Albanese’s gambling reform is social ruin as public policy

Angus Taylor is right about migrants — there are some things we never quite understand about Australia. I’ve been here 14 years and I still don’t get why gambling is not only legal, but legal in the way asbestos once was: sold to you by men in suits as though it were not poison, but the foundation of modern life.

When I first arrived, I was taken aback by how omnipresent it was. In other Western countries, it was something that took place in designated sin-zones, in special neon precincts where sad men in shorts go to negotiate with probability and lose custody of their dignity.