Club­sAus­tralia and the AHA want to apply pres­sure to the fed­eral gov­ern­ment not to pass leg­is­la­tion restrict­ing access to gam­bling. They reckon there’s sup­port for the mad­ness that is gambling-funded “com­mu­nity activ­i­ties” in this coun­try, and have setup a GetUp!-esque “mes­sage your MP” form.

Instead, use their form to send the gov­ern­ment the OPPOSITE message!

Here’s what I said (more or less edit­ing their mes­sage to the reverse effect):

“I am writ­ing to say that I WHOLEHEARTEDLY SUPPORT the Government’s plan to intro­duce a licence to punt.

Prob­lem gam­bling is an area of con­cern for the com­mu­nity and needs to be addressed by government.

A licence to punt on the pok­ies MAY drive prob­lem gam­blers to other forms of gam­bling, includ­ing online —  where pos­si­ble, it is, of course, impor­tant that these too are reg­u­lated appro­pri­ately — through fund­ing com­mu­nity level sup­port for prob­lem gam­blers, as well as domes­tic reg­u­la­tion (not Inter­net fil­ter­ing). The clubs and pubs will be impacted by this leg­is­la­tion, of course, but the net ben­e­fit to the com­mu­nity stands to be tremendous.

Gam­bling destroys many fam­i­lies and imposes sig­nif­i­cant pres­sures on the finan­cial secu­rity and emo­tional sta­bil­ity of indi­vid­u­als: within rea­son, this trumps the “pri­vacy, rights and the impor­tance of local clubs and pubs” that Club­sAus­tralia and the AHA so desire you to consider.”

There are other ways to con­tact your MPs, of course, but there’s some­thing deeply sat­is­fy­ing about using tools pro­vided by some of the largest indus­try lob­by­ing groups in the coun­try against their own purposes.