South Australia’s Malinauskas Government is delivering its State Budget next week and the SA Greens are calling for poker machines to be phased out across the state by 2030.
SA Greens MLC Robert Simms has written a letter to Treasurer Stephen Mulligan calling for a range of measures regarding pokies that include: a moratorium on all new poker machines, a transition fund to support clubs and pubs in phasing out pokies, a flat tax on all poker machines increased to 65 per cent and a commitment to phasing out all poker machines across the state over the next five years.
Simms said: “Pokies are a scourge on our state. South Australians have lost billions of dollars on these machines over the last 30 years – they have destroyed thousands of lives.
“It’s time for the state government to finally show some leadership on this issue and commit to axing pokies.
“Budgets are about choices. It’s immoral for our state to continue to use pokies as a revenue measure.
“The Greens have proposed a range of alternative revenue measures in our budget submission, including scrapping subsidies for fossil fuel companies and imposing a big bank levy.”
South Australia’s Legislative Council is made up of 22 MLCs made up of nine from the Labor Party, seven Liberals and six crossbenchers, including Simms.