Queensland Senator Pauline Hanson has honed her sights on ending fake lotteries in Australia ahead of a meeting in the final week of the Senate with Communications Minister, and fellow Senator Mitch Fifield.
Minister Fifield gave a commitment to One Nation Senators earlier in the year that the Government would put a stop to betting on the outcomes of local and international lotteries and in turn safeguard over 20,000 Australian newsagent jobs across the country.
“The agreement the Minister gave me was very clear. It came down to a legal check of the constitution and from all reports, nothing prevents a stop to fake lottery sales in Australia with the Governments will.”
It’s understood the Federal Government have taken initial steps to ban the practice of betting on the outcome of Australian lotteries through the Northern Territory, where 22 sports bookmakers and betting exchange bookmakers have purchased licenses to operate across the country.
“Despite the obvious job losses these fake lotteries will have on newsagents Australia wide, there are zero safeguards in place to ensure punters will ever get paid if they happen to win the jackpot.”
“Take Lottoland as an example - there is no prize pool of money here in Australia and should someone buy a ticket in an American billion dollar jackpot and win, there is nothing authorities can do if the company refuses to pay up from their Gibraltar tax haven hideaway.”
States including New South Wales, Western Australia and Victoria have indicated they will follow the same path as South Australia to ban the sale of fake lotteries, but Senator Hanson claims those state wide bans could be challenged by betting agencies on a constitutional technicality.
“The Government needs to stop protecting multinationals who’ve come into the Australian market to bleed billions of dollars out of our economy and rack off back to their tax havens leaving people jobless, punters feeling ripped off and less money in our economy. It must end immediately.”
Senator Fifield is set to meet Monday with One Nation Senators over the matter.
--END--
Leave a comment
All comments are moderated before being published.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.