No casino - we have enough problems
30 May 2021
SCOTT WAIDE
| My Land, My Country
It is an absolutely disgusting move by the National Gaming and Control Board - Papua New Guinea’s gaming regulator - to sign off papers giving the OK for a new casino to be built in Port Moresby. It is even more disgusting that the Board sees fit to announce itself as a partner in the gambling business
LAE - Here’s are some questions for the National Gaming and Control Board.
How will the Board – the regulator – regulate itself as a partner and the investor in the event that there are offences committed against the law?
Will the government sponsor and support the breaches in regulations?
Will it be party to breaking the laws of our country? For those who are victims of the offences, who will they report to?
That ‘partnership’ needs clarification.
Another question: Have we consulted with the wider community? Do the people of PNG want and need a casino?
We already have serious gambling addiction problems within our communities.
We know of families whose breadwinners are poker machine addicts.
We know of someone who lives from payday to payday on dinau money because they have to feed their gambling addiction and their children.
Families are being torn apart and children go hungry because of gambling addictions driven by the poker machines we already have.
So, we want to expand the scale of gambling, poverty and suffering?
The churches and women are represented on the National Gaming and Control Board.
Where are their voices? Do they agree with it the idea of a grander, more elaborate scheme of taking money from our people and allowing our families to suffer?
The scourge of gambling needs to be arrested.
It cannot be allowed to greedily expand like this at the expense of our people.
Papua New Guineans must not be fooled into accepting the frame of ‘Tourism Gambling’.
What bullshit!
A hideous casino dominates the skyline at Marina Bay in Singapore and a monstrosity is under development and construction at Queen's Wharf in Brisbane. Yet another example of gangster capitalism:
https://www.starentertainmentgroup.com.au/meet-the-board/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/05/28/againstapartheid-pedagogy-in-the-age-of-white-supremacy/
Posted by: Bernard Corden | 30 May 2021 at 10:23 AM
What happened to the half-finished hotel/casino at Boroko?
I understand some big names invested in it but it failed to get a license around six years ago.
Posted by: Peter Kranz | 30 May 2021 at 07:10 AM
Casino and gambling is a disease of addiction with every member suffering from its effects. Weighing the human suffering against profit we will see that the human sufferings will be far greater than the profit.
When parliament is trying to make amendments to our constitution to make PNG a Christian country, building a casino does not reflect the spirit of Christian principles.
Christian principles provide a moral guide to do good and avoid evil. A casino will stop gamblers from supporting families and going to church.
It is morally wrong knowing that casino is not a business that will bring the common good. The prime minister often contradicts himself, saying one thing and doing the opposite.
Making PNG the black richest nation or making PNG a Christian nation cannot be achieved with gambling.
The government failed its first bid by getting back Pogera mining and suffered greatly when mining shut down. When gold prices were high during Covid-19 the company made a great loss that affected government tax revenue.
Some of our MPs have erroneous or unscrupulous consciences forcing us to belief that whatever they say is always right.
They have to examine their consciences and make them right. Casinos force gamblers to the disease of addiction where there is no treatment to sustain their living.
Posted by: Philip Kai Morre | 30 May 2021 at 05:50 AM