The submission suggests licensed clubs would be ideally placed to deliver childcare, if income tax exemptions were applied to gaming machine profits.

Clubs Australia executive director Anthony Ball’s submission states: “Not-for-profit clubs are well positioned to deliver affordable access to childcare.” 

The industry’s extensive community networks, sizeable facilities, geographic footprint and capital expenditure programs ensures that clubs can help fill service gaps where demand is most acute.”

The suggestion that gaming venues and childcare facilities are a good mix would be astounding to most Australians.

However, it’s not that big a stretch from current venues which already provide enticing opportunities for children to come along with mum and dad. And there’s little doubt that we need to look for left-field ideas to attempt to fix the childcare problems which are undoubtedly impacting productivity.

That said, the proposal doesn’t have much support in the broader community.

Victorian Premier Denis Napthine said he would be “very dubious” about such a plan.

Tim Costello, who leads the Australian Churches Gambling Taskforce, was more blunt: “It will lead to more problem gambling,” he said. Tasmanian MP and anti-pokies campaigner Andrew Wilkie is appalled by the idea: “The poker machine industry’s interest in now running childcare centres surely must be some kind of sick joke,” he said.

The responses were in the main predictable but also a reflection of the underlying mood regarding the extent of problem gambling in our community.

It’s not about the legality of gambling – individuals have the right to choose how they spend their money and their recreational time – but it is about how gambling is perceived.

And we know well that normalising behaviour to gambling has the potential for disastrous results.

Maybe the clubs submission will provoke a more broad discussion about how childcare works in Australia.

That could, surely, be the best outcome from what is otherwise a flawed idea.