Productivity Commission and Gambling

If clubs want a fountain out the front, which has no practical use and which does nothing for the bottom line of the annual report then that is the club's business. It is not for government to determine that this is not the most efficient use of available funds and that this therefore justifies taking more money in tax or abolishing mutuality any more than it is government's right to come to my home and tell me the way I slice meat for dinner is not the most efficient way to do so or that planting roses instead of tomatoes is not the most efficient use of my garden.

Nor is it acceptable for the economic rationalists to regard the subsidising of meals in clubs for their patrons as misuse of economic rents. There may be other consideration. Many pensioners are eating a decent meal once a day at affordable prices because others play poker machines. It may be that we should value that opportunity for the elderly more than we value profit. The problem with the rationalists is that they discount socio-moral questions that do not increase the bottom line. But when my two maiden aunts, in their 80's, are collected by a courtesy bus which takes them to a club where they have forged new friendships with people they would never otherwise have met; where they can enjoy sing-songs and bingo and laugh at a comedian and eat a three course meal for $3:50 instead of sitting at home eating vegemite and tomato sandwiches in front of the idiot box; I believe they have received something of value. That is social progress regardless of whether the purblind gnomes see it or not.

These casual observations are by no means meant to represent my long considered judgement of the Australian Productivity Commission report however there are a number of statements in that report that do cause me to stop and think whether the Commission report is to be respected as the final say (or perhaps epitaph) on gambling for the 1990's.

Or whether it is just another attempt by just one more body to research a complex and difficult area. My instinct on first reading certainly is to adopt the latter view.