The Australian Greens will introduce $1 maximum bet legislation to parliament next month in a bid to do something immediately about poker machine reforms.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced a watered down version of planned poker machine reforms on Saturday, including a trial of the controversial mandatory pre-commitment technology to start in 2013, probably in the ACT.
The federal government also intends to pass laws requiring every poker machine in the country to be linked into a state-based pre-commitment system by the end of 2016.
This backs away from a deal struck with Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie to legislate the reforms by May and roll out the mandatory pre-commitment technology by 2014.
The Greens have been pushing a limit on the maximum bet amount as an alternative to the pre-commitment option.
Gambling spokesman Richard Di Natale said a $1 limit on bets was a key recommendation from the Productivity Commission's report into gambling reforms.
He said legislation to that effect could be enacted immediately, since opposition MPs appeared to support it as the simplest, cheapest and most effective method of reform.
The Greens believed this meant their legislation, to be introduced when parliament resumes in February, would have a good chance of passing.
'The government has made it clear that it doesn't have the courage to implement meaningful poker machine reforms,' Senator Di Natale said on Sunday in a statement.
'If they won't help problem gamblers, the Greens will.
'Tony Abbott has not ruled out $1 bets so I hope he will show the courage that this Prime Minister lacks and throw his support behind my bill.'
