Is the state government and or SA Lotteries pressuring newsagents to not comment publicly about the decision on the State Government of South Australia to privatise SA Lotteries? I am in Adelaide today and plan to ask some of my newsagent friends about this report at the website of Rob Lucas, Liberal and member of the Legislative Council in the South Australian Parliament:
Strong arm tactics to silence Lotteries protest
Wednesday, 15 February 2012Shadow Minister for Finance Rob Lucas today accused the Labor Government and the Lotteries Commission of using ‘strong arm tactics’ in trying to silence growing anger at the decision to privatise the Lotteries Commission.
“In recent weeks newsagents in both metropolitan and regional areas have been receiving telephone calls and letters threatening them with the potential loss of their agency agreement to sell lotto products,” Mr Lucas said.
“Even newsagents who have expressed the mildest criticism to the media about the decisions to privatise or to introduce online lotto are being ‘strong armed’ by the Lotteries Commission.
“After receiving telephone calls a number of newsagents have received official warning letters from the Lotteries Commission claiming media comment was in breach of SA Lotteries policy and of their agency agreement with the Lotteries Commission.”
The warning letters quote the Agent Procedure Manual:
“Agents are not authorised to comment to the media with respect to SA Lotteries or its products. Any media requests must be immediately referred to Public Relations.”
“Newsagents and other agencies earn about $29 million per year in commissions on lotteries products, so it is not surprising that these hundreds of small businesses are very angry about Mr Weatherill’s broken promise on privatisation,” Mr Lucas said.
“It is clear the privatisation decision and the future actions of a private sector operator will have a significant impact on the value of their businesses.
“The Liberal Party will now lodge FOI requests to try to establish how many agents have received warnings about speaking to the media.
“Sadly this sort of crackdown is typical of this arrogant Weatherill Government and it is time now for the Government to ‘call the dogs off.’”
The media release quoted by Mark is incorrect.
As the Chief Executive of SA Lotteries, I can advise that there has been no Government directive in regard to Agent communication on this matter.
None of the letters sent to Agents contained a threat of loss of Agency and did not constitute a formal notice that an Agency may be terminated.
It is SA Lotteries’ policy that any agent that is contacted by the media must refer the contact to SA Lotteries Public Relations.
This is standard practice in many commercial operations to ensure consistent marketing of the company brand and products across all aspects of the business.
In the case of SA Lotteries, a media contact procedure is especially important to ensure the protection of winners and their personal information.
The Agent Procedure Manual, and the clause relating to media contact, has been in place for in excess of 10 years.
SA Lotteries reminds Agents regularly of their obligations included in this Manual.
Your phrasing is very interesting there June.
“and did not constitute a formal notice that an Agency may be terminated” .
I’m not an SA agent but would be interested to see the content of the actual letters if Mark hasn’t got it correct. Perhaps Mark could publish one here if you provide it to him ?
While an agent may not be able to talk to the media regarding SA lotto directly there would surely be nothing stopping them engaging with the media in regard to factors economically impacting their own businesses ?
SA Lotteries have now sent out a directive
to agents that we can ‘USE CREDIT CARDS’ for gambling.
Now this has been a no no for the whole
time I have been in business (33 years) and yet suddenly, (perhaps with the advent of online gambling for salotteries product ready to begin in July) it is a green light.
However, I will continue to have a “cash only” policy for lotteries UNTIL they put
the facility for cards into THEIR machine and not mine.
I refuse to pay fees for credit gambling through my eftpos system.
Ticketek is also an agency I have in my store and there is an inbuilt facility for credit therein.
I just cannot imagine a long line of customers waiting for lotto while I move from the actual lotto area to use my eftpos machines.
I think, once again, that this is policy on the run with no appreciation for how it
can be implemented.
By the way, why should newsagents pay fees for a product for which we only receive a very small percentage.
It just defies logic.
How do other newsagents cope with this
issue?
How are other SA agents going to cope with this issue?