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Research shows pokie machines to be one of the most addictive forms of gambling.
AUCKLAND NZ (ANS) -- The moral authority of the Church in New Zealand has been compromised by its willingness to profit from the proceeds of gambling. This was the opinion of Problem Gambling Association chief executive John Stansfield, as he looked at the recently released Department of Internal Affairs report on pokies profits for the 2005 year.
The report showed people playing pokie machines spent around $906 million. Of that, just on 30 per cent - about $270 million - was redistributed through community grants (Pub Charities), and some of it found its way to churches and church social programmes.
Mr Stansfield said that churches should have concerns about where this money is coming from.
"Some of these machines are in brothels," he said.
There was, he said, an unhealthy dependency developing on an inefficient and harmful form of fundraising. Too much of it was being transferred from those in need to those who weren't.
"It's a transfer of wealth from the brown to the white, from the women to the men and from the poor to the rich. It's a failed experiment".
Mr Stansfield said that internationally, the churches have been a very strong moral voice on the use of gambling profits, as evidenced at the National Coalition Against Legalised Gambling conference in the United States in 2004, at which he was keynote speaker.
"I was absolutely blown away that probably 95 per cent of the people at that conference were from faith communities. The moral leadership internationally has been very strongly with the churches.
"In New Zealand they have been very quiet, and I came back from the States and tried to figure out why that is. I think probably it's because the moral authority of the Church has been compromised by being recipients of funds."
Mr Stansfield said the paper clearly demonstrated that many of the country's poorest communities are getting a poor return for the amount of money spent on pokies.
"The report shows that some communities are receiving a return as low as one dollar in 20 for the money spent on pokies in their areas," he said.
He pointed to the large amounts of money being diverted to horse racing as an example of how poor communities were being used to support the hobbies and interests of the rich.
He also criticised rugby as being the largest beneficiary of pokie money.
"Rugby claims to be a professional business these days. Yet in 2005 they received $16.5 million in subsidies from our poorest communities."
The report said that outside sport and the arts, $108.5 million in total was allocated to social and community services. Included in this were $2.4 million for churches, and an equal amount for church social services. The amount going to churches and church based trusts could be considerably more than that, according to the author of the report, John Markland. He said money going to many other church or faith-based trusts could be hidden in other categories, such as children's and youth groups, pre-schools and community health services.
Mr Stansfield said some churches have decided to take a stand against taking this money and people were becoming more nervous about being associated with pokies grants as a form of fund raising.
In Australia, prominent Baptist minister, the Reverend Tim Costello, brother of federal treasurer Peter Costello, has campaigned against poker machines and churches using the revenue from them.
Noting that about half of poker machine revenue came from gambling addicts, he has said: "You do not serve people by exploiting addicted people who have no free choice."
Also opposed to charities accepting funds from pokies is Stephanie McIntyre, the director of Wellington's Downtown Community Ministry (DCM), and a former social justice commissioner of the Anglican Church. In that post, she worked with the Hamilton City Council to set up Gambling Watch, a network of people opposing the sudden expansion of pokies and casinos.
Ms McIntyre said DCM works primarily with men living alone who have backgrounds of homeless and addictions. The agency has been in operation about 40 years, and its board decided five years ago to take no money from gambling.
"We deal with a lot of men with gambling addictions, and we don't want staff sitting in front of a client, knowing their salary has come from the back pocket of the person they are endeavouring to help. We become part of the problem when we do that.
"We too often witness the social cost, the out-of-control side of an industry that is praying on poor New Zealanders."
She said DCM had been able to sustain its funding from other sources, and believes that agencies don't have to be dependent on gambling money.
Other churches spoken to by Challenge Weekly had mixed views on the issue, including Riccarton Community Church Trust. Spokesman Alan Aitken heads its Community Development Network, said he is in two minds about taking such money.
"At one level I see pokies as a real pain in their social impact, but it's never stopped me from applying for those funds. As it turns out, though, we've hardly ever received funding from them."
"We generally take a stance that we will take money from anyone provided that they don't ask us to endorse, condone or promote what they do."
Another Riccarton community ministry, Pathway Trust, has an opposing viewpoint. Pathway provides employment to many former prisoners. Trustee Murray Kennedy said many of the guys they work with have problems with poker machines and "we don't want to support something we are trying to battle against."
Spreydon Baptist Church spokeswoman Alison Ford said the church did not have a policy, but left individual trusts to decide.
"Possibly about a third take gambling profits," she said. "It's an ethical debate we have tossed around." "We would love not to have to rely on it. All the trusts are trying to look at how to become self-funding - that's our long-term dream - in order that we are not relying on Pub Charities, or other funding that might inhibit the way we want to do things."
John McNeil, a veteran of 40 years of newspaper and radio journalism, is South Island editor for Challenge Weekly, New Zealand's non-denominational, independent national Christian newspaper.
ASSIST News Service www.assistnews.net
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