By Phillip Coorey
When Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott entered the post-election auction to form minority government, Andrew Wilkie was considered the first independent who would side with Labor.
After all, the Howard government had persecuted him in 2003 for blowing the whistle on the rubbish that was cited as intelligence to justify the Iraq war.
A year later, Wilkie stood against John Howard as a Greens candidate.
Wilkie, who holds the once-safe Labor seat of Denison, in Tasmania, did side with Labor first but is now considered increasingly within the government as the most dangerous of the crossbenchers.
When Wilkie says, as he did again on Friday, that he plans to be in politics for a short time but to make a difference, it reaffirms his image as a crusader.
Crusaders are prone to a death-or-glory approach and will bring the whole show down with them on a matter of principle if necessary.
Wilkie's agreement with Gillard stipulated that in return for his support, there must be laws passed by 2014 making pre-commitment technology on poker machines mandatory. Punters would nominate in advance how much they were prepared to gamble and over what time period.
That deadline is after the next federal election, but Wilkie has established milestones.
If there is no agreement with the states by May 31 to make the changes - which there will not be because NSW is backing the clubs - there must be legislation passed before next year's May budget giving the Commonwealth power to override the states.
If such legislation has not passed, and even if it is not the government's fault, Wilkie will pull his support.
''I don't know who I will give it to,'' he told the Press Club recently. ''I may give it to Tony Abbott or I may give it to no one, and obviously and regretfully, the country will end up in uncharted political waters.'' He reaffirmed yesterday: ''I won't give the government any leeway on this and the government knows that.''
Wilkie criticised the media for dwelling on his threat rather than on the observation that the government is bending over backwards trying to accommodate him.
Its actions have invited yet another pitched battle with powerful vested interests - the clubs and hotels lobbies with their $20 million ad budget - and the lead minister, Jenny Macklin, has sooled 20 departmental officials on to the task.
With the federal opposition backing the clubs and hotels, everything hinges on the crossbenchers. The Greens' Adam Bandt will most likely support Wilkie, meaning Wilkie needs two more out of Rob Oakeshott, Tony Windsor, Bob Katter and Tony Crook.
Oakeshott and Windsor are under extraordinary pressure in their conservative rural electorates and anything that would be perceived as picking on the local clubs could finish them. They are reluctant at best.
Wilkie remains confident he has the numbers, meaning Katter and Crook. But none is over the line yet.
The government must find a solution that would be acceptable to Wilkie and the Parliament, as well as to the clubs.
Today the ministerial advisory group, established in November, will brief Macklin and the Assistant Treasurer, Bill Shorten. The group is headed by Peter Shergold, who ran the public service under John Howard and who has just been employed by Barry O'Farrell to help clean up NSW.
Mandatory pre-commitment was recommended by the Productivity Commission and it is likely today's advice will reflect closely the course outlined in a recent speech by the commission's chairman, Gary Banks.
Banks backed the arguments of Wilkie and the government that the business model for poker machines was underpinned by human misery. He cites a large, unnamed Sydney club in which 0.5 per cent of its loyalty card members accounted for 50 per cent of its gaming revenue. In the same club, 2 per cent of members accounted for 80 per cent.
''The club's records show that one player actually lost $210,000 in six months, averaging $600 per hour played,'' he said.
To circumvent the clubs' argument that fitting the pre-commitment technology will incur crippling costs, Banks recommends the technology be fitted when the machines are manufactured, meaning it will be phased in as the machines are turned over.
But there is no getting around the clubs' central claim that revenue will be hit hard. Pre-commitment, plus other measures such as $1 bet limits and limits on the amount of cash that can be loaded into a machine at one time, ''would have a significant impact on industry revenue, given the high share coming from problem and at-risk gamblers'', he says.
Banks says the clubs plead a special case because of their community activities but ''only a small proportion of gambling revenue tends to be devoted genuinely to public benefit causes''.
''In any case, the concessional tax treatment of this revenue potentially displaces government spending of the same kind.''
In other words, the government would have to fill the community-funding gap left by the demise of club revenue.