If AFL fans didn’t know who Andrew Wilkie was in May of this year, they will definitely know who he is before May next year. May is the deadline Wilkie has given the Gillard Government to pass his pokie reform laws if they want to ensure his support. As one of the 3 independent senators who have helped Labor form government his support is crucial in ensuring they maintain power and Wilkie has used this position to push his pokie reform laws to national attention.
But what does this have to do with AFL fans? Well quite a lot actually.
If the reforms are passed the revenue lost from pokie machines owned by football clubs in Victoria alone stands to be at an estimated $30 million. It’s no wonder Eddie McGuire has labelled the reforms a “footy tax”.
Yet when you actually consider the reality of what gambling can do to an individual, a family or a community perhaps Wilkie’s reforms are the stimulus Australia needs to consider the relationship between gambling and sport.
It is exceptionally difficult to not to emotionalise an issue which has so much capacity to ruin lives.
Latha Raman is the head of the Gambling Help Team at Centrecare and works closely with problem gamblers to help them overcome their addictions and offers support when they need it most.
The programs that Centrecare offer to help problem gamblers are all voluntary so gamblers need to actively seek out their services themselves, but Ms Raman says that the accessibility to gambling which sports like AFL now offer is worrying.
“Having such a close relationship between gambling and sport is fairly concerning. In this modern age it is worrying that anyone watching an AFL game, children included, can be exposed to methods of gambling without even being aware of it”.
The methods Ms Raman refers to are features like internet betting or apps on smartphones which now allow you to put real time bets on a game you’re watching at the push of a button.
In the wake of the pokie reform debate Andrew Demetriou, the CEO of the AFL, has said the AFL wants to help “raise awareness around problem gambling and actually tackle that issue, not put our clubs in jeopardy.” But what, if anything, does that mean for football teams at lower levels?
Darren Davis, the WAFL and High Performance Competition Manager for the West Australian Football Commission, has suggested that gambling, in the WAFL at least, is only dealt with on a player or official level to ensure these individuals do not participate in gambling on WAFL games.
“The ‘official’ anti-gambling line is that if you’re associated with a club as a player or an official there is an absolute blanket ban. All players and coaches are made aware of the WAFL Anti-Gambling and and Corruption Policy and we take it very seriously” he said.
“We’re yet to have an instance in the WAFL where a player or official has been found guilty of breaching this policy, but we have very few resources to actually monitor this.”
The sheer reality of how close the relationship between gambling and Australian Rules football has become was demonstrated this year when Collingwood player Heath Shaw was suspended for placing bets on a game he was directly involved with and Collingwood captain Nick Maxwell was fined $10,000 but not suspended for bets his family members made.
If even players who are made aware of the Respect and Responsibility programs like the ones in place in the AFL and the WAFL are still tempted to place bets, how easy must it be for people who are not involved to see putting some money on a game as part and parcel of the footy experience?
Ms Raman from Centrecare says that the AFL needs to be more responsible for ‘normalising’ gambling and exposing individuals who might be at risk of problem gambling to easy access to gambling.
“Having such easy access to gambling on the AFL and announcing the odds of football games during a broadcast is almost giving people permission to gamble on games. The problem is where do we take that permission? How far do we take it? It’s so easy now to use and abuse gambling thanks to the internet and smart phones. I don’t think it’s good for young people or perhaps people who might just be inclined towards problem gambling to be exposed to gambling in such a comfortable and familiar environment.”
The sad fact of the matter is exposure to gambling during an AFL broadcast has become a part of the experience. Odds are announced in the lead up to the match and during the match. Mr Davis recognises the serious impact that a player or official involved in a game they’re playing in can have on the sport’s integrity, but is also resigned to the fact that ultimately gambling has become a corporate enterprise.
“If a player or official is found to be guilty, then they’re guilty and they are reprimanded, but in terms of the WAFL accepting money from a betting agency for advertising etc we’d be foolish not to. If we were approached by let’s say TAB or someone like that who said ‘we’ll give you a million dollars to call your league the TAB Sportsbet League’ then we’d be stupid not to.”
Ultimately it appears that the AFL and Australian Rules football in general has found itself in a position where it now accepts gambling as part of the football experience. People willingly surrender their money to place bets on football games and it’s likely they will continue to do so. The question is raised though of who is actually responsible for protecting those vulnerable to problem gambling?
Senator Wilkie is trying to make everyone accountable for problem gamblers by setting rules and regulations for how much people can spend on the pokies. Only time will tell if betting on the Aussie Rules will ever come under such scrutiny.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
That Face
All Things Must Pass
A few weeks ago a friend of mine asked me who my favourite Beatle was. The answer is, and always has been, George Harrison. My friend scoffed at me and asked me to tell him why. The simple answer is because he wrote Here Comes the Sun which is my favourite song of all time. But the long, and unexplainable, answer is because for some reason, George Harrison makes me feel safe.
I went to see George Harrison: Living in the Material World this afternoon/evening with my dad. The Martin Scorsese documentary about “The Quiet Beatle” is something I have been looking forward to for a very long time because I haven’t revisited my love for George in a long time. That’s not to say my love for George, and The Beatles, has faded in any way, but instead I have been discovering other musical and artistic inspirations for a while. The Beatles were my first musical love, and as young girls do, I picked one of them as my favourite. Paul seemed a bit too goody-two-shoes for the 12 year old me to chose, John frightened me with his bombastic-ness and Ringo was the narrator of Thomas the Tank Engine so it couldn’t be him! That left George- the quiet one, the one whose eyes always seemed so serious in the photographs in the Beatle books I acquired during my adolescence, the one whose smile made me know what laughing was supposed to look like.
As I grew up with the Beatles (with my best friend along for the ride) George’s musical offering to the group was always my favourite. As a ‘grown-up’ I can recognise my fear of John Lennon and his music as a lack of understanding. Even now there is a slight hesitance when I think about him, but I know as I get older the more I will want to understand and the more I want to appreciate. Paul’s music is and was lovely. But I think he’s a fairly straight-forward embodiment of the word lovely. I appreciate him for what he is, but I never felt like there was anything to ‘discover’ in his music. And as for poor Ringo, well, he’s Ringo isn’t he? But with George there was always a story underneath the music and the lyrics, and I wanted to know the story so desperately.
Scorsese’s film helped me understand certain aspects of George’s life that I only had a vague consciousness of. I’m particularly happy about is the excitement I now have of diving into Eric Clapton’s music- something I have never had any desire to do before. The film helped me remember all those moments of hearing songs like “Isn’t It a Pity” for the first time. When you feel like the blood is dripping out of your very body with every strum of the guitar you hear and every word physically hits you and by the end of the song you’re utterly exhausted. And the beauty of the fact that with an artist like George, there’s not just one song like that- it’s almost all of them.
It’s hard to pinpoint the specific reason(s) why I feel this way about a person I will never meet. And I know I’m not the first person to feel this way about an artist/musician/poet/etc but sitting in that dark theatre listening to George Harrison’s music up ridiculously loud and watching his beautiful smiling face made my heart sing.
A few weeks ago a friend of mine asked me who my favourite Beatle was. The answer is, and always has been, George Harrison. My friend scoffed at me and asked me to tell him why. The simple answer is because he wrote Here Comes the Sun which is my favourite song of all time. But the long, and unexplainable, answer is because for some reason, George Harrison makes me feel safe.
I went to see George Harrison: Living in the Material World this afternoon/evening with my dad. The Martin Scorsese documentary about “The Quiet Beatle” is something I have been looking forward to for a very long time because I haven’t revisited my love for George in a long time. That’s not to say my love for George, and The Beatles, has faded in any way, but instead I have been discovering other musical and artistic inspirations for a while. The Beatles were my first musical love, and as young girls do, I picked one of them as my favourite. Paul seemed a bit too goody-two-shoes for the 12 year old me to chose, John frightened me with his bombastic-ness and Ringo was the narrator of Thomas the Tank Engine so it couldn’t be him! That left George- the quiet one, the one whose eyes always seemed so serious in the photographs in the Beatle books I acquired during my adolescence, the one whose smile made me know what laughing was supposed to look like.
As I grew up with the Beatles (with my best friend along for the ride) George’s musical offering to the group was always my favourite. As a ‘grown-up’ I can recognise my fear of John Lennon and his music as a lack of understanding. Even now there is a slight hesitance when I think about him, but I know as I get older the more I will want to understand and the more I want to appreciate. Paul’s music is and was lovely. But I think he’s a fairly straight-forward embodiment of the word lovely. I appreciate him for what he is, but I never felt like there was anything to ‘discover’ in his music. And as for poor Ringo, well, he’s Ringo isn’t he? But with George there was always a story underneath the music and the lyrics, and I wanted to know the story so desperately.
Scorsese’s film helped me understand certain aspects of George’s life that I only had a vague consciousness of. I’m particularly happy about is the excitement I now have of diving into Eric Clapton’s music- something I have never had any desire to do before. The film helped me remember all those moments of hearing songs like “Isn’t It a Pity” for the first time. When you feel like the blood is dripping out of your very body with every strum of the guitar you hear and every word physically hits you and by the end of the song you’re utterly exhausted. And the beauty of the fact that with an artist like George, there’s not just one song like that- it’s almost all of them.
It’s hard to pinpoint the specific reason(s) why I feel this way about a person I will never meet. And I know I’m not the first person to feel this way about an artist/musician/poet/etc but sitting in that dark theatre listening to George Harrison’s music up ridiculously loud and watching his beautiful smiling face made my heart sing.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Reaction
I still read the Letters to the Editor when I read the paper. There, I admitted it. It gives me some sort of sick pleasure reading the thoughts of people in my community who take the time to write in. The ‘sick’ part comes from the fact that a good 9 times out of 10 the thoughts expressed are so infuriatingly unconsidered and uninformed that I feel myself physically powered by the rage they fill me with.
Today’s Letters though did not feel me with the rage that they usually do- instead an exasperated sadness spread when I read the ‘I Disagree’ section.
Cohen Watson, who is the associate pastor of the Bassendean Church of Christ, wrote in with a wholly unsurprisingly ‘I don’t agree with gay marriage’ rant titled “Its Time Has Not Come”. Usually this type of material would fill me with spite, but today it just made me sad. Sad because Mr Watson still genuinely believes the negative stereotypes which my generation have grown up KNOWING are incorrect.
Mr Watson says “I’m also not convinced that it is loving to re-educate our children to accept same-sex relationships as normal and healthy when we know there are health risks associated with same-sex lifestyles, especially for men.”
Seriously?
I could throw about words like bigot, hateful, ignorant, but quite frankly I’m exhausted by them too. Hatred, in this case, I don’t feel should be met with hatred.
In my small amount of religious learning at my Anglican school, the greatest message I learnt was that God loves me and God will forgive me if I do the wrong thing but I live with love in my heart. I feel the need to highlight the irony that someone who should be preaching love and forgiveness is taking the time to write something so hateful and unforgiving. I believe everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but opinion should at the very least be based on fact. Mr Watson’s opinion is not based on fact.
My greatest issue with the fact that gay marriage is still a ‘debate’ is the fact that really and truly it has no impact on anyone besides those who are being denied something I take for granted. I have no desire to get married because for me, right now, it’s not a possibility. I am not in love with someone who wants to spend the rest of their life with me. I will reconsider this if and when I do happen to fall in love with such an individual, but for me, on an entirely personal level I don’t see the point of marriage…for me. That’s not to say I don’t see the point for other people. I realise that for many people marriage is something inevitable and desirable.
I’m cynical of marriage in a ‘love’ sense (child of divorced parents, who would have guessed?!?!) but in a practical, financial sense it seems like a logical decision two people could come to if they imagine they’re going to be with their partner forever. Marriage should therefore be made available to anyone who wants to make that financial commitment to someone. CIVIL UNIONS I hear people cry- well no, I’m sorry. Marriage is still the symbolic gesture of love and commitment that I may not want/understand, but I appreciate that someone else might want to explore. And power to them.
The time for me to wed has not come Mr Watson, but for others, gay people included, it may have. Who, therefore, are you or I to say that it hasn’t?
Today’s Letters though did not feel me with the rage that they usually do- instead an exasperated sadness spread when I read the ‘I Disagree’ section.
Cohen Watson, who is the associate pastor of the Bassendean Church of Christ, wrote in with a wholly unsurprisingly ‘I don’t agree with gay marriage’ rant titled “Its Time Has Not Come”. Usually this type of material would fill me with spite, but today it just made me sad. Sad because Mr Watson still genuinely believes the negative stereotypes which my generation have grown up KNOWING are incorrect.
Mr Watson says “I’m also not convinced that it is loving to re-educate our children to accept same-sex relationships as normal and healthy when we know there are health risks associated with same-sex lifestyles, especially for men.”
Seriously?
I could throw about words like bigot, hateful, ignorant, but quite frankly I’m exhausted by them too. Hatred, in this case, I don’t feel should be met with hatred.
In my small amount of religious learning at my Anglican school, the greatest message I learnt was that God loves me and God will forgive me if I do the wrong thing but I live with love in my heart. I feel the need to highlight the irony that someone who should be preaching love and forgiveness is taking the time to write something so hateful and unforgiving. I believe everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but opinion should at the very least be based on fact. Mr Watson’s opinion is not based on fact.
My greatest issue with the fact that gay marriage is still a ‘debate’ is the fact that really and truly it has no impact on anyone besides those who are being denied something I take for granted. I have no desire to get married because for me, right now, it’s not a possibility. I am not in love with someone who wants to spend the rest of their life with me. I will reconsider this if and when I do happen to fall in love with such an individual, but for me, on an entirely personal level I don’t see the point of marriage…for me. That’s not to say I don’t see the point for other people. I realise that for many people marriage is something inevitable and desirable.
I’m cynical of marriage in a ‘love’ sense (child of divorced parents, who would have guessed?!?!) but in a practical, financial sense it seems like a logical decision two people could come to if they imagine they’re going to be with their partner forever. Marriage should therefore be made available to anyone who wants to make that financial commitment to someone. CIVIL UNIONS I hear people cry- well no, I’m sorry. Marriage is still the symbolic gesture of love and commitment that I may not want/understand, but I appreciate that someone else might want to explore. And power to them.
The time for me to wed has not come Mr Watson, but for others, gay people included, it may have. Who, therefore, are you or I to say that it hasn’t?
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)