Hellenic Club issues legal threat to gambling reform advocate
The Hellenic Club has issued a legal threat to gambling reform advocate Kate Seselja after she criticized its poker machines linked to a suicide.Summary
Kate Seselja wrote an opinion piece for The Canberra Times criticising the Hellenic Club after learning that a widow’s husband had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars on the club’s poker machines and later died by suicide. The club responded by sending her a statutory concerns notice—a prerequisite for defamation proceedings—and a similar notice to the newspaper. Speaking at a Senate inquiry on gambling reform, Seselja said she was being sued by a gambling company and described the threat as an attempt to silence her advocacy. ACT independent senator David Pocock called the move disgraceful, highlighting the power imbalance between the club and an individual advocate. Hellenic Club chief executive Ian Cameron said the notice merely invited her to withdraw the article, insisting the club had not yet commenced legal proceedings and objecting to being labelled a gambling company, stressing its non‑profit status. Public health officials and the widow of the deceased urged the club to reconsider its actions and focus on its community role.
(Source：The Canberra Times)