UNCHARITABLE BEHAVIOUR

I have long been a supporter of poker machines in Melbourne and thought it was crazy back in the 1970s and early Eighties when the wowsers created a situation where busloads of people would head north to the spend Victorian money across the border in New South Wales. Or fly south to Hobart to gamble at Wrest Point in Hobart. I’ve also been accused of being insensitive to problem gamblers.

But there is one aspect of poker machines that I find obscene and immoral. Not illegal but callous and immoral. And to make it worse it involves many of our AFL football clubs.

Most clubs have pokie venues and those income streams help keep the clubs afloat. I have no problem with that.

But, for that licenced privilege, they are expected to give something back to the general community. By law they re supposed to give just over 8% of their revenue for the benefit of the general community.

On the surface they comply. Last year, according to the Sunday Age the clubs spent a record $35 million on the community. But they didn’t. And the worst offender was the 2009 Grand Final winner Geelong.

They claim they spent more than $21 million on community causes. They didn’t. More than $2 million of that charity money went to maintain their own facilities and $18 million went for operating costs. Including player salaries.

That’s blatantly and shamelessly using a legal loophole. There are 12 official philanthropic categories. Geelong met none of them.

Other clubs have rorted the system. Collingwood, Carlton, Hawthorn, the Western Bulldogs. After the Sunday Age exposed Hawthorn for paying itself $2 million dollars out of charity funds last year they did  cough up more than half a million this year for community programs and charities including the RSL and the Black Saturday Appeal.

But the Bulldogs claimed Brad Johnson’s 300-game portrait and signed jerseys as a charity deduction and many clubs even claimed their AFL licence fees.

Other poker machine venues have also ripped off the system. Claiming hotel maintenance and even building smoking rooms on private businesses as community work.

It’s a loophole that must be closed. Any sane person knows that when AFL clubs claim they spent a record $35 million on community projects last year, and only $6 million of it actually goes to the community, something stinks.

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2009