Poker machine reform

Poker machine reform

Send my email

What does political courage look like? Helen Dalton has demonstrated it – and won the 2025 Uniting Political Courage Award because she stands up to the gambling industry.

The gambling industry for decades has implied that if an MP votes for reform, at the next election, the industry will campaign against them. They tried that in 2023 against Helen in her electorate of Murray. 

  • Moama Bowling Club registered as a third-party campaigner, with their CEO stating they had been left with “no choice but to campaign against her re-election.”  

  • Clubs put pull-up banners in every lobby saying she was going about reform “the wrong way” (ie not they way they want, which is to do nothing);  

  • ClubsNSW put out media releases against her. 

She got a 13.2% swing towards her, and now her seat is one of the safest of all the independents. 

We need to tell our local MPs that the emperor has no clothes – the industry cannot force them to lose a seat if they stand up for their community and work to minimise gambling harm. In fact, the community will reward them. 

Let’s encourage our MPs to be braver. Feel free to use your own words in the email to your MP. 


What does political courage look like? Helen Dalton has demonstrated it – and won the 2025 Uniting Political Courage Award because she stands up to the gambling industry.

The gambling industry for decades has implied that if an MP votes for reform, at the next election, the industry will campaign against them. They tried that in 2023 against Helen in her electorate of Murray. 

  • Moama Bowling Club registered as a third-party campaigner, with their CEO stating they had been left with “no choice but to campaign against her re-election.”  

  • Clubs put pull-up banners in every lobby saying she was going about reform “the wrong way” (ie not they way they want, which is to do nothing);  

  • ClubsNSW put out media releases against her. 

She got a 13.2% swing towards her, and now her seat is one of the safest of all the independents. 

We need to tell our local MPs that the emperor has no clothes – the industry cannot force them to lose a seat if they stand up for their community and work to minimise gambling harm. In fact, the community will reward them. 

Let’s encourage our MPs to be braver. Feel free to use your own words in the email to your MP. 


Political Courage

Compose your email

Email Tips +

Our letter is a suggestion - please use your own words, but do remember to include support for the Shutdown Bill

How we use the data you enter on this form

This Privacy Collection Notice describes how Wesley Community Service Limited (ABN 42 164 655 145) (we, us or our) collect and handle your personal information when you sign-up to be a part of, or make an enquiry with us in relation to, our campaign to end gambling harm (Campaign).

We collect personal information from you including your name, contact details and the suburb where you live, so that we can provide you information on the Campaign, including various activities relating to gambling reform.

See our Privacy Policy for more information about how we collect, store, use and disclose your personal information, how you can make a privacy-related complaint and our complaint-handling process. By providing your personal information to us, you agree to the collection, use, storage and disclosure of that information as described in this privacy collection notice and our Privacy Policy

Do Gooder (the advocacy platform powering this online action) processes personal information from you that you enter on this form so that we can provide the functions and related services to you and The Campaigner (the organisation responsible for this online action) for their legitimate purposes, including possibly exporting it to other systems, and to effectively respond to enquiries and communications related to those services.

Specifically when you enter:

  • Your location data (residential address or postcode) it is used to locate your elected representative, to pre-populate your email signature and to provide The Campaigner with a visualisation of the location of the support for this campaign.

  • All other data you may enter, including your email address, name, telephone number, commentary and so on is used by The Campaigner to advocate for the campaign’s goals and where required may be sent to the target of the campaign.

The data collected by Do Gooder is also used by us in aggregate form to improve the service and may be held on your behalf outside your country of residence by our third party service providers. These providers are bound by contract to only use personal information on our behalf, in accordance with agreed terms. While the privacy laws of the country in which personal information is stored or transferred may be different from those in your country, we will always have safeguards in place when storing or transferring personal information. We will never sell, rent, loan or in any other way pass your information on to other parties other than to provide this service to you and The Campaigner.

The personal information collected by Do Gooder is held subject to a Data Processing Agreement between Do Gooder and The Campaigner in compliance with the EU's GDPR and Australian law.

Learn more about our privacy policy here

How is my data used?