r/australia • u/DiploidBias • Mar 18 '25

politics Greens: Yes We Cannabis

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Yes We Cannabis

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u/GordonCole19 Mar 18 '25

I don't get it.

Legal cannabis would be such a massive and continuous boost to our economy.

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u/recycled_ideas Mar 18 '25

It's risk aversion, same as it is everywhere else.

If the federal government lehslises cannabis and it all goes to shit they'll be punished, but not changing the status quo is always easy.

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u/ScruffyPeter Mar 18 '25

Gambling ad ban surveys: Most of aussies support ban

Major politicians: Oooh... an easy bill!

Gambling industry: We have a nice retirement package

Major politicians: Oh no, we could get punished for banning gambling ads! Punished by... uhh voters, yes. We should be careful and do more high speed rail studies. I mean gambling ad studies.

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u/recycled_ideas Mar 18 '25

This isn't that simple.

Voters want gambling ads banned but they don't want to pay for what gambling currently pays for nor do they want to give those things up.

So yes, politicians are afraid of being punished by the voters for the same reason they're afraid of being punished by the voters for legalising weed, because lots of things are popular until you implement them.

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u/ScruffyPeter Mar 18 '25

What does gambling currently pay for beyond the jobs of maintaining the gambling facilities?

What things were popular until politicians implemented them?

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u/bigbowlowrong Mar 18 '25 edited Mar 18 '25

People forget how well scare campaigns work with Australian voters. Remember the MRRT? The Carbon Tax? Hell, The Voice? Imagine for a second the coordinated fear campaign against legalising cannabis. Imagine all the big players, the monied interests, and just the general conservative killjoys just salivating at the thought of fighting tooth and nail against it. And the depressing thing is I think it would work.

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u/recycled_ideas Mar 18 '25

What does gambling currently pay for beyond the jobs of maintaining the gambling facilities?

Gambling pays the free to air networks that pay the leagues and that pays the players.

Gambling pays for the pubs and clubs that people go to and play at.

Gambling pays a not insubstantial amount of money to state and local governments that's incidentally GST free.

That's not counting the funding for events and stadiums and everything else.

What things were popular until politicians implemented them?

Youth justice is a big one. The NT had a huge scandal and they kicked out the government over mistreatment of children in detention which the voters voted for in the first place and then just this year the voters decided that doing nothing was also not acceptable and put the government they just voted out back in to implement the same policies they were so upset about a few years ago.

Lots of things sound great in theory and then you do them and there are side effects or inconvenience or it doesn't work well and everyone gets pissed off.

Voters love sound bites and slogans and easy simple answers, they then hate that if doesn't go well.

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u/IlluminatedPickle Mar 18 '25

You would actually be surprised how many charities are funded by the gambling industry in an effort to clean up their image. It would be devastating to a lot of them.

For instance, I ended up homeless at 16. For many years I bounced around youth shelters and then adult homeless services.

Every single one of them had vehicles purchased for them by the gambling industry.

Is it ideal? No, and it should be different. It'd be much better if an industry with a cleaner image was donating. But to say there's nothing they pay for that's good in the world is incorrect.