As a political junkie, I love watching TV series such as Yes Prime Minister. In one episode, PM Jim Hacker developed a policy to tackle the evils of smoking. He advocated raising additional taxes on tobacco, making donations to political parties illegal, and banning advertising and sports sponsorship. In this era (early 1980s), such radical policy changes to reduce the harm created by smoking seemed impossible. Yet, over the following 40 years in Australia, such a massive public policy reversal was achieved, and smoking rates have plummeted.
But what of that other great social evil - gambling, particularly that uniquely Australian addiction to poker machines? Although Australia has only 0.33 per cent of the world's population, we have 10 per cent of the world's pokies, half of them in NSW.
