“ I was born in Canberra in 1970. I moved to Sydney to go to film school in the 90’s, spent a bit of time on the South Coast then moved up to the Northern Rivers in 2009. I got all involved in the gas fight here in 2012. I’d kind of given film making away a bit at that point but I thought my skills might come in useful so I met up with Annie Kia. Our local area at The Channon was being threatened by the first gas drill that came out to Keerong so I got involved with Brendan Shoebridge making the first film for the gasfield free event and later on we did a lot more stuff in that vein in other threatened areas like Gloucester and the NT.
Let me tell you about Matt. Matt was a friend of mine I knew in Canberra. He was in a few of my student films, we kept in touch and later on he moved to a small country town. We used to go and visit him. I saw him play in Cosi. He played the David Wenham pyromaniac character from the film and stole the show as that character. He loved acting. He had this secret side to himself which I didn’t know about. He was a poker machine addict and it was only after he took his own life that people who had known him for years, like me, found out he had this whole other life. None of us had a chance to save him because we didn’t even know he had this problem. He had a lot of responsibilities. He had a wife and a stepdaughter and he was kind of the bread winner for her extended family. He worked in his brothers bakery but he drifted away from people he used to know living in a small country town. I get the impression that when his life in the theatre wasn’t happening he used the pokies to get that high wire risk thing he needed in his life.
He loved Hamlet and Shakespeare. He was an expert in Fractal Geometry and Maths. He was a really smart guy. This whole idea that pokies are a tax on stupidity is completely wrong. I knew nothing about them. He had an addiction and he didn’t get help in time. He had self excluded to every venue in the town but one refused to self exclude him. He got hold of some money meant for something else when his family was away and he gambled that money and obviously felt disgusted in himself. He went to that one venue which was an RSL that wouldn’t exclude him, lost it all then came home and killed himself.
RSL clubs are the next big target. We’ve been talking to a bunch of young returned soldiers, Afghanistan and Timor Veterans who are trying to get rid of this connection between RSLs and Poker machines. They are trying to change the culture of the RSLs because many returned soldiers have a problem with the pokies. It’s the worst thing to have that in their own club. People who are fragile or with PTS, poor people, rich people……We had a story the other night…Lofty Fulton, the guy who does the voice of the machine in the film (link at end of story) He is also a survivor of extreme poker machine addiction. He came very close to taking his own life. He talked about that at our launch the other night and he’s written a book. Here’s a guy who’s probably Australia’s top voice over actor. He’s the voice of Masterchef, Toyota and many other things. This addiction doesn’t care who you are. He managed to finally escape. We were lucky to get him for this film. We wanted a voice Australians recognised but didn’t know where from. Lofty did a tremendous job and the other performer in the film is Melia Naughton who people know from Shire Choir showing a very different side to herself. That film was all shot on one night and Melia had to go through all those transformations within a few hours. She’s a professional actor and such a clever woman.
Poker machines give the impression of winning when you are actually losing. They use every trick in the book to make you think you are winning. They get you in this zone like state. There’s a club in Ballina that’s been caught out supplying free drinks and food to keep people at the machines. There are casino’s that know when you step in the door, they have a data base on you. They know where you live, they know how much you will gamble before you walk away from the machine, they know how many dependants, they know it all and will time your arrival with drinks and food to entice you. This has all been revealed through research and we kind of dramatise it in the film. It was a shock to me and the statistics around this area are staggering. The Northern Rivers comes just after Western Sydney. The recent NSW Liquor and Gaming data shows the Northern Rivers Hotels and Clubs have made 46 million dollars in profit from gaming machines in just 6 months. This is just the Northern Rivers. That’s from 2,235 pokies across 120 venues. Ballina alone made over 9 million dollars net profit from 410 machines. Lismore made almost 6 million from 307 machines in 11 venues and they are increasingly targeting young people.
All it takes is for a person with this addiction is to walk past a venue and hear that Pokie noise and off they go. They use a lot of sophisticated, psychological tricks to keep you in that state. Unfortunately the NSW government is probably the worst. The most scary statistics are half the profits from Poker machine gambling come from problem gamblers and for every problem gambler there is about 7 other people’s lives utterly affected and heavily disrupted. Many people are sending us personal messages about their father, husband or daughter who lost their lives or almost did because of these machines. We are miles off prohibition but just trying to put some controls on these things…. Matt had a plan to move where there were no machines but he never got there. In WA they are only in one casino. Until a few years ago they weren’t in QLD or Victoria so people had to get a bus to the border, hence the size of Twin Towns. We are trying to fight something enormous here and it’s an uphill battle.
Poker machine revenue in NSW is expected to soar to 9 Billion dollars a year by 2029 which is an increase of 2.5 Billion. That is projected Treasury documents. In the next decade NSW people are set to gamble away 85 Billion dollars on Poker Machines and over the same period the NSW treasury will collect 22.3 million dollars in gaming machine tax. Labour and Liberal are both involved in this industry. The clubs always say we throw all this money around and we help the sports teams and they do but the figures don’t add up. The NSW Spokeswoman for the alliance for gambling reform, Kate De costa said..The major parties have a dangerously close relationship with gambling. NSW is not normal. Losses through Poker machines in clubs and hotels are now running at 17.7 million dollars a day, every day of the year.
The Beach Hotel In Byron has got rid of their Poker Machines just over a year ago and they are still thriving. It was a courageous thing for them to do as it’s a huge part of the revenue of any venue. Full credit to them. Lofty remembered gambling there in the past and when we went to dinner the other night the old pokie den is now a lovely room with live music, it’s welcoming with beautiful ocean views.
It’s been good for me to get back to drama which is my background. People here know me as a Photographer and Documentary maker mostly. I’ve worked with some great actors, Matt Day, Jackie Weaver and Roy Billing. I’m hoping to bring some of these people into a big drama we have planned called One in a Million.
I would really like people on HOL to share your stories. We need to get over this shame thing. The gambling industry relies on people being embarrassed and ashamed and thinking it’s your fault. Lofty’s example and his book, ‘My life in Short’…someone with his profile saying, I’m no super person, this happened to me, I’m as vulnerable as anyone else. I found that inspiring.”
Gamblers Anon – (02) 9726 6625
Lifeline – 13 11 14
Please watch David’s film https://www.facebook.com/WTTM2019/videos/2373410552752509/