The community is crying out for no more machines and yet the state’s gambling regulator appears to have other ideas. Bendigo’s councillors have adopted a policy of no more machines.

Mount Alexander’s leaders have made planning scheme changes and opposed a bid for 65 new machines for Castlemaine.

And yet this opposition is failing to have an impact with application after application approved.

The outcome ultimately hurts ratepayers twice over. Not only are their wishes ignored by Melbourne bureaucrats but their rates are paying councils’ appeals to higher authorities.

You can understand why councils fight these matters.

They are doing what they are there to do and that’s advocate for the municipality’s residents. But you can also understand why councils are questioning the merits of appeals given the track record of success is so low.

The problem lies with poker machine caps. Both Bendigo and Mount Alexander have room in their caps for more machines.

It appears, irrespective of opposition, more machines will continue to flow into the region until the cap is reached.

Bendigo civic leaders are lobbying the state government to reduce its cap and the time has come for this to happen.

The campaign for poker machines is that they are a legal form of gambling and sporting clubs benefit from the revenue.

The reality is, clubs receive a tiny portion of the machines’ revenue.

It is time that we look at how clubs are funded and remove the reliance on gambling.

Our region has enough machines for people who want to gamble and it’s time the government listened to central Victoria’s calls for no new pokies.