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 Australia's major churches have banded together to launch the Australian Churches Gambling Taskforce. A national forum took place in Canberry earlier today and senior representative from the Uniting, Catholic, Baptist, Anglican churches and the Salvation Army were in attendance.
President of the Uniting Church and Forum Chair the Reverend Alistair Macrae spoke out against the gambling industry saying, "For every problem gambler at least one child is affected and 10 other people are directly adversely impacted...The social costs are high - relationship breakdown, mental health issues, unemployment, debt and financial hardship, theft and social isolation... The rot has to stop. If a club or hotel can only exist on the back of problem gambling spending and it's huge human cost, it is not a viable business. Our priority is to ensure gambling policy supports consumer protection and harm minimization."
The Australian government is currently considering certain gambling reforms that would force gamblers to set a limit on how much they can gamble each month prior to gambling. Macarae commented on the measure saying, "We support this measure because it focuses regulation on machines and venues and requires gamblers to choose and stick to their own gambling limit. People choose what limit to set, as high or low as they like. Mandatory pre-commitment measures will require all electronic gaming machine venues to install the technology. It will help people help themselves to set and stick to their limits."
The Australian Churches Gambling Forum released an official statement calling on all states and territories to sign on to legislation that will ensure all gaming venues have mandatory pre-commitment technology in place by 2014.
What the church doesn't realize is that such legislation would not take into account any potential winnings a player might make. If a player wins $5,000 on a machine and would like to use some of that money to play even more on the machines such a rule would keep them from doing so. If a player happened to fall into some money or gets a raise and can afford to spend more on the machines they would not be able to make that decision either. While the church certainly has good intentions they are basically fighting to keep people from having the right to spend their own money the way they see fit. There is a reason that most first world countries have rules in place to keep religion and government separate. In this author's opinion the fact that Churches are trying to become actively involved in politics is concerning to say the least.
As always, stay tuned to Casinofan for more news and updates.
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