We won’t fix animal abuse problems in horse and greyhound racing until we address gambling. Gambling needs something to bet on every few minutes, that’s how it works. And it’s why racing and gaming ministries are honeypots for political donations: to stave off real reform.

E.g. What did Racing Minister @MartinPakulaMP do last week?

Well, on Monday, he was entertained by the Australian Hotels Association at its annual cup eve luncheon. The same AHA that imposed a special levy on pokies in 2018 to raise a $500k donation for Labor‘s reelection.

On Tuesday, he spent the day at the cup in the TABCORP marquee, literally being fed by the gaming lobby.

(On Wednesday he got a bit sidetracked and defended the use of the infamous Cronulla riots phrase “grew here, not flew here” to describe the melb cup winner. But I digress.)

At some point during the week (or could have been earlier, not sure) cabinet approved a new look Local Government Act that scrapped the previously announced donations cap for council candidates. Phew! The AHA will be free to give tens of thousands of dollars to councillors again!

And throughout his entire time in Parliament neither he nor any other Lab or Lib MP has ever declared a conflict of interest on any vote for laws that advantage the beneficiaries of gambling. (Maybe he’s completely unaffected by the wining, dining and donations. Good for him!)

Am I picking on Martin? He’s just the minister of the day. Past Racing and Gaming Ministers of Lab and Lib tendencies have been every bit as compromised.

My point is this: get gambling money out of politics. We’ll just keep having hopelessly conflicted Ministers until then.

Surely nobody believes the government can ever be serious about cruelty in racing, or about regulating racing, until Lab and Libs stop taking the gambling lobby’s cash.

AUSTRALIA’S MOST PROGRESSIVE STATE, etc.

Fin.