The LNP-dominated Brisbane City Council handed over public land — the former Stafford Bowls Club — to Brisbane Racing Club.

And the Queensland Labor Government signed off on a plan to install 50 new pokies machines.

What’s more, the Queensland Labor Government’s Commissioner for Liquor and Gaming waived the usual requirement for Brisbane Racing Club to submit a community impact statement for their gaming licence, and only advertised for community comment after immense public pressure.

The supposedly independent Commissioner actively facilitated Brisbane Racing Club’s application for more pokies and waived the standard accountability requirements, denying the local community a say. When the Commissioner was finally pressured to act, a meeting was only advertised to a select few via invitations from the state MP.

To see the regulator jump at requests from private entities and Labor MPs while ignoring countless community calls makes a mockery of both the independence of the Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation and the whole pokies licensing process.

What do our communities need to do to get the Commissioner to listen to them when clearly gaming machine operators are getting special “preliminary chats” with the Commissioner already.

Pokies are specifically designed to exploit the most vulnerable in our community. Queenslanders deserve to know if the supposedly independent regulator is giving private companies special treatment to allow even more of these predatory machines in our communities.

We don’t want to see this happen in Stafford. Local residents have done an incredible job opposing this re-development, calling instead for a family-friendly community hub that will connect nearby sporting facilities and small businesses.

Stafford doesn't want a commercial gambling interest like Brisbane Racing Club using public land to line their pockets at the expense of local residents.

Loud and clear, Stafford said no to pokies on public land — but the Queensland Government is ignoring them for their mates in the gambling industry.

What happened?

My office conducted investigations into the Brisbane Racing Club’s takeover of Stafford Bowls Club which revealed that the Queensland Government’s Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation knew that Crushers Leagues Club and Brisbane Racing Club were colluding to turn the club into a commercial pokies den — and actively facilitated an increase in pokies licences — two years before any information was released to the community. 

Documents revealed by a right to information request show that the Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation, the Queensland Government’s gambling regulator, has uncovered serious inconsistencies with how the office engages with private companies looking to increase their pokies licences and local communities who’ll be affected.

The Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation was actively involved in early negotiations between Crushers Leagues Club and Brisbane Racing Club on the transfer of lease — and were aware that Brisbane Racing Club being exempt from any requirements to advertise or undertake a community impact statement was a condition of the term sheet between Brisbane Racing Club and Crushers. 

The last time a community impact statement was conducted on the impact of pokies at the Stafford Bowls Club site was nearly thirty years ago in 1996. Since then, the only community consultation held was in 2019 — where the single submission was interpreted as “generally opposed to gaming” by the Office and was not considered as an adverse comment. The only guidelines the Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation have for advertising is “you must display a sign conspicuously for 28 days on the premises to which the application relates” in a similar manner to liquor licence applications despite their significantly different impact and audience. Stafford Bowls Club had been closed for four years at the time the sign was displayed to meet advertising requirements.

Local residents reported being unaware of the advertised consultation and criticised this method as ineffectual, given the club had not been open for four years at this point. 

The Commissioner for Liquor, Gaming and Fair Trading approved an internal brief allowing the waiver of advertising and community impact statement requirements on the basis of demographic modelling conducted by Jacaranda Advisory, which arbitrarily included certain suburbs and excluded others while only considering the relative demography of those arbitrary boundaries compared to the entire Brisbane City Council. This is a notably lower standard of evidence than is expected of anyone making objections, or any assessment of any nearby clusters of vulnerable people or gaming sensitive sites as required under a community impact statement — even though the Stafford Bowls Club site has at least one example of each site within walking distance. 

It is hard to read these uncovered documents as anything but Queensland’s gambling regulator actively facilitating private deals between third parties and encouraging more pokies in our community.

Jimmy Sullivan is blaming Brisbane City Council’s facilitation of a closed door deal between Crushers and Brisbane Racing Club to transfer the lease. But the state government regulator was already actively facilitating the gaming licence transfer as a condition of that lease assignment a year before the Council vote, and was waiving the need for accountability and consultation on a sixfold increase in gaming machines in Stafford, a site where there hadn’t been any for four years. 

As of today, pokies have not been operational at Stafford Bowls Club for over eight years and a community impact statement has not been conducted for twenty five years. 

But that’s not stopped both the state government and the Brisbane City Council rolling out the red carpet for more pokies.

Why did this happen?

This situation is unsurprising given that the LNP and Labor have accepted more than $9 million in donations from the gambling industry over the last two decades. Last year, political donations from the gambling industry increased by 40% on the previous year. 

This is legalised corruption, and it’s caused Australians have the world’s worst average gambling losses, about $1000 per adult each year, leading to greater amounts of suicide, domestic violence, crime & financial distress. 

Both the Liberal controlled Brisbane City Council and the Labor controlled Queensland Government are blaming each other for this — when both are equally to blame for hiding these proceedings from public scrutiny and facilitating a massive increase in gaming machines in an area with a large number of gaming sensitive sites. 

What needs to change?

Once the Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation has granted a gaming licence, the community has no objection or appeal rights under the Gaming Machine Act 1991, except for a judicial review in the Supreme Court which can be expensive and narrow in scope.

The Queensland Greens have been advocating for appeal rights for the community for years — including campaigning to grant community members the right to appeal gaming licence decisions at QCAT.

Pokies are specifically designed to exploit the most vulnerable in our community. Queenslanders deserve to know if the supposedly independent regulator is giving private companies special treatment to allow even more of these predatory machines in our communities.

The Commissioner has heard from hundreds of locals about the devastating impacts pokies would have on Stafford — and hearing all this pain and frustration, still granted a gaming licence for 50 more pokies machines in Stafford with no reasons stated as to why.

These discretionary guidelines about under what conditions a community impact statement is required, and when and why that requirement is waived, needs to be replaced with clear rights for local communities to get community impact statement processes and their own community meetings directly with the Commissioner.

In 2019, Michael Berkman, Greens MP for Maiwar, led a community campaign against an application for 45 pokies at the Indooroopilly Pig ‘n’ Whistle. The applicant’s community impact statement claimed the application had community support, despite having undertaken no meaningful consultation and more than 80% of the local community opposing it. Other glaring flaws in the community impact statement were overlooked by the Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation in approving the application. The Attorney-General at the time agreed to require the publication of reasons for decisions on a gaming licence but advised that the Queensland Labor Government was not interested in appeal rights. 

In 2024, Jonathan Sriranganathan, Greens candidate for the Lord Mayor of Brisbane, announced the Greens plan to ban pokies on Council owned land, like Stafford Bowls Club. 

When did this all go down?

I only got involved in November 2022 when a local resident got in touch about Brisbane City Council’s lease transfer — and since then I’ve been piecing together a complicated story dating all the way back to 1996.