Instead, the debate over football has been diverted by a deliberately timed campaign against poker machine ‘‘mandatory pre-commitment’’ reforms proposed by Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie and agreed to by Labor in exchange for his all-important support on the floor of Parliament.

Pre-commitment was endorsed last year by the Productivity Commission, the federal government economic agency that put the cost of problem gambling squarely on the political agenda with a series of reports on the financial and social costs of Australia’s love affair with the punt.

The club industry is opposing pre-commitment as a ‘‘footy tax’’, saying the resultant decline in revenues will limit the amount of spending on football and other community programs.

As for the impact on football, the Newcastle Knights have shown that premierships can be won without massive transfusions of poker machine takings. Money has always been tight for the Knights and while privatisation through Nathan Tinkler’s Hunter Sports Group has given the club an enviable financial footing, it has succeeded for most of its existence without a Knights-brand leagues club.

For those teams that do depend more heavily on the pokies, the productivity commission acknowledges that pre-commitment pledges will eat into licensed club earnings. But with 40 per cent of poker machine revenues coming from less than 1 per cent of the adult population, there is an obvious need for urgent action on problem gambling.

The pre-commitment proposal is not the first hit on club finances in recent years. State government poker machine taxes and smoking bans have had an impact. Small clubs, especially, find the going difficult.

But for the most part, this is not the lot of the average AFL or NRL club.

The best way for them to display their community concern would be to acknowledge the realities of problem gambling, and work with the federal government and Dr Wilkie to find a solution.