The Australian Labor Party used to be more or less anti-poker machines.

John Cain, Labor Premier of Victoria in the 1980s, refused to permit them.

But it was Joan Kirner, a Labor Premier succeeding him, who introduced them.

About that time something very nasty happened to the Labor Party . . . .

Current Victorian Premier, Mr Brumby, is no better.

His moves to modify the gambling industry have all been strictly cosmetic.

Nothing has happened that will reduce losses by gamblers.

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In Tasmania it is exactly the same.

The Tasmanian Labor government enjoys a deep and meaningful friendship with Federal Hotels, and has arranged for them to have a monopoly contract at least until 2018.

How interesting, then, that anti-pokies candidate, Andrew Wilkie — running as an independent in the Tasmanian seat of Denison — has just beaten off the Labor candidate and won the seat.

Mr Wilkie has publicly promised that his aim is to make Tasmania “pokies-free”. 

The latest research in Tasmanian shows that one in every two voters knows personally somebody who is a gambling addict.  No wonder the people of Denison were glad to have Andrew Wilkie there to vote for.

Mr Wilkie said yesterday, “$95 million has been lost just on poker machines, just in Tasmania, just in the last five months . . . There’s something like 100,000 problem gamblers in Australia, problem gamblers on poker machines, costing the community something like $5 billion a year . . . .

“If I can get into the House of Representatives, and with Nick Xenophon in the Senate, I think we have an unprecedented opportunity to energise the public debate about poker machines, and bring about some genuine reform nationally,”

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Yes, the poker machine problem is the same Australia-wide.

Where are the anti-pokies candidates that so many of us want to support?

Will there be a few in the November 27 election in Victoria?

Let’s hope so – and let’s hope they get elected.

Especially in Mildura, which has been picked out by the gambling fraternity as a good source of suckers to bleed white, while fattening the leeches of the big end of town.