According to Parton, Labor member Bec Cody accused clubs, who were opposed to changes to the community contributions scheme, of “fiddling the books”, while Gordon Ramsay accused the opposition of wanting to maximise pokie revenue.
“Ms Cody’s accusations that Canberra clubs are opposed to the Labor-Greens agenda because they fiddling with their books is an insult to every single community club and their members,” Mr Parton says.
“[And] not only were Mr Ramsay’s comments unequivocally wrong but they were hypocritical. The Labor Party directly profits from pokie machine revenue.
“In 2016-17 the ACT Labor Party lined its coffers with $790,985 in pokie profits.
“The problems that the government outlined in the Assembly today are issues with the legislation itself. Rather than realise the problem is with the government they continue to blame clubs for playing by the rules the government set.”
