But now I am hearing about something which disturbs me greatly. Suddenly there is a push to bring child care centres, including long day centres, into pokies venues. The push is coming from the venues themselves, as they see this as another source of fresh revenue.

If the pokies venues see this as an attractive marketing ploy, then we know who will be their target market. It will be mothers of young children who may well be feeling isolated at home after leaving their working environment to start their family.

It is an easy step to introduce small children, the next generation, to feeling at home and comfortable, so close to that adrenalin soaked poker machine environment of loud music, bright lights and constant excitement. Certainly children won’t have access to the pokies venues themselves, but they will be there on site, in the vicinity, in their child care centre. Nearby will be their mothers.

Many young families today cannot afford to live near their families. Isolated and ‘banished’ from their friendship and family groups to the outer suburbs, they are often living in what are euphemistically called ‘new life-style estates’. These are new communities. They take time to grow roots and families take time to establish friendship groups.

The powerful pull of those bright lights and high energy entertainment will see some young mothers return time and time again, until they are suddenly another whole group of ‘problem gamblers’, with those pitiless machines soaking up whole savings of families in less time than it takes to find food for the evening dinner.

There are certainly mental health issues at play here too. I know I am focussing mainly on women, but these women are still the main carers of the pre-schoolers; depression and loneliness are a very real possibility when young mothers are isolated in our community.

This is where local councils can take a strong and critical lead. We must double our efforts as a community to sustain young families and in particular new refugees, who need the assistance of the local community.

This is a challenge for our whole community to tackle – to nurture our young families and give them confidence to build strong, productive lives together, without turning to a venue which will only destroy their families, not support them in any meaningful way.

Our voices must be heard loudly and strongly condemning this new push from poker machine venues and casinos. They have only one goal – to increase revenue. They have no commitment to genuinely helping families.

Those child care centres would be the by-product of a much bigger game.