EDITORIAL: Pokie addicts are seldom winners

What drives a mother to leave her 6-month-old baby to cook in a car with windows wound up for nearly 30 minutes?
An addiction to pokie machines is the answer and it is a major issue on our doorstep.
Anyone who thinks the pokie machine addiction problem is a big-city issue because they have the casinos is dreaming.
Hawke's Bay, like almost every region in New Zealand, is awash with pokie machines in TAB premises and pubs.
``We love our pokies,'' is a common enough refrain around these parts _ a sentiment that makes a predilection to their flashing lights and jingling bells sound like just a bit of fun.
In fact, it is an addiction that consumes far too many people, the majority women, sometimes in secret from their loved ones.
The pokies become a pit into which precious grocery money is flung, peoples' lives are ruined and families left in tatters. It is that serious.
The court has ordered 12 months supervision for a young Napier mother who, with a friend, abandoned her baby in 25C heat in a closed up car while they gambled on pokie machines in the TAB.
Sadly, this is not the worst such instance of abandonment of a child by parents off to play pokies. The Gambling Foundation knows of similar instances ``from one end of the country to the other''.
Even the threat of five years imprisonment, the maximum penalty for ill-treating a child, is not enough to deter some gamblers prepared to leave children unattended.
In the latest Hawke's Bay case, the sentencing judge commented that the mother needed counselling with an emphasis on parenting skills.
To that we might add, a lesson in personal responsibility.