STATE LOTTERY

Hokitika Guardian, 3 September 1930, Page 7

STATE LOTTERY

VICTORIA INTERESTED. QUEENSLAND’S GREAT EXAMPLE I SYDNEY, Aug. 14. The Victorian Government, finding it extremely difficult to make ends meet, i* “biting” at a State lottery proposal, though no member of the Labour Cabinet has yet been brave enough to openly advocate its establishment. Any proposal for a State lotteiy invariably brings into action the “big guns” of the Churches and of other bodies anxious to preserve the morals of the community. However a Victorian Minister has just returned from a- very exhaustive study of the Queensland State lottery, and while he does not make any recommendation to the Victorian Government he has been unable to hide the fact that he was very favourably impressed by what w r as being done- in the northern State. He says that the lottery there has the support of all political parties, and that it would be practically impossible to defy public opinion and abolish it.

The Victorian Minister says he is satisfied that the figures which he has presented furnish “ample food for thought, more especially to our much harassed hospital committees, who are bravely carrying the major part of the burden of our hospital charities In these depressed times.” The lottery has been an existence for teq years, and during that time £2,146,976 has been paid into the fund for hospital, motherhood mnd ,child endowment purposes. The yearly proceeds have been £200,000.

As a result of the succqss of the lottery the system of voluntary giving in Queensland is practically non-ex-istent. The income tax derived by the Government from the sale of tickets is approximately £50,000 a year, and the bulk of this money i/s provided by people who otherwise would not pay anything on account of income tax. The sales of tickets each year amount to about £1,000,000. New South Wales Governments have always been strenuously opposed to State lotteries. This does not prevent the people of New South Wales from having a little gamble. It is an amazing fact that at least onethird of the tickets in the Queensland lotteries are purchased by the people of New South Wales. Therefore, there exists the anomalous petition’ of New South Wales helping to pay 'for Queensland hospitals. In June at least £IOO of New Zealand money was received for Queensland lottery tickets.