Gambling By Euphemism The Hammond-Mcarthur Experience

In August 1966 Victorian Premier Harold Bolte sought to extend the running of Tattersalls lotteries in New Zealand for a further three years from June 1967 and, he hoped, for longer. As an incentive he proposed a new arrangement whereby New Zealand took 60 percent of the tax take and Victoria 40 percent. Holyoake rejected Bolte’s offer but he was conscious that Tattersalls lotteries, in particular their racing sweepstakes, were still popular. He proposed a two to one split, to which Bolte agreed; he had no choice if he wanted to see the company continue its New Zealand operation. In the end, however, it was the success of the Golden Kiwi and the succeeding Mammoths that killed Tattersalls in New Zealand. Ticket sales continued a long slow slide, although a loyal hard-core continued to buy them until the 1980s. The last Tattersalls ticket was sold in New Zealand on 1 July 1984, the company ironically deciding to pull out soon after the signing of a new seven-and-a-half year lease. The expiry of that lease on 30 June 1991 ended a century of profitable trading with New Zealanders, who had contributed substantially, not only to the company’s wealth, but also to the coffers of the Tasmanian and Victorian state governments. At long last, the money was staying home.

OPPONENTS
Over the latter years of the art unions, the Protestant anti-lottery voice had been relatively mute. Protestants appearing before the Gaming Commission reserved their strongest invective for the off-course betting on horse races. Indeed, some churches ran fund-raising raffles in the 1950S and more than a few members of their congregations purchased art union tickets. A 1953 scandal highlighted the change of attitude. Howick’s Presbyterian minister, J. A. Scarrow, was horrified when the wife of one of his church elders won £300 in a lottery . When Scarrow remonstrated with the elder, he resigned; as did another who also admitted he held a lottery ticket. Scarrow, a theological conservative, demanded penitence, but although the Auckland Presbytery condemned gambling as a social menace, it found that the elders did not contravene the spirit of the church’s rules. Scarrow was so upset by this judgment that he resigned, finding a more comfortable niche within the New Zealand version of the Dutch Reformed Church.

Evangelical arguments against participating in, and profiting from, games of chance fell on less fertile ground as society matured. This process was aided by the knowledge that the art unions themselves were quiet, respectable and uncontroversial affairs run with philanthropic intent. But the Golden Kiwi lottery-glamorous, high-profile, lucrative and therefore much more attractive to New Zealand punters-was a different matter altogether. The Anglican bishops of Nelson and Auckland both publicly castigated it, and Presbyterian leaders ordered their members not to buy tickets and decided not to apply for grants. The new lottery’s arrival coincided with the emergence of a new and outspoken Presbyterian leader, the Very Rev. Dr J. D. Salmond, a lecturer in Christian Education at Dunedin’s Knox College. In mid-1962 he published The Cult of the Golden Kiwi, a damning indictment which harked back to the wowser traditions of J. J. North, James Gibb and Rutherford Waddell. Salmond predicted that the new lottery would appeal to people’s worst instincts of avarice, selfishness and ungodliness. ‘Instead of letting loose a harmless kiwi, we fear that our Government has liberated a marauding tiger! … As New Zealand faced adjustments necessary if Britain entered the Common Market it could not afford to have such “parasitic growths” sapping its strength.’ His book was popular enough to be reprinted, his words inspiring outraged Presbyterians (mostly), Methodists and Baptists to inundate the government with accusations of ‘paganism’, state encouragement of gambling, and the use of lottery funds to combat social problems. There was little political response to this storm of protest. The government had too much to lose, financially and electorally, to abandon the Golden Kiwi.

Among the grants in July 1962 was one of £20,000 to the Freedom From Hunger campaign, the first lottery money to be designated for overseas use. This created a dilemma for the Corso organizers to whom it was given for distribution, because many of them were Protestant clergy. There was an unfortunate presumption of ambivalence within the Methodist reaction. The president of their conference, Rev. E. C. Leadley, had no hesitation in stating that his church would refuse a grant under any circumstances. ‘But when it involves something outside the church such as the Freedom from Hunger Campaign then it ought to be taken … When you have seen all the starving millions in Asia you would use anything to beat the hunger.’ A dilemma is raised, of course, as to whether Leadley would have approved of feedin.

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