Pokie reform law labelled un-Australian

The aim is to reduce the economic and social cost of problem gambling, which afflicts an estimated 100,000 Australians. Photo / APN

It's often said Australians will bet on two flies crawling up a wall, and on Anzac Day the pubs will be full of old soldiers playing two-up.

That may explain why the powerful pubs and clubs lobby feels justified in denouncing plans to reform the poker machine industry as "un-Australian".

Such is the theme of a A$20 million ($27 million) newspaper, radio and television campaign launched yesterday by the industry, which claims reforms will cost jobs and force community clubs to close.

"Who voted for a licence to punt?" demanded a full-page newspaper advertisement, framed in green and gold.

The question referred to widely anticipated plans to oblige poker machine users to carry a card programmed to prevent them from losing more than a predetermined sum within 24 hours.

The aim is to reduce the economic and social cost of problem gambling, which afflicts an estimated 100,000 Australians.

Forty per cent of poker machine revenue comes from problem gambling, and the independent MP Andrew Wilkie made it a condition of his support for Julia Gillard's minority government that she implement the "pre-commitment system" by 2014. Wilkie chairs a gambling advisory committee expected to deliver recommendations later this month.

But while the Government will fall unless it keeps its promise, the industry backlash has threatened to target the marginal Labor seats in which many clubs are located.

Wilkie accused the lobby yesterday of "peddling lies" in the advertisements, and the Community and Family Services Minister, Jenny Macklin, said it was running a "scare campaign". In yesterday's Herald-Sun, she wrote it was "un-Australian to make money from someone else's misery".