Lol ok I might do that. At least I goaded you into that difficult phone call aye

I’d like to take back what I said about Joey don’t really have any justification for that ..was just tilting remembering my hotel room boredom

Even if he doesnt do anything else hes still done more than you keyboard warriors have. Go back to 5nl ignition zone poker and just wait there til something happens

Shot Joey and swoop anything is something

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All good. And for what it's worth I had been attempting to contact Joey once every few days the entire time. It turns out he's been travelling for 9 of the last 10 weeks as I said, and he apologized for the lack of contact

I expect he'll make a post tomorrow at some stage as he told me he planned to yesterday within two days

All due respect mate and I appreciate your efforts, but we have heard this song and dance before. I'll believe it when I see it and I hope you can understand the skepticism.

Hey guys,

As promised by Swoop here is an update below for you.

Firstly, let me start with an apology. There is zero excuse for the lack of communication so I won't bore you with one. Yes I am ridiculously busy, but as others mentioned we all are - so cool story.

Secondly, let me say thank you for the frank feedback over the past two pages. Yes I am a volunteer but I appreciate the hate. Hate shows passion, which is never a bad thing. I have spent my entire life being fiercely right wing living in the Socialist Inner Western Suburbs of Sydney so hate is definitely nothing new to me. You don't need to apologise for telling me how you feel. You deserve better.

(small point here on the volunteer aspect - somebody mentioned the 4k I received from a GoFundMe page (organised by Jarred Graham - who is a complete legend), I also received some contributions from players into my PokerStars account (which ironically was blocked before I could take the money out) I don't have the exact numbers but I would guess that the community has provided me with approximately 6k in total over the past couple of years. The amount I have personally spent on this campaign has been well in excess of this figure (I would say double that amount is an extremely conservative figure - that doesn't account for the time I have invested). I don't care and I don't want any money. I just don't want people thinking there is some nefarious commercial aspect behind all of this).

Back to my lack of communication - I had a good chat with Swoop and we are going to work more closely together. When I am unavailable I will at least make a point of letting him know what has going on so that there is always at least one point of contact available to update you guys at all times.

I am currently writing from an airport and am about to head off on a two week business trip through the Philippines, Hong Kong, Macau and Korea (what Swoop was said was true. I have been travelling too much lately - has been horrible given it seems to have started from the moment my son was born. This has made doing other things so much trickier as whenever I am at home I just want to spend time with him). I am mindful that I may be hard to contact over the next couple of weeks, with that in mind I will try and get as much info into this post as possible.

BEFORE THE ELECTION

The months before the election were bizarre to say the least. I can confirm (may have mentioned before) that we had legislation drafted and ready to go in the previous government. The question was just on timing.

Then, Turnbull left and whilst that in itself was not a bad thing for our cause (I would say that both he and Scott Morrison hold the same positive view of our position). The by-election caused by Turnbull's loss was an absolute disaster for us.

The government lost all sense of its legislative agenda and had to focus on survival, every resource possible was thrown at Wentworth and then after the loss everything was chaos, governing from minority with a new leader, months away from a Federal election.

The entire legislative agenda fell off the table at that point and the only life focus for anyone from then on was saving the furniture (political slang for keeping as many seats in parliament as possible).

About a month before the election it became more evident how deeply unpopular Bill Shorten was and it wasn't until about 2 weeks beforehand that it became very evident that we could actually win. This was an interesting time as we were all hands on deck across the country gaining as many votes as possible. This also had to be done without making too much noise as it was the complacency of Labor which allowed the Morrison Government back in the door.

At this stage, I am happy to say openly my priority stopped being AOPA and became winning government. Yes the Coalition being relected was always going to be the best thing for our cause but the importance of this last election for the entire nation was one of the biggest in our lifetime. (In my view) the thought of a Shorten government was a terrible outcome for the country. Winning the election was the only thing that mattered.

Current Situation

So here we are now with Scott Morrison re-elected as Prime Minister. He now holds a majority and has a strong mandate both internally in the party and nationally through the electorate.

The other interesting nuance is that he is now in a parliament with no Turnbull, no Abbott and no real detractors. He has a government behind him that supports him and believes in him and no clear dissenters. We haven't really had a PM in this position since 2009 (Rudd had this initially, until people turned on him and then - well we all know the rest).

The other great thing with all of this is that the election is still far away. We have political capital to spend and online poker needs to be an issue that the government spends it on.

There is support in the government. I don't know the exact numbers off the top of my head of how many LNP members and Senators I have spoken to but every one of them supports our position. Furthermore the legislation we had written prior to the past election is still relevant and can still be applied.

WHAT DO WE DO NOW?

I am waiting for a confirmation of dates but I will be meeting with our new Communications Minister in the coming weeks. This is obviously an important part in the process but given they are new to the role we needed to give them time as opposed to barging in on Day 1.

I can definitely confirm that he is aware of our position and knows why we are meeting. He has been fully briefed on our situation by his staff and that has been positive. Even so, I will reiterate our case and our position and work with him to find a date in the coming months where we can get this through cabinet and onto the floor of parliament.

If that all goes to plan, we are basically done. We have the support in the party room, we have support in the house and we have support in the Senate. It is just a question of timing at that point.

If that does not go to plan, then we start making noise to change his mind. This is one of the things Swoop was referring to that we can't go into too much detail at the moment. All I can say is that if it gets to this point you will be pleased with some of the things we have organised.

Hopefully the above helped to provide a bit of a context of what has happened and where we are now.

It may seem odd because of the silence but we are honestly in the best position we have ever been. I know I have said this a few times but I need to say it again - please try to be patient, I am working on this. Sometimes in politics a lot of noise is a good thing - sometimes it isn't. Please don't take the lack of volume as an indication that nothing has been happening.

Sadly, politics isn't (always) as fun as it looks on House of Cards and the West Wing (it sometimes is though!). I guess, thinking about it, politics is much more like cash games than it is like tournaments. It is about pushing small edges over and over. Determining what your end goal is and mapping out the right path to get there.

To conclude I am going to keep working on this until I get the job done. I have started now and quitting (or losing - except at poker, which I still suck at) aren't really in my nature. That being said you guys are free to do what you think is best for you. If you want to support my process and the positions I put forward (that I will work with Swoop to communicate more regularly) then that is fantastic and I appreciate your support. On the other hand, if you have had enough of me and don't believe/care for the things I say - that's fine too. Do whatever you think is best.

I don't mind either way and honestly I couldn't be happier or more thankful for the support that has been given to me by the Australian poker community over the past couple of years.

Thanks

JoeyDel

Thanks Joey. I'm sure most of us are with you. You might get some hate from a few tards that think labor should have won :P

I'm a progressive myself, the fact Joey is conservative is irrelevant to this, we just want positive legislation passed for online poker in Australia, we can all vote for whoever we want after it's all said and done, please no left wing vs right wing politics derails in the thread.

Thanks for the update Joey; i'll be in regular contact with him to keep this thread updated (and the AOPA mailing list if it comes to that where we need to take direct action ourselves)

Have a good trip and we look forward to hearing further updates after your meeting with the Minister so that we know whether things are on track to be passed by this government without any need for a lobbying campaign from us or whether it's time for us to act.

Thank you Joey. This sounds positive

All good. Was just replying to Josem, mainly.

Thanks for the update. Much appreciated.

As one of the supposed "keyboard warriors" in this instances I feel inclinded to comment. Please DM me your personal email address and I will fill it with emails I have personally sent to MPs from all parties in the government about this issue, and have volunteered to do more? so please dont be so quick to discount others efforts as they are better than your own. prove me wrong.

JoeyDel -Congratulations on your newborn son. Sucks you cant be there for those precious moments with the travel. Like I said to Swoop, I am the one who called a spade a spade, I will stick by what I said. But only like you say, it shows passion. I have a passion to bring this great game back into this country. I am happy to help where I can. if the workload becomes too much with the travel and what have you, I am putting my hand up and will take some responsibility. please DM me with anything I can do to help.

Joey, thanks very much for the update. It's good to hear that things are progressing and that we are in a good position for online poker to return .

Are you able to tell us more about what the legislation will look like? Is it a blanket exemption for operators of online poker to the IGA, or will operators have to go through some kind of licensing process?

Obviously the former is better because it will be much quicker, and allow us to play on sites like ACR who will no doubt remain licensed overseas only. The latter feels like there's a lot more work to be done even after the legislation is passed.

Of course there's going to be a licensing process involved, it's the government passing legislation they're not gonna be like 'no thanks do whatever you want' of course sites will have to be licensed lol

I'd imagine it will be similar to how the sportsbooks currently work in Aus with sites having to get a license from one of the various states gambling commissions to operate - that provides consumer protections for players and tax revenue for the government from the sites that make profit in the Austalian market, two things obv the government will have a vested interest in.

I appear to have a rare patch of workable internet in Manila so I will respond to a few of these comments quickly before I need to head out.

Thanks mate.

That hate is more than welcome, I have a few friends who are die hard Labor supporters who are still bitter over the election result - it is wonderful

Thanks - let me post here for the sake of saying it publicly. Please nag me by all means possible if I go quiet for too long again!

You are welcome - Yes. It does, as always though - it isn't a done deal until it is done, so let's hope it all stays on track!

Noted, thanks. I didn't feel your comment was intended to be malicious - was more just clarifying for other out there reading who may have not known the full story.

Appreciate the message

Thanks - we still get some good times with the little guy so all good.

Even happier to hear that you stick by what you said, as mentioned I agreed with your assessment.

There isn't too much to do at the moment until the meeting with the Minister but I will be in touch the second there is!

The current aim is to amend the IGA so that operators are legally allowed to be licensed.

Probably worth clarifying this point - let's say this got approved and online poker was legalised today. You still couldn't play tomorrow as the sites would need to apply for and receive a licence from one of the states.

This won't be an issue with several states already putting their hand up (confidentially so I won't say which ones) but it will take a little bit of time.

I would guess that it will be 3-6 months after any Bill is passed that we are allowed to play.

I'll take back what i said i just want a solution for all to enjoy

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robots are coming for your monies you aussies.

Joey & swoop thanks for the work lads promising times ahead

Thank you for the updates Joey. Much appreciated.

Thanks Joey,

Would we be looking at a segregated player pool? Or what’s the tax play for the govt? I don’t know the whole segregated player pool reasoning, but I assume it’s for tax purposes so the revenue is trackable per player and not revenue per player from said country?