Opinion & Commentary
Should poker machine gambling be restricted?
"I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin,” bewailed John the Savage in Aldous Huxley's 1932 classic Brave New World. He was deploring the stultifying safety, the anodyne contentment, and the inane niceness of the world in which he found himself. John wanted the right to make mistakes. For him, removing the challenge of resisting temptation undermined what it meant to be human.
The government's plan to mandate pre-commitment devices for poker machines is meddling along the same lines. It is another coercive attempt to expunge the consequences of making poor decisions.
However well meaning the intent, do Australians want to become a society of cosseted drones? We should have the freedom to do whatever, provided it causes no direct physical harm to others.
Of the 600,000-odd Australians who play the pokies regularly, about 10 per cent are inveterate, losing money at great cost to themselves and sometimes their families. Some even break the law to feed their habit.
But so what? It's only money. Furthermore it's not "taken" by poker machines, as widely reported; it's freely given. And the government and churches already provide a financial and moral safety net for those who can't help themselves, not to mention the army of professional psychologists and plethora of government help agencies.
Moreover, the moral case for interference is not clear because the plan will hurt others. Poker machine profits, legally acquired, allow responsible patrons to enjoy cheaper food and drink, clubs and hotels to employ more workers, and superannuation funds with direct or indirect shares in the gaming industry to provide better retirements for their members.
Why does the self-inflicted suffering of a feckless few outweigh the utility of the measured many?
If Australians want to live in a country where the exercise of free will is valued, where people take personal responsibility for their actions, they should oppose the government's mandatory pre-commitment devices.
On the same principle, the government could network alcohol sales, issue drinkers with cards, and limit their purchases per hour.
Or, why not, Brave New World-style, issue people with a drug like "soma" which replaces temptation with mindless pleasure?
What was science fiction in the 1930s is far more likely today.
Adam Creighton is a research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies. See the un-cut version of this piece on the CIS blog incise
