A cracking read from Crispin Hull on the poker machine spin from selfish clubs

Crispin Hull nails it again with this piece that dumps onto the pro-pokie campaign currently being waged by the "club" industry.

A glimpse:

The position of clubs, football leagues and hotels arguing against the poker-machine restrictions is immoral and inexcusable...

The Productivity Commission is not some leftie, hand-wringing outfit engaged in social engineering or political correctness. It is a hard-nosed research outfit that weighs up the costs and benefits of public policy.

Its conclusions are clear. The economic costs of exposing gambling addicts to such an easy method of losing so much money so quickly outweigh the very modest contribution that clubs make to the community.

Even if the clubs made a huge contribution to the community, the blood money would still not be justified – even on purely economic grounds. If you add the human misery, the case for restriction is clear-cut.

Julia Gillard has rest easy on this issue - toughen up, get the laws into place, and watch the concerns melt away.