue compared to unemployment, alcohol, domestic violence and family breakdown. The anti-gambling campaign seems to me to be part of a social control agenda, which concern me much more than craps tables and roulette wheels.
In any event, when it is confined to specific venues such as Crown Casino, the social impacts of gambling are reduced. It is the pokies palaces that dot Melbourne’s suburban sprawl, and make the temptation to play so unavoidable to the dependent gambler, that are the source of the addiction problem, not easy targets like Crown.
It’s not gambling per se that bothers me.
It’s a business model that’s based on exploiting addicts. Pokies – and Crown has plenty – are designed to deceive. To trick. The business model is about making it as difficult as possible for punters to keep track of what’s going on. Even on the card tables, with games with long-standing rules, Crown regularly subtly changes them for its own advantage.
It’s a nasty, nasty business.
Conservatives tend to oppose exploiting addicts when we’re talking about chemical drugs; but when it’s gambling? Not so much.
Unemployment, alcoholism, domestic violence and family breakdown have their origins in problem gambling in many cases. Part of the hurdle addressing problem gambling is society and governments accepting it as such a corrosive influence on people’s lives.
Gambling is a scourge on society, and anyone promoting it as a valuable recreation vehicle is a little confused on the damage it does.It does as much harm to families as alcohol and smoking, and It is common knowledge, as if to add insult to injury, most gamblers are in denial about their habit, and surprise, surprise, smoke and drink as well .All three vices have the effect of causing unemployment, social breakdown, and family violence.
AdamCMelb’s assertion that it is about a social control agenda is arrant nonsense.The people that are and have been against this rotten stain on society were well of the problem of this addiction and outcome, years ago.
But, it is a cash cow that keeps on giving in tax to the governments that control these fairy lighted, plush carpeted, dens of iniquity.So they’ll keep milking the poor sods that don’t know any better.
Casino’s should be against the law, and to the people who like to atend them, get a life, try rooting, or group sex if you like crowds.
I’m not a big fan of gambling, even if I do buy the occasional lotto ticket. But I wouldn’t ban casinos or gambling because people would get their gambling fix in other ways, legal or otherwise.
Aussie Unionist, Yea I see your point, We should legalize bestiality, because people are still going to root their dogs, goats, and the occasional sheep.
Then of course we could legalize incest, that way some of the nicer weirdo’s in society won’t feel that bad about rooting their sister.
I see your argument has merit.
Oh please. Don’t make such pathetic analogies to score some cheap point.
Oh Aussie Unionist pathetic analogies a cheap point? Hardly.There is nothing cheap about gambling and its consequences.
Yea let’s legalize drugs whilst we’re at it, after all it’s only another pathetic analogy.
We already legalise some drug use. They’re called alcohol and cigarettes. Do you propose to ban grog and smokes too? They causes many of society’s ills. Far more than gambling.
In fact let’s ban everything and never make people responsible for their own choices and actions. Prohibition has always proven such a success.
There is an argument for regulation. Alcohol and tobacco, while legal in certain circumstances, are substantially regulated. You can only purchase alcohol at particular outlets and within certain timeframes, even certain days. In some towns alcohol of a certain strength cannot be bought on particular days. Cigarettes continue to become more and more expensive and lose marketing appeal as governments increase their tax take and reduce the parameters around how companies can promote their product.
Why can’t we limit casino opening times to those that pubs operate under as a start? In WA pokie machines can only be found in casinos, substantially reducing their reach to the general population. Why can’t this be implemented elsewhere?
The all or nothing argument is redundant in this instance in my view. I’m not in Melbourne, so can’t speak about Crown, but casinos usually operate 24/7. Is this appropriate or even necessary?
Although I am not advocating the ban of alcohol and cigarettes, I wouldn’t be an orphan if I did.
Your contention that cigarettes and alcohol are more harmful to society than gambling is laughable, so we draft laws on the degree of harm each vice is responsible for do we?(do some research) Your quip about banning everything is a poor response to your original asinine comment about, pathetic analogies.
Australians spend 500 million bucks a month on gambling,most of which will end up in overseas bank accounts, it is a serious health, economic, and law and order problem, as well as that, the money could be better spent I’m sure.
Unfortunately society has to make laws not only to protect people from other people, some are made to protect people from themselves.
The police forces from all over Australia have just finished a conference on what to do about the alcohol problem in our cities, they have obviously come to the conclusion that filling up the city watch houses on weekends with drunken idiots may work in the short term, but they are going after the source of the problem.
Casino’s should be treated the same way.
I am a great believer in people being held accountable for their actions, but people being what they are! some temptation has to be taken away.
Anyhoo if you can’t see the problem, and fob it off as some sort of harmless past time, I really am wasting my time debating with you.
At the end of the day it is up to the individual strength of mind. Many people have a flutter on the lotto, have a drink now and then, maybe have the odd ciggy or cigar, the weak minded though take this to another level and have probably been mis educated where gambling is concerned. There are more drinkers, smokers, gamblers who are not in a ny trouble because they can manage themselves properly, a small minority cannot, and this what leaves a very bad taste.
Perhaps, but the casinos deliberately prey on the latter.