FED:Wilkie to continue pokie push

AAP General News (Australia)
04-15-2011
FED:Wilkie to continue pokie push

(Eds: Takes in Wilkie)

By Andrea Hayward

CANBERRA, April 15 AAP - Federal independent MP Andrew Wilkie has vowed to continue
his gambling reform push, saying he won't be cowered by the pokies industry that he has
accused of waging a smear campaign against him.

Mr Wilkie said it was obvious the industry had instigated a campaign against him, after
News Ltd ran a story alleging he ordered military cadets at Duntroon Military College
to salute the 50th anniversary of Hitler's rise to power.

A death threat, an email blackmailing him with supposedly compromising photos and the
Nazi allegation coincided with a $20 million advertising blitz to campaign against pokie
reform by Australian pubs and clubs.

"Three things on the very day the poker machine industry launches a $20 million campaign
to turn around these reforms," Mr Wilkie, a former intelligence analyst, told reporters
in Hobart.

"I'm not claiming to be the best analyst in the world but I don't think it takes a
very good analyst to draw some conclusions from what started last Monday."

Mr Wilkie has a deal with the Labor government to introduce gambling reforms.

He said the story had emerged at a time when he was "standing between the poker machine
industry and the $5 billion that problem gamblers lose on the pokies each year".

"I will not be cowered by the pokies industry and will keep working to drive historic
national poker machine reform to improve the lives of the 95,000 Australians with a pokies
gambling problem and the countless people they affect," he said.

Clubs Australia executive director Anthony Ball has demanded an apology from Mr Wilkie
over his claims.

"I think it's disgraceful that someone could lob that hand grenade in and really smear
an entire industry who are just going about their business," Mr Ball told reporters in
Sydney.

"That's why I'm asking for him to apologise."

Mr Ball said he had never heard of Brendan Etches, the former junior cadet behind the
allegations against Mr Wilkie, who was then a senior cadet at Duntroon, until the story
emerged on Friday.

The debate with Mr Wilkie about the reforms was an ethical one, he said.

"There's nothing underhanded about our campaign. We would never stoop to those things."

Australian Greens leader Bob Brown has accused the industry of trying to buy opinions
in the debate over the proposed reforms.

"Democracy is on trial here by powerful lobby groups," Senator Brown told reporters in Canberra.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has refused to wade into the debate except to say Mr Wilkie
was a "very, very young man" at the time of the alleged Nazi incident.

Mr Wilkie admits he was involved in bastardisation - which usually involves bullying,
and humiliation - during his time at Duntroon but said the abuse was not physical or sexual.

He said would not apologise for the alleged incident because he had no recollection of it.

Mr Wilkie helped deliver minority government to Julia Gillard conditional on support
for his pokie reforms.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said he doesn't believe the Nazi salute allegation had
the potential to bring down Mr Wilkie and thus the Gillard government.

"The short answer is no, but I'll let him explain whatever it was that happened back
in the early 80s when he was a military officer," Mr Abbott told reporters in Brisbane.

AAP ah/pjo/mo

KEYWORD: POKIES WRAP

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