STATE LOTTERY

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 50, 27 August 1930, Page 9

STATE LOTTERY

VICTORIA "BITING"

QUEENSLAND'S GREAT

EXAMPLE

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, 14th August.

The Victorian Government, finding it extremely difficult to make ends meet, is "biting" at a State lottery proposal, though no v member of the Labour Cabinet has yet been brave enough to openly advocate its establishment. Any proposal for a State lottery invariably brings into action the ' big guns" of tho churches and of other bodies\anxiou3 .to preserve tho 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 was being done in the norhern State. He says that the lottery there has the support of all the 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 tor thought> more especially to our muchharassed hospital committees, who are bravely carrying the,major part of the burden of our hospitarcharities in these depressed times:" The lottery has been in existence for ten years, and during that time £2,146,976 has been paid into the fund for hospital, motherhood, and child endowment purposes. The yearly proceeds have been £200,As' a result of the success of the lottery the system of voluntary giving in Queensland is practically non-existent. The income tax derived by theGov^ ernment from the sale of tickets is approximately £50,000 a .year, and the bulk of this money is provided by people who otherwise would not pay anything on account of income-tax. The sale of tickets each year amounts to about £1,000,000, and, incidentally, the business provides employment for a fairly large staff. It also provides the Commonwealth with more than £20,000 a year through the Post Office. 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 one-third of the tickets in the Queensland lotteries are purchased by the people of New South Wales. Therefore there exists the anomalous position of New South Wales helping to pay for Queensland hospitals. And goodness only knows how badly the New South Wales hospitals need those fundß. It is a queer old world. In June at least £100 of New Zealand money was received for Quensland lottery ti.ckots.