Regulating Social Problems: The Pokies, the Productivity Commission and an Aboriginal Community

Australia has 21 per cent of the world’s electronic gaming machines—more commonly known as poker machines. Deregulation of the industry has expanded the availability of gaming machines to an extent unprecedented in the western world. As a result there are estimated to be approximately 300,000 problem gamblers in Australia, an unknown number of whom are Indigenous Australians. This discussion paper documents the fi rst successful Aboriginal use of regulation in order to prevent the installation of electronic gaming machines—a case that took place in South Australia in 1998. At around the same time, the Productivity Commission was conducting an inquiry into Australia’s gambling industries. This discussion paper, offered in part because of the dearth of published material on contemporary Indigenous gambling, discusses how the Productivity Commission dealt with Indigenous gambling and draws some conclusions from the South Australian case.

[1]  David Collins.  An account of the English colony in New South Wales, from its first settlement in January 1788 to August 1801 / , 2006 .

[2]  D. Horton,et al.  The functions of alcohol in primitive societies: a cross-cultural study. , 1943 .

[3]  T. Graves.  Acculturation, Access, and Alcohol in a Tri‐Ethnic Community , 1967 .

[4]  D. Riches.  Cash, Credit and Gambling in a Modern Eskimo Economy: Speculations on Origins of Spheres of Economic Exchange , 1975 .

[5]  The trans-Australian wonderland , 1978 .

[6]  C. C. Macknight.  The voyage to Marege' : Macassan trepangers in Northern Australia , 1979 .

[7]  J. Collmann.  Social Order and the Exchange of Liquor: A Theory of Drinking among Australian Aborigines , 1979, Journal of Anthropological Research.

[8]  Basil Sansom,et al.  The Camp At Wallaby Cross: Aboriginal Fringe Dwellers In Darwin , 1980 .

[9]  M. Agar,et al.  Alcohol and Ethnography: A Case of Problem Deflation? [and Comments and Reply] , 1984, Current Anthropology.

[10]  Jane C. Goodale.  GAMBLING IS HARD WORK: CARD PLAYING IN TIWI SOCIETY , 1987 .

[11]  M. Marshall.  "Problem deflation" and the ethnographic record: interpretation and introspection in anthropological studies of alcohol. , 1990, Journal of substance abuse.

[12]  Cash, Commoditisation and Authenticity : When do Aboriginal People Stop Being Hunter-Gatherers? , 1991 .

[13]  Nicholas Evans,et al.  Macassan loanwords in top end languages , 1992 .

[14]  C. Elia,et al.  The incidence of pathological gambling among Native Americans treated for alcohol dependence. , 1993, International Journal of the Addictions.

[15]  Coimbra,et al.  Aboriginal health and history: power and prejudice in remote Australia , 1995 .

[16]  V. Morison,et al.  Drinking and gambling: a comparison with implications for theories of addiction. , 1996, Drug and alcohol review.

[17]  Eric B. Henderson,et al.  The Navajo gaming referendum: reservations about casinos lead to popular rejection of legalized gambling. , 1997 .

[18]  A. Atkinson,et al.  The Rocks: Life in Early Sydney , 1997 .

[19]  Increased requests for help by problem gamblers: data from a gambling crisis telephone hotline. , 1997, The New Zealand medical journal.

[20]  S. Saggers,et al.  Indigenous Australians and Liquor Licensing Legislation , 1999 .

[21]  Samantha J. Togni,et al.  Liquor licensing and community action in regional and remote Australia: a review of recent initiatives , 2000, Australian and New Zealand journal of public health.

[22]  D Gray,et al.  Beating the grog: an evaluation of the Tennant Creek liquor licensing restrictions , 2000, Australian and New Zealand journal of public health.

[23]  P. Sutton.  The politics of suffering: Indigenous policy in Australia since the 1970s , 2001 .

[24]  The Productivity Commission's Gambling Inquiry: 3 Years on , 2002 .

[25]  From Hunting to Drinking: The Devastating Effects of Alcohol on an Australian Aboriginal Community , 2002 .

[26]  Margaret Brady,et al.  'Which Bloke Would Stand Up for Yalata?': The Struggle of an Aboriginal Community to Control the Availability of Alcohol , 2003 .