‘An outrageous loophole’: Stokes calls for end to clubs’ political donations

Cities Minister Rob Stokes says NSW must ban registered clubs from donating to political parties, warning an “outrageous loophole” allows their financial support to come directly from poker machine profits.

In a powerful new intervention in the contentious political debate over poker machine reform, the long-term senior minister said it was unacceptable that registered clubs could still donate despite gambling companies being deemed prohibited donors.

Cities Minister Rob Stokes said it is unacceptable that registered clubs can still donate to political parties.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone

Clubs are exempt from any donations ban because they are not-for-profit entities. Analysis shows they have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past decade to the Coalition and Labor.

Earlier this month, Stokes told parliament a business involved in “wagering, betting or other gambling, including the manufacture of machines used primarily for that purpose” is banned.

However, a “registered club that generates 90 per cent of its income from pokies is perfectly entitled to donate to political campaigns in NSW”.

“That is an outrageous loophole that needs to be closed. Consider also that architects and carpenters are generally prohibited donors, while pimps and arms dealers are not,” Stokes said.

As well as liquor or gambling businesses, other prohibited donors in NSW include property developers, the tobacco industry and close associates of a prohibited donor.

An ABC analysis showed clubs across NSW donated $418,520 to NSW Labor, $179,920 to the NSW Liberal Party and $33,490 to the NSW National Party between January 2011 and June 2021.

Opposition leader Chris Minns said Labor was “open to all sensible reforms when it comes to political donations and that includes working with the Liberals on a bipartisan package”.

“As I flagged last year [in a letter to Premier Perrottet], for reform on political donations to work, they should be bedded down with bipartisan and even multipartisan support ... That’s the way to entrench a clear and transparent set of rules.”

Stokes has been a vocal supporter of Perrottet’s push to move to cashless gaming for poker machines, following a damning report from the powerful NSW Crime Commission.

Chris Minns says Labor is open to working with the government on political donation reforms.Credit: Photo: Dominic Lorrimer

Last month, Stokes delivered his first blistering attack on the reliance clubs have on poker machines, warning gambling generates demonstrable social harm with no community benefit.

Stokes – a close ally of Perrottet – told parliament in November that the “once friendly familiar local club, a traditional locus for thriving community, has been distorted and disfigured”.

“The comforting stereotype of a suburban bowlo nestled in a quiet street under the gum trees is far from the reality of many contemporary clubs – bloated concrete bunkers separated from their community by vast treeless carparks,” Stokes told parliament.

“Outwardly brutal, unwelcoming junk spaces, that all look the same. Inwardly, a fairyland of lights and delights – all directed to deprive the vulnerable of their savings.”

The crime commission has recommended the introduction of mandatory cashless gaming to reduce the proceeds of crime being washed through the state’s poker machines, while leading charities and anti-gambling advocates say a card would also reduce problem gambling.

After the commission’s report, Perrottet backed a mandatory card saying: “We can’t sit idly by. Action needs to be taken … we need to move to a cashless system.” However, Minns has instead called for an expanded trial of cashless gaming to develop a broader evidence base before deciding on any changes.

Perrottet is finalising a plan ahead of the March election, which is likely to include a wide-scale trial of a gambling card in specific areas of the state with financial support for small clubs.

In Western Australia on Tuesday, where poker machines are banned in pubs and clubs, Minns was once again lukewarm in his commitment to cashless gaming.

“As I have said, we have 80,000 poker machines that are distributed across NSW and if I was starting from scratch, I wouldn’t design a system like that, but winning government from opposition means we have to deal with the conditions as we find them,” Minns said.

“We are determined to look at ... problem gambling and the involvement of illegal actors, and we think there is a pathway through it but I think looking at the evidence and having a trial so I know what the economic impacts will be is the sensible thing.”

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