After years of sitting empty, hectares of land in Melbourne's west that once held an explosives depot will become 500 homes in Deer Park, the ABC reports. The housing itself is welcome. What worries some locals is the address: the proposal sits too close, they say, to a pub with poker machines — with no alternative community hub in the plan.

"It's a potential social housing disaster," local resident Graeme Blore said. "My concern is the devastation poker machines are causing. Brimbank has one of the highest rates of gambling losses of any LGA in Melbourne." The numbers back the anxiety: punters lost $185 million in the Brimbank local government area last financial year, more than any other LGA in the state.

The Deer Park Hotel, next to the development site, recorded $19.5 million in gambling losses. The Deer Park Club, less than a kilometre away, recorded a further $17 million. "That's over $100,000 a day, every single day of the year," Mr Blore said.

Seventy years old, first party membership

Mr Blore has campaigned against the plans for years — and now, for the first time in his 70 years, he has joined a political party: the fledgling West Party, which plans a crackdown on poker machines if it wins influence at November's state election. "We are not about outlawing altogether," said Paul Hopper, the party's Werribee candidate, who ran as an independent in the last Werribee contest. "We just see a much fairer and more equitable system for the people of Victoria, and we think these addictive features need to be dealt with and minimised." The party wants to strip out machine features like alarms that make losses sound like wins, and change the rate at which pokies can spin.

The reform that stalled

The politics here are genuinely tangled. Treasury collects $1.5 billion in pokies taxes every year, while the social impact of problem gambling in Victoria — bankruptcy, lost productivity, mental ill-health, divorce — has been estimated at $14 billion, with pokies its biggest contributor. In 2023, the Labor government under Daniel Andrews made a shock announcement: punters would preset how much they were willing to lose, and need a card to play. Advocates hailed it; the industry slammed it. The state passed enabling laws and ran a trial — but the wider rollout was delayed under Jacinta Allan, who, the ABC reports, feared a negative campaign from clubs and pubs ahead of the November election. The trial itself was criticised as too weak, and its results are yet to be published.

"Labor's carded play trial ended nine months ago, yet its results remain secret," a Coalition spokesperson said, promising an elected Coalition government would release them. "These things have worked," Premier Ben Carroll, who backs the scheme, said on Friday. "They have had a big, important impact, and that is why what is evidence-based we have to look at delivering on."

The Greens want pokies phased out entirely, with tougher bet limits in the interim. "The Liberals want pokies to be able to take as much money from Victorians as they want, and this will kill people," Greens leader Ellen Sandell said. "Labor and Liberals are both in bed with the gambling lobby." Long-time anti-pokies campaigner Reverend Tim Costello was blunter still. "Labor has failed to deliver on carded play. The Liberals? They're nowhere," he said. "It is appalling for both the major parties."

The homes are coming to Deer Park either way. What November will decide is the rules of the room next door.