Australian Poker Machine Legislation May Not Have Votes to Pass

The poker machine reforms pushed by Australian MP Andrew Wilkie may have taken a harsh blow last night, as Community Services Minister Jenny Macklin has said that the legislation will not pass through parliament unless major changes are made to the laws.

According to Macklin, the current parliament simply won't provide the votes to give Wilkie the massive overhaul he's looking for.

"We have to work with the parliament that we have," Macklin told ABC 24.

Wilkie was insistent that his bill should get a fair hearing in parliament, and that it still might be possible to swing the couple of votes necessary to get it to pass. According to The Australian, Wilkie was in a "crisis meeting" last night with Prime Minister Julia Gillard in an attempt to salvage the original agreement between Wilkie and the Gillard government.

That agreement came into being when Wilkie, an independent MP, was needed to form a government. In exchange for his support, Gillard agreed to make sure gambling reform legislation would be introduced to parliament by May 2012.

However, it appears that Wilkie may be at least one vote short of having his legislation pass. Current vote tallies suggest that the Labor Party would need four additional votes to pass the pre-commitment legislation, which would require players to sign up for smart cards that would track their losses and stop them from passing predetermined loss limits. One Liberal MP has already signed on for the bill, as has Greens MP Adam Bandt. Of course, Wilkie is also in favor of his bill. However, that still means the bill would need to find one additional vote in order to pass.

Recently, Wilkie has said he is willing to compromise on some aspects of his bill, such as delaying the implementation of the pre-commitment technology until 2016, and exempting certain low-stakes machines from the requirement. However, he has maintained a commitment to seeing the substance of his legislation passed, and has threatened to leave the government coalition if it is not.