The New South Wales clubs lobby has dropped its defamation lawsuit against independent MP Andrew Wilkie.
Wilkie, an advocate for greater regulation of the poker machine industry, said the clubs’ backdown “sent a powerful signal that people … like me will not be silenced”.
He was sued over what Clubs NSW called “false claims and insinuations” in an ABC report on allegations made, then retracted, by former Labor MP Peter Garrett.
In an interview recorded for the documentary Ka-Ching! Pokie Nation, Garrett said he was approached by a representative of Clubs NSW before the 2004 election and handed an envelope containing “hundreds, if not thousands of dollars … but I gave it back”.
But before the film was screened in October, Garrett withdrew the claim, saying the envelope had actually contained a cheque.
In an ABC 7.30 story revealing the about-face, Wilkie described the payment as a bribe.
“I mean it has gone from bags of cash being offered to him after he was elected, to a cheque, before he was elected,” he told the program. “It just beggars belief and I suppose I’d have to ask him straight: do you really think we’re mugs?”
In the NSW supreme court on Friday, the clubs agreed to drop their action against Wilkie, who was represented by another pokies critic, the independent senator Nick Xenophon.
No reason was given but it has been suggested Clubs NSW was concerned the legal discovery process could have given Wilkie access to sensitive information about the group, which represents about 1,000 registered clubs running more than 70,000 poker machines.
Wilkie said on Friday he had referred Garrett’s claims about the alleged payment to the NSW police, the state’s electoral commission and the Independent Commission Against Corruption. All three were “still considering my request”, he said.
Wilkie said he would “continue to point out the harm that the poker machine industry is doing in this country, and in particular in this state, which has half the poker machines in Australia”.
According to a 2010 report by the Productivity Commission, about 41% of poker machine revenue was derived from addicted or at-risk gamblers.
Law firm Maurice Blackburn is preparing a class action against poker machine operators for breaching consumer laws relating to misleading conduct. They will argue that in their programming, displays and audio, the machines are “designed to be deceptive and that consumers are unaware of this deception”.
The ABC is still named in the defamation suit for airing Garrett’s claims after he had retracted them, and for not issuing a retraction and apology.
Clubs NSW has been contacted for comment.
