2007 Report

Responsible Gambling Awareness Week was launched this year by the new Minister for Gaming and Racing—Graham West who gave the opening address to the Shifting Paradigms: Towards a Public Health Approach to Gambling, seminar. This GIS hosted event attracted 60 participants from the gambling counselling sector, consumers, community agencies, politicians, gambling industry and government departments (NSW and Victoria).

The focus of the day was on considering the benefits of a public health approach to gambling and the various opportunities available to us to integrate this approach with existing treatment services.

An inspiring key note address was given by John Stansfield, CEO of the Problem Gambling Foundation of New Zealand (PGFNZ). John outlined his organisation's elimination of gambling harm approach which includes a consumer protection and product safety emphasis. In summary this approach suggests, “if you lose your arm in a saw mill machine, people don’t ask why did you put your arm in there - you must have had a difficult childhood, we put safety mechanisms on the machine and start developing safe practices—pokie machine are no different”. The focus being to remove the “blame the victim” approach of governments and focus upon protecting the community from harm.

John described the processes they have been using by empowering communities to challenge the introduction of pokies into certain areas and creating better informed communities with effective community consultations and action.

Dr. Kawshi de Silva -Director of Public Health (PGFNZ) provided an overview of the Public Health approach to gambling in New Zealand where since 2003 responsibility for problem gambling issues has been placed firmly within the Ministry of Health. There is a clear health promotion direction to problem gambling and a strategic population health approach to gambling in the community, including: Partnership, Participation & Protection . Dr De Silva outlined the various components of this approach including: individual & population intervention strategies; building capacity; developing leadership at every level; building sustainable strategies; considering everyone as responsible; developing a collective community voice ; developing community gambling screening particularly to workplaces.

See Dr de Silva’s slideshow as a pdf:

Guest speakers included in the day gave illustration to practices in Australia along these lines. Gabriela Byrne—Director of Chrysalis Insight, gave an overview of the Third Place Project in Victoria—a partnership strategy with Swinburne University and Yarra Shire Council developing alternate recreational options to gambling. Nicola Roberts (Ability Options) and Echo Morgan (Multi- Cultural Gambling Service) also gave an overview of their services. Kate Roberts (GIS) gave an outline of the history of the GIS and its commitment to working with consumers in partnership.

A facilitated vision workshop process provided the opportunity for participants to explore the strengths and weaknesses of the current government policy direction on problem gambling in NSW and develop some suggestions for the future (see inside this issue & website for presentations & summary report).

All in all we felt it was a very successful day and the evaluations indicated likewise with 100% participants asking for more training on Health Promotion/Public Health Approaches to gambling. A key message of the day was from John Stansfield when he said “gambling help services need to stop working in “Silos” (isolation)”.

This was great opportunity to develop our strengths in collaboration and consider strategies for developing an integrated approach within the State of NSW and its regions—lets see what happens now.

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Disclaimer - The opinions expressed in this website are not necessarily those held by the Gambling Impact Society (NSW) Inc. No responsibility will be accepted for anything that may occur as a result of anyone relying on the information and opinions contained in the website.

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