Canberra clubs invest in childcare, aged care as government puts pressure on pokies

Southern Cross Club already lease space to childcare providers, while others such as Ainslie Football Group, Yowani Country Club, the Hellenic Club, Belconnen Soccer Club and Canberra Burns Club have proposed or are building childcare centres.

The trend has built over recent years as the ACT government moves to reduce the number of poker machines through measures including a proposal to introduce $5 bet and $100 credit limits, as well as annual funding for diversification projects.

The Southern Cross Club's Woden health centre includes a swim school run by the club and a childcare centre managed by a provider.

"We had quite a few thousand health club members that were relocating from our old site, and many of them asked that there be a pool installed as part of the development," chief executive Ian Mackay said.

"So we agreed to that, but to help commercialise it - because it cost over $1.5 million to put in ... we made the decision that we would open and operate a swim school."

Pinpointing services gaps in the communities they cater to allows clubs to find viable income streams but also to build their brands.

Mr Mackay said the club was carefully charting a path to new revenue streams.

"It obviously has to be viable for us to do it, but also [something] that is in keeping with our brand and what we believe that we can be good at," he said.

"For us it is very much about doing things aligned to families."

ClubsACT president Craig Shannon said investment in community services was "not necessarily" an opportunity for clubs to rebrand away from harmful impacts associated with gambling.

"We don't believe that there's necessarily a significant issue in terms of poker machines operating within the community," he said.

"But the government has been encouraging this process and our industry has willingly embraced walking down the path with government."

In 2016-17, the total amount of money lost on electronic gambling machines in the ACT was $169 million, according to the most recent survey from the ACT Gambling and Racing Commission.

Mr Shannon said such developments could be long processes, drawn out by planning requirements, and that bet and credit load limits could stall clubs' "capacity to pursue a lot of the diversification projects that they are currently contemplating".

"We're trying to balance that gradual removal of reliance on pokie machines," Mr Mackay said.

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"But to ensure that we've actually got to get the other areas set up as we go, and so it does take quite a while, it's unfortunately not just flicking a switch."

Lee Maiden, chief executive of Communities@Work, which runs 12 childcare centres across Canberra, welcomed the move from clubs.

"I know that a lot of the community clubs are reliant on gambling income only because that's the way it's always been," Ms Maiden, who is also a member of the Canberra Gambling Reform Alliance, said.

"This isn't big developers coming in building 10 childcare centres in Canberra, this is a club trying to diversify away from gambling."

Ms Maiden said such developments catered to a workforce which is less centralised than it was pre-COVID.

"People that may have had their children in services right in the city where they work, that may be now working at home, need more services out in the suburbs," she said, adding that this would help to grow community networks across Canberra.

While childcare facilities have attracted interest from clubs for some years, retirement living opportunities will likely be the next boon for the industry.

"There's a real gap in terms of social housing opportunities for people who fit the aged care profile in a number of different areas," Mr Shannon said.

"So that's certainly one of the things that a number of clubs have been looking at: Either developing accommodation options or, or other opportunities to provide services to the aged care community in Canberra.

"A lot of clubs have reasonable populations of patrons who fit the older profile."

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