With The Examiner’s Premier Debate taking place at a casino, it made sense that the first question asked of Premier Will Hodgman and Labor Leader Rebecca White was on poker machines.
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Gaming policy represents the main point of difference between the two major parties in this election campaign, and the two leaders spoke at length about their respective positions on the matter at Country Club Tasmania on Tuesday night.
Labor has pledged to remove pokies from pubs and clubs by 2023 while the Liberals intend to end Federal Group’s monopoly on the industry and give venues the opportunity to apply for their own pokies licences.
Responding to concerns around freedom of choice and the criticism that Labor wanted to establish a “nanny state”, Ms White said her party’s policy was “based on evidence”.
“We’re putting the welfare of people first,” she said.
Mr Hodgman, meanwhile, said the recent parliamentary inquiry into future gaming markets had actually recommended the direct licencing model his party had adopted in its gaming policy.
“If people are truly concerned about problem gambling, it would be perfectly possible [under Labor’s policy] for any person with such a problem to simply come into this place and play on the gaming machines,” he said.
Both Mr Hodgman and Ms White managed to work an impressive number of party slogans into their answers on Tuesday night, perhaps wary of the fact that the campaign will soon be over and they haven’t fit in as many Building Your Futures and Putting People Firsts as they might have liked.
Both leaders appeared calm and confident during the debate.
Mr Hodgman seems invariably to cut such a figure.
But Ms White appeared more Premier-like than she ever had previously.
Normally softly spoken, her voice oozed self-assurance on Tuesday.
Mr Hodgman and his arch-rival were combative, as you’d expect, but there was an air of amiability about proceedings, evident in the wry smiles sometimes exchanged between the leaders.
It was difficult to escape the notion that the pair were actually having fun, which served to make their remarks around how optimistic they were about Tasmania’s future all the more convincing.
With that being said, there were no real surprises during the debate – both leaders stayed on message.
Now that there are only 10 days left until Tasmanians go to the polls, neither of the major parties have much reason to go off-script, lest they derail all the hard work they’ve put into their respective campaigns.