Coalition slammed for weak pokies policy

The coalition's poker machine plan has been called "a sorry and pathetic excuse for a policy". Source: AAP

ANTI-GAMBLING campaigners have accused the federal coalition of betraying problem gamblers, following the release of its poker machine policy.

If it wins the election, the coalition plans to set up an industry advisory council made up of club and gaming venue operators that will meet quarterly and advise on support for problem gamblers.

Anti-gambling campaigner Tim Costello told Fairfax Media this was like putting "Dracula in charge of the blood bank".

Opposition community services spokesman Kevin Andrews dismissed his concerns as "flowery rhetoric".

"The industry itself is concerned about problem gambling," Mr Andrews told ABC Radio on Tuesday.

Asked if there would be independent researchers involved in the council, Mr Andrews said: "Yes there will be a whole range of people to provide us with advice."

Independent Senator Nick Xenophon doubted the coalition had spoken to a single person with a gambling addiction in drawing up its policy.

"Tim Costello was being unfair to Dracula with that comment," Senator Xenophon told AAP.

"What the policy reflects is industry capture."

Senator Xenophon said it was a "sorry and pathetic excuse for a policy".

Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie said the coalition had shown that "they are completely beholden to the poker machine industry".

"Self-regulation hasn't worked because the gambling industry is only concerned with protecting its profits and doesn't care about the harm caused to problem gamblers," he said.

Figures from the Australian Electoral Commission released earlier this year show the coalition received the bulk of political donations from the Australian Hotels Association (AHA) and Clubs NSW, who collectively donated almost $550,000 in the 2011/12 financial year.

From 2010 to 2012 the gambling lobby campaigned heavily against Mr Wilkie's push for the national roll-out of mandatory pre-commitment technology for poker machines.

The Gillard government dumped the proposal in 2012 and instead passed watered-down down measures that included a trial of the mandatory pre-commitment technology in the ACT.

The coalition has vowed to abandon the ACT trial.

It prefers voluntary pre-commitment technology.

Mr Wilkie told reporters in Hobart that donations to political parties from companies associated with gambling should be banned.

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