08/07/2020
Episode 4 will be out shortly, in the meantime some thoughts about the current club situation in the ACT.
I am not the only father of family with plenty of kids who likes to take the tribe out for a family meal. Hard day at work, dinner not yet cooked by 7pm and parents have a collective thought bubble – let's go down to a club to eat tonight.
I have five kids and my wife Julie and myself always look to clubs for an affordable family meal.
Yes, I admit we don’t usually order seven meals but may be four mains and some garlic bread and do the loaves and fishes trick and make it work out ok as the servings are often generous. Everyone is full enough as the clubs are mindful that their members are not that flush with cash.
In Canberra, incomes are generally good but there are many hidden expenses for every family with kids teeth, car rego and servicing, computers and phones, sports fees, after the utilities and the big mortgage of course, and for me, there is the school fees as well.
At one stage I was paying private school fees for five at normal Catholic schools – I shudder to think how we did it. All families know it, this is good city to raise kids, a very good city, but not a cheap one. So Jules and myself and waiting for the clubs to open fully so we can take the brood out for a Long family humble but hearty dinner.
I was Treasurer of the Labor Club Group for four years and I understand the club business model. Gambling revenue has been a key revenue driver of the business model for many years. Mindful of genuine community concern about the need to deal with problem gambling many clubs have taken the opportunity to diversify the business and broaden the revenue base. Still, gambling revenue remains a key source of income. Maybe it is the ancestral Irish blood in my DNA but I am not anti-gambling. If gambling in moderation helps sustain these clubs which are so central to the social life of this city I say that’s all good. I see how much clubs give to local community organisations which builds social capital and makes the city more liveable.
As a club Treasurer and a social and economic policy professional I often asked questions of managers about how they dealt with problem gamblers. I always got sound responses – problem gamblers are identified, monitored and if need be excluded by encouraging voluntary exclusion but sometimes with direct exclusion. While I think problem gambling is a social problem, I am confident that managers of clubs task their staff to be diligent and on the whole current strategies are relatively effective in the ACT and well regulated. I worry much more about online gambling where there is no human element to moderate or monitor the problem. You can always do more to support people with any type of addictions, but I don’t accept the argument that clubs should be seen as in some way tainted because they have poker machines.
Lots of people are saying that we need to do things differently after COVID and we should use the crisis to leverage reform. What concerns me most about emerging from COVID is the effect on youth unemployment in Canberra – stubbornly high pre-COVID and threatening to be a much worse problem when we emerge to life as normal. The risk of people suffering economic disadvantage being worse of post-COVID is very real and confirmed in two podcasts I have recently done with Vinnies and NATSEM – highly respected social policy voices. Clubs are an important part of giving people access to employment in this city, especially for younger workers. After retail and construction, clubs are one of the biggest private employers of young persons.
What we need to do is ensure that clubs are well-positioned to absorb the pool of young people desperate to get back into work. So the quicker they are back to business the better it will be for young job seekers in this city. And, very importantly, the quicker families like mine can go out for a hearty, well priced, feed. I don’t know about you but even talking about it makes me hungry
