The council last week approved the installation on five new machines at the Ballarat and District Trotting Club, on the condition that a percentage of the profits be handed back to council for distribution to the community.

Victorian Government legislation requires that 8.33 per cent of profits from poker machines be spent for community benefit.

The law was widely criticised when it became evident that some venues were claiming staff wages, microwaves and television sets as community benefits.

Since then, though, the laws have been tightened so the expenditure reflects the legislation's true intentions.

Ballarat City Council has followed the lead of Bendigo and will administer the 8.33 per cent from the five additional machines at the trotting club. In total, that is about $15,000 a year.

If the council can extend its permit conditions as the opportunity arises, that figure could end up being a lot more in years to come, ensuring true community benefits are realised.

This is not advocating additional poker machines for Ballarat. Nobody wants that.

But if we are to accept that poker machines are here to stay, then it makes sense to pool the 8.33 per cent community benefit fund to one location and make sure the benefits back to the community are substantial in their nature.

Mine rapist entitled to hearing, not sympathy

MINESHAFT rapist Anthony James Pitt is entitled, according to the law, to sue police for what he says was ill-treatment at the time of his arrest in 1998.

The crimes he has been convicted of _ luring a teenage girl into a disused mineshaft where he raped her repeatedly over 19 hours _ are horrific by anyone's standards.

The event shocked the community. The police who were involved in the investigation and subsequent rescue of the young woman were later honoured for their roles in Pitt's capture.

While the legal system _ in this case, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal _ will do what it has to in relation to the law, Pitt will get no sympathy from the public.