Category: Australia

“It’s concerning for me that people who go and gamble at the casino are offered a set of protections that simply wouldn’t be available, or so actively enforced or encouraged, going to the local RSL,” Livingston said.

Annette Kimmitt, chief executive of the new Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission, said questions about whether mandatory pre-commitment rules should be applied even if they were a policy matter for the government.

But she warned that the commission expected pubs and clubs to “pay due regard to their social license to operate as well”.

“It starts with us being very clear with our expectations of the industry, and making clear that they go beyond just compliance with the black letter of the law,” Kimmitt said.

“As a new regulator … we will have zero tolerance for industry participants who don’t actively step up to meet those industry expectations.”

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Kimmitt said the commission would take a similar approach as the Tax Office or the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, which both use surveillance programs and data in a targeted way to tackle non-compliance before “hitting the streets” with inspections.

“We intend to then be sharing the results of those inspections much more openly,” she said.

Data compiled by the commission shows Victorians spent $2.2 billion playing poker machines in pubs and clubs over the year to June 30, up from $1.6 billion in 2020-21 – which was affected by the pandemic – and just under $2 billion in 2019-20.

Crown’s earnings from its electronic gaming machines are far smaller. In the pandemic-affected 2020-21 financial year, it earned gaming machine revenue of $165.7 million, down 51.5 per cent on the previous year.

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The Age reported last month that Victorians have lost $66 billion in the 30 years since poker machines were introduced. Australia has the highest losses per adult on poker machines in the world.

The Gillard government tried to introduce a mandatory pre-commitment regime, less-rigorous than that now proposed, following a 2010 recommendation by the Productivity Commission. However, the idea was abandoned after a well-funded campaign by Clubs Australia.

It’s unclear if the Andrews government would be targeted by a similar campaign from the Australian Hotels Association (AHA) – which plays a bigger role representing pubs and clubs in Victoria – were it to tighten the legislative screws.

AHA Victorian chief executive Paddy O’Sullivan said his organization rejected any assertion that Crown-style penalties should be imposed on smaller gaming operators.

“The penalties imposed on Crown casino are a consequence of a royal commission into non-compliance,” O’Sullivan said.

The Australian Electoral Commission disclosed in 2020 that the AHA donated a record $761,000 to the state Labor government before the 2018 state election.

Asked whether the government had concerns that applying the rules only to the Crown would push money laundering activity and gambling harm elsewhere, a spokeswoman for Gaming Minister Melissa Horne said the government was delivering on its promise to implement the recommendations of the Crown royal commission.

“We’re focused on implementing the nation-leading recommendations of the royal commission to ensure the disgraceful conduct that was uncovered never happens again in Melbourne,” she said.

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The government also highlighted YourPlay, its voluntary pre-commitment scheme operating in pubs and clubs.

But the royal commission found the program had “not been successful”, with a low take-up rate and no obligations for action once a person reached their limit.

The Reverend Tim Costello, chief advocate of the Alliance for Gambling Reform, said he believed the state government had a “long history” of being held captive by the gaming industry.

Erskineville-Alexandria leads a swag of suburbs to the south and west of the central business district which have climbed the city’s earnings rankings over the past decade. herald analysis of census data shows Waterloo, Rosebery-Beaconsfield, Botany, Marrickville North, Dulwich Hill-Lewisham, Sydenham-Tempe-St Peters and Haberfield-Summer Hill were among the suburbs with the fastest growing incomes between 2011 and 2021.

Ten years ago, the personal median income in Waterloo was $533 a week, below the citywide median of $619. But in 2021, Waterloo’s median income had more than doubled to $1,172, or a third higher than the citywide median (the median being the midpoint of all incomes).

Other neighborhoods where personal income growth outpaced the rest over that period were Wentworthville-Westmead, Macquarie Park-Marsfield and St Leonards-Naremburn.

The biggest declines in personal incomes relative to Sydney’s median over the decade were in the south-west including Prestons, Edensor Park and Bossley Park-Abbotsbury.

In 2011, the median weekly income in Prestons was $657, about 5 per cent higher than that of Greater Sydney. But by the 2021 census, while the area’s median income had increased to $757, it had not kept pace with income growth with the rest of Sydney and the area’s median income was less than the citywide median of $881.

However, the especially strict COVID-19 lockdown restrictions in Sydney’s west and south-west when the census data was collected in August 2021 could have impacted on people’s working patterns.

Rawnsley says many retail and service workers in the region, especially casuals, couldn’t get to their jobs during the lockdown and that they may have had a “statistical impact” on the income data.

The pandemic skewed income patterns in some places

While the harsh COVID-19 lockdowns may have subdued the level of income reported in Sydney’s west and south-west, in some suburbs the restrictions helped trigger a massive spike. In Ultimo, for instance, the personal median income was 100 per cent higher in 2021 than when the previous census was taken five years earlier. In Kensington, the jump was 85 per cent and in Camperdown-Darlington 67 per cent.

Unfortunately for locals the change wasn’t driven by big pay rises but by the exodus of students due to pandemic border closures and other restrictions. Each of those suburbs is adjacent to a big university and so had a high share of student residents.

Census data shows Kensington, Ultimo and Camperdown recorded the biggest population drops of any suburbs in the state over the past five years, and all had more than 15 per cent fewer people living there compared to census night in 2016.

Because so many students work part-time, and their incomes are relatively low, their mass departure artificially increased the income profiles of some suburban adjacent universities.

Northwest rising

Incomes are relatively high across much of Sydney’s north-west, including neighborhoods where housing development has been expanding rapidly. The census revealed five suburbs in that region with booming numbers and fast-growing pay packets.

The population of Box Hill-Nelson, near Windsor, has increased by more than 600 per cent during the past decade and its median personal weekly income has doubled to $1,274 in that period.

Suburbs nearby also showing strong population and income growth were Marsden Park-Shanes Park, Schofields West-Colebee, Schofields East and Riverstone.

These neighborhoods have been attractive to white-collar workers with children because of the relatively affordable housing and proximity to major transport corridors including the M7 motorway. This provides access to major knowledge-employment hubs including the central business district, North Sydney and Macquarie Park.

unequal city

The 2021 census, released in June, drew attention to huge income disparities across Sydney.

A small group of very high-income neighbourhoods, with personal weekly medians above $1500, is clustered near Sydney harbour.

But Sydney’s poorest suburbs were also highly concentrated. Neighborhoods with the city’s lowest median weekly personal incomes – all under $500 – were bunched around Fairfield and Cabramatta.

Double Bay-Darling Point in the city’s eastern suburbs had the highest median weekly personal income of $1,690. About 40 kilometers across town in Ashcroft-Busby-Miller the figure was less than a third of that, at $452.

This map shows where these are clustered, with the suburbs where weekly income is below $500 a week shaded orange and areas with income above $1500 shaded green:

Separate figures released recently by the Bureau of Statistics show the top 1 per cent of earners in Sydney take home a bigger share of the city’s total income than any other capital. In Sydney, the top 1 per cent snared 11.7 per cent of Sydney’s income in 2018-19, up from 11.5 per cent in 2012-13. The next highest was Perth where the top 1 per cent earned 10.1 per cent of the city’s income. Australia-wide 9.5 per cent of income went to the top 1 per cent of earners.

How Sydney compares

Taxation statistics released earlier this month showed that among the ten postcodes with the highest average taxable incomes in Australia eight were in Sydney. And all of them were located on the harbour.

But when it comes to citywide figures, the census found Darwin and Canberra had a higher median personal income than Sydney.

Even so, incomes in Sydney are high by national standards. The city’s median weekly personal annual income was about $75 (or 10 per cent) more than the nationwide figure, which translates to about $4000 a year.

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Programs including Teach for Australia and La Trobe University’s Nexus program already enable professionals to obtain a teaching qualification in less than two years while working in a school.

Australian Education Union federal president Correna Haythorpe, who attended the roundtable meeting, said the union had reservations about giving career changers accelerated entry into the teaching profession.

“We believe that every child deserves a fully qualified teacher,” Haythorpe said. “We don’t think that training someone up for six to eight weeks then putting them in front of the classroom and letting them develop their skills on the job over two years is an appropriate way to go.”

Haythorpe said that to retain teachers, it was important to give them proper pay and better conditions and not pit teachers against each other with performance-based bonuses.

“It’s not the case that one teacher is solely responsible for changing a student’s life; that takes a community of teachers. So if we’re serious about retaining the workforce, we have to have proper pay and conditions for everybody.”

The NSW government said ahead of the meeting that it was looking to introduce new teaching jobs with salaries of up to $130,000 a year to stop an exodus of educators.

NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said the higher salaries were about “rewarding excellence and making sure that our best teachers don’t feel that they have to leave the classroom … to get a higher salary or to get career progression”.

Victorian Education Minister Natalie Hutchins said the Andrews government’s recent workplace agreement with public school teachers had focused more on easing workload than boosting salaries, with a commitment to give teachers 90 minutes less face-to-face teaching time each week from next year.

“That comes at a massive investment of around $700 million, which equates to an investment in 1900 more teachers,” Hutchins said.

Associate Professor Rachel Wilson, of Sydney University’s School of Education and Social Work, said Australia already effectively had a performance-based pay system for teachers – the private school system – in which teachers often attract higher salaries.

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“We are currently the only wealthy nation that sends its brightest and most experienced teachers to our most advantaged schools,” Wilson said.

Clare said the Albanese government was keen to prioritize visa applications for international teachers who want to work in Australia.

December’s national action plan will also seek to elevate the teaching profession in response to feedback that teachers feel undervalued.