On Friday night, we went to a brilliant concert in the Christchurch Town Hall. It was a fundraiser for the people up north affected by the cyclone.

The place was packed and they raised a fair chunk of money. Everyone involved was doing it for free so it was pretty much all profit.

We also had tickets to another concert on the same night which was announced before the Town Hall concert was announced.

So we had to make a call. And we decided to get tickets to the Town Hall gig and just treat the tickets to the other gig as another donation to the cause.

Just like people at the Town Hall concert who had already bought tickets but would’ve also made $3 donations via the text collection that our company’s been associated with, which was promoted pretty heavily on the night.

The reason I’m mentioning all this isn’t just to update you on John MacDonald’s social activities. I’m mentioning it because those two concerts here in Canterbury on Friday night are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to raising money for the relief and rebuild efforts up north after Cyclone Gabrielle.

I see there are more concerts planned. And there are all sorts of fundraising efforts going on right around the country.

But we know, don’t we, that the recovery and rebuild up north is almost going to require a bottomless pit of money - something the Government is grappling with. And so yesterday it announced two initiatives to help with that.

One is an international fundraising campaign - which has happened before. It happened after the Canterbury earthquakes and it’s a brilliant way of tapping into all those New Zealanders living around the world who see things like the cyclone happening from afar and want to do something to help.

So international fundraising is a no-brainer.

The other thing the Government announced yesterday was a special one-off Lotto draw. It’s going to happen on March 18, and Lotto is going to double the amount it normally gives out from each draw. Which means half of all the money raised will go to the cyclone relief and recovery.

But the Problem Gambling Foundation isn’t happy about it.

It’s saying today that by having a special Lotto draw to raise money for the people and areas affected by the cyclone, by doing that we are normalising gambling which, it says, causes major harm to society. Which, I don’t think anyone will disagree with.

Just like alcohol causes major harm to society.

But the Problem Gambling Foundation says this special draw, in particular, will normalise gambling because it will be heavily promoted and presented or portrayed as a good thing.

Now, if this was the only thing that was being done to raise money over-and-above what the Government and the insurance companies spend, then I think the Problem Gambling Foundation would have a stronger argument.

But it’s not the only thing. The concert I mentioned earlier that we went to on Friday night is just one example of the gazillions of things that have already happened and are still to happen. Which is why I’m more than comfortable with the Lotto draw idea.

Because, I’m a bit of a realist when it comes to this. And if we were going to get all high and mighty about not using money from gambling for the cyclone recovery, then we’d have to be just as high and mighty about all the other things that rely on gambling money.

For example, I hate the pokie machines. Whenever I see someone sitting on a stool in a pub piling money into the slot machines, it depresses me.

Which probably makes me the biggest hypocrite out because I’ve been quite happy to dip into the money that comes from those pokie machines to raise funds for school.

And every time I’ve put in an application to the organisations that dish out grants from pokie machine money, I’ve felt a real tension between my position on pokie machines and my interest in helping school raise some bucks.

But I always got over that - because I've known that the money would still be going into the machines whether-or-not I got all high and mighty on it. And if I didn't put my hand up for a share, someone else would.

Which is why, when I hear what the Problem Gambling Foundation is saying today about the special Lotto draw for the cyclone recovery and rebuild being a bad thing, I’m taking a practical view of it all and seeing it for what it is.

Which, in my view, is a fantastic way of raising desperately-needed money.

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