Her tale is depressingly familiar to opposition Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd.

 ”I hate poker machines and I know something of their impact on families,” said Rudd, who is expected to defeat the ruling party and become prime minister later this year. “This is a matter of continued policy interest to me.”

   Australia has 200,000 poker machines - 20 per cent of the world’s total - and the average family spends more on gambling than it does on clothes.

 Gamblers lost a monstrous 70 billion Australian dollars (57 billion US dollars) on poker machines in the decade to 2005. Governments collected 5.6 billion Australian dollars in revenues from the industry in 2005.

 Like Lawson, state governments are also hooked on gambling. Gambling taxes now fund 15 per cent of state spending. And there’s the rub: politicians like Rudd, especially with an election coming up, fulminate on the evils of gambling.

 But Rudd’s own Labor Party runs what locals call “pokie palaces” to help fund campaigning. It accepts big donations from gambling businesses. And the state governments, now all Labor-controlled, rely on gambling revenue.

 ”Why don’t we get serious reform in this area?” asked anti- gambling campaigner Tim Costello, adding, “State governments elected by us do nothing because of those donations and because of that power.”

   With the drum beat of an election campaign getting louder, Prime Minister John Howard is expected to join Rudd in hand-wringing over problem gambling.

 ”There’s no doubt that we have an absolutely deluge of poker machines in Australia,” Howard said in the run up to the 2001 general election. “It’s one world record of which I’m not in the least bit proud.”

   But, just like Rudd, he’s almost certain to shirk the hard work of stopping that deluge.