In which Polonius rests entirely on hearsay ...

How could the pond abandon Polonius in his hour of ongoing outrage with the ABC?

And how refreshing it is to not give a whit about the outrage.

You see, Polonius is outraged that the ABC has presented a case for the prosecution that he alleges rests entirely on hearsay ... and then mounts a defence which rests entirely on hearsay, his hearsay ...

It's a most curious and mind-numbing experience ...

Indeed, indeed, and the pond listened to Randy Stone cover the night beat for the Daily, and so is familiar with assorted stories ...though possibly some might not think that the best qualification for comment.

Why Polonius waited so long to mount his outrage is something of a mystery, but the ABC story is available online in a piece by Natalie Whiting dated 25th January, under the header Call for royal commission as bookie speaks out about fall of Tasmanian government...

The pond can't pretend to have the slightest knowledge - or much of a care - for the events outlined therein ...

The only amusement to be derived is the way that Polonius rages at hearsay evidence, then notes he was at the University of Tasmania and so is in a first class position to deliver some hearsay evidence ...

And naturally, the hearsay involves Catholicism ...

You see, so strong and proud are Catholics and so vicious is the sectarianism that Polonius and others have suffered from, that they'll stake it all on their beliefs, up stakes and move towns and abandon everything, such is their piety... or so the hearsay goes ...

What's particularly funny about all this? Well the Federal Group scored a genuinely shocking monopoly, and it was thanks to the Labor party, as noted in the ABC report ...

...The Labor government later awarded the Launceston casino licence to a consortium headed by the Federal Group. 
In the years that followed, the Federal Group also secured a monopoly deed for all of the state's poker machines until 2023. That monopoly won't be extended and the future of poker machines is shaping up as a key election issue for the March state poll.

As for the rest, there are other reports on the matter, including this by Amanda Lohrey in The Monthly, way back in March 2017, reviewing Boyce's Losing Streak ...(online for those who haven't exhausted their free views) ...

Inter alia many other things ...

...Despite his earlier opposition to the Wrest Point casino, the new Liberal premier, Angus Bethune, decided for political reasons to support the proposal for a second casino in the north of the state. Opposed to a monopoly, Bethune opened the second casino up to competing bids, and Stocks and Holdings Ltd was selected over Federal Hotels in 1971. 

Soon afterwards Lyons announced that “mutual trust” between him and Bethune had broken down. Lyons resigned from the government and with its slender majority gone parliament was soon dissolved. The details of this bizarre episode are too byzantine to be outlined here, but it was alleged, among other things, that Lyons had been given illegal inducements to destabilise the Liberal government. British Tobacco, which had been granted dubious land leases by the Reece government, paid Lyons $25,000 ($250,000 in today’s money) to write his memoirs (never published). Soon after his resignation from parliament in 1972 Lyons bought expensive properties in Melbourne, and, despite no experience whatsoever in the field, set up his own public-relations company. His first client? Federal Hotels. 

There were calls in Tasmania for a royal commission into what had quickly become a murky saga but instead a police report was commissioned, one that was never released for public perusal. Boyce has unearthed a copy of the report, and on his analysis the police investigation was manifestly inadequate. “Whatever the truth of the conspiracy charges,” he writes, “it is clear that Federal Hotels’ national casino monopoly was preserved through the collapse of a government that was actively promoting a competitor, and the installation of a new government with which the company had close political and personal ties.”

And so Polonius devotes his hearsay to the redeeming of a manifestly corrupt Labor party ...

As for the rest, on the matter of the Catholic church and poker machines, it probably depends on what hearsay you happen to believe, and what hearsay comes your way...

By a curious coincidence, the pond stumbled on this ABC pdf here ...

Ah, the good old Catholic brand, and there was Wendy Carlisle in 2012 scribbling for the ABC Gambling and the church ... and starting off with this startling example of sectarian bias ...

Last year punters lost $130 million gambling at the Catholic Clubs of Sydney, writes Wendy Carlisle. How can this fact be reconciled with the tenets of the Catholic faith?

Why by the pond's saintly maiden aunt, 'tis said there are many ways to heaven, and the surest are the odds offered by poker machines ...and as sure as the long absent lord conveniently didn't have much to say about gambling, you can say with some certainty that paying for political memoirs that never got published is a safer bet than feeding coins into a one-armed bandit. Or so the hearsay goes ...

And so to a cartoon by Pope that Polonius would no doubt enjoy, as it shows the way that honest graft will be its own reward ... with more papal wisdom here ...