Tasmania opens new 5-star hotel as welfare groups score attending gambling problems
Premier David Bartlett formally unveiled on Wednesday the $32 million Saffire Resort, Tasmania's first boutique luxurious resort which boasts of 20 premium suites that command a panoramic view of the Coles Bay area.
Operated by Federal Hotels, the high-end tourist destination currently employs 45 staff and managing director Greg Farrell is upbeat that the site would lead to millions of profits that would further prop up the Tasmanian economy.
Mr Farrell said that Saffire offers tourism experience that would be hard to match from anywhere in the world, adding that further developments on the Coles Bay area could be expected from the Federal Hotels group, a condition imposed by the state government in exchange for the group's 20-year monopoly on poker machines in Tasmania.
Premier Bartlett hailed the new resort as an exciting prospect for the state's economy, providing job opportunities for many residents living in the area.
He admitted though that the luxury hotel's exorbitant rate, at $2,500 a night for the primary units, would be out of reach of many Tasmanians, including him.
However, the Tasmanian Council of Social Service (TasCOSS) lamented that property development and job creations in the state were being carried out at the price of gambling issues becomingly more prevalent in the area.
TasCOSS representative Martin Gibson decried the poker machine monopoly agreement between the hotel's developers and the state government as he pointed to the "strong link between the creation of this resort and the entrenchment of problem gambling in Tasmania, and the resultant impact on Tasmanian families."
And the welfare group found an ally on the Salvation Army, which urged members of the Tasmanian Parliament to throw their support behind a Greens bill calling for a dollar betting limit on the state's gaming machines.
Group representative Stuart Foster called on the state's different political parties to cross the line in support of the bill as he stressed that the proposal is not about Labor or Greens issue but a community issue.
Mr Foster said that the Salvation Army is envisioning a "tri-partisan support for the recommendations of the Productivity Commission to be carried out within this state."