Across Australia a high-stakes political arm wrestle has been playing out over protecting our children from the flood of TV and online gambling ads.  Here in Noosa, and across our coastline, there’s a parallel problem that’s even more deeply embedded, a toxic and shameful problem that’s right in front of us, if we care to look.

If you wanted to explain the tale of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde to your children, you might start at one of our giant surf clubs – perhaps the most profoundly dissonant organisations on our coast.

The forces at work inside these clubs are deeply in conflict and denial.

On one hand you have dedicated volunteers, the backbone of what we used to know as Queensland Surf Lifesaving (SLSQ). Aside from their often-heroic volunteer work, many of these volunteers run Nippers programs of enormous benefit to local kids and communities.

And then there’s the other SLSQ. The Hyde to this Dr Jekyll.  This is a powerful property development, hotel and gambling business with high-level lobbying power on both sides of politics and 1,043 poker machines – that’s right over ONE-THOUSAND poker machines – poisoning local communities, causing untold damage from family break-ups and domestic violence to fraud and suicide.  The Sunshine Coast and Gold coast are the twin epi-centres of this particular problem.

If you can picture the growth of one of those giant strangler figs in our Queensland rainforest, that’s what the gambling lobby has done to surf lifesaving since the early 90’s.  Those good people in red and yellow are still there, but they no longer define the organisation that bears their name.

This cognitive dissonance eats away at the image of Surf Lifesaving.  Many members are unhappy with what the organisation has become, but a monopoly on surf sports, free beachfront land, tentacles into Councils, MP’s offices and the mainstream media, and a strict – some say overbearing – control of members’ social media have kept much of the criticism at bay. 

Here’s a snapshot of what the toxic gambling side of this taxpayer-built business adds up to. (These figures are based on the accepted average of annual earnings from each EGM – Electronic Gaming Machine  – in a club. Hotels and, of course, Casinos make much more per machine )

• SLSQ total number of poker machines:  1,043.  Est annual income $83,440,000
• All Sunshine Coast Surf Club poker machines:  443 machines. Est annual income $35,440,000 
• Noosa Heads and Sunshine Beach clubs. 25 machines each.  $2m per annum/ per club.

Why our Surf Clubs and gambling are such an unhealthy mix

While no poker machine serves a beneficial purpose, the spotlight falls on our surf clubs in particular and the estimated $2-million a year each of our two Noosa surf clubs earn from highly addictive poker machines.  There are two principal reasons for this.

• They receive massive taxpayer funded support and free beachfront land to syphon gambling money out of the most vulnerable in local communities.
• They co-habit with Nippers Clubs, normalising problem gambling for kids and parents in the same building.

There is, quite simply, no way to rationalise gambling in a ‘family’ club in these circumstances. A tiny fraction (around 2-percent is the national average) of club gambling takings goes back into the community.  The spin about ‘community benefits’ is, well, spin.

Instead our surf clubs build empires, spend millions on frequent refurbishing (sometimes known as ‘gold plating’ facilities) and provide benefits for executive members and star athletes used to promote the clubs and for ‘sports washing’’ the gambling operations.

The so-called ‘drug-dealers defence’ – “if we don’t provide pokies, someone else will”-  simply doesn’t wash.  Gambling in a family and kids’ sports club is an obscenity.

Peregian Beach. A Pokie-free model, thanks to a spirited community

While there’s a plague of poker machines in clubs across Australia (except in WA, where it’s restricted to the casino) the infiltration of the surf lifesaving movement is a particularly Queensland issue, and that means the Sunshine and Gold coasts. 

With over a thousand poker machines poisoning its communities, SLSQ is addicted to its morally compromised business model.

One of the few exceptions here is the Peregian Beach Surf Club.  It’s pokie-free, but not thanks to any moral awakening from SLSQ. In this village there’s been a long battle as the Noosa Heads club tried to build a giant new club on the frontal dunes at Peregian Beach (where the skatepark is) and of course this was to be funded by the usual mix of taxpayer funds and gambling.  

The Peregian Beach community fought tooth and nail to prevent a ‘pokie palace’ on their beachfront, and so far this victory has held.  The current 10-year lease prohibits gambling there.

There’s little doubt though that some in SLSQ still hold the dream of extending the pokie empire to Peregian Beach sometime in the future. 

Who will give Noosa moral leadership?

In late 2018, Noosa Council under Mayor Tony Wellington made two high-profile moves aimed at the proliferation of poker machines.

• Noosa Council was successful in getting Queensland councils to agree to lobby for legislative reform to give them more oversight over the local ‘creep’ of poker machines.
• And – in a powerful symbol – Noosa became the first Council in Queensland to become a member of the Alliance for Gambling Reform.

The Statewide move – through the LGAQ – has since run out of steam. Such is the power of the gambling lobby.  And here in Noosa, the last Council – under then-Mayor Clare Stewart – secretly and controversially dumped its membership of the Alliance for Gambling Reform. Most of the elected Council had no idea this had taken place.

Who will provide local leadership and resistance against the strangler fig of the gambling lobby?  

And who will put pressure on our surf clubs to get out of a toxic addiction to gambling that has no business in a place where our kids are learning to become healthy citizens? 

We are not powerless against the gambling lobby. Here are some suggestions.

• Going to a surf club? Ask them to explain how watersport, kids and gambling mix in the same building.
• Our wealthiest clubs give around 2% of their Pokie profits back to the community. Don’t believe their spin.
• Our surf clubs are rich beyond the dreams of the struggling businesses around them. Ask why the bulk of profits go to frequent refurbishments, expansion and ‘perks’.
• Ask yourself if there is somewhere you can enjoy a meal and a drink without toxic gambling in the next room.
• We know a large proportion of those drawn to these places are ‘problem gamblers’ and that each of them, on average, affects the lives and safety of six people around them.  Is this an appropriate role for your ‘surf’ club?
• Question whether your children should be exposed to a gambling environment. 

Our surf clubs are amongst the richest, best located, taxpayer funded businesses in Queensland. They don’t need the poison of pokies to keep them afloat. 

Pushing back against the gambling takeover of our surf clubs (and the regulatory capture of our State Government) may seem like a sisyphean task.  But it’s a conversation our families need to have.