Page 154 - Week 02 - Thursday, 25 May 1989
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the National Association for Gambling Studies, of which I was a founding member. I applauded the appointment of those three people.
However, it is one thing to appoint three people. It is another to give them enough time and resources to do the job properly. They had only a short time. The advertisements in the papers were very quick and were not fully placed around the world. The material in the inquiry was often faulty, and they themselves acknowledged this. Indeed, I gave a long academic paper - I stress it was an academic paper - as part of the National Association for Gambling Studies in a critique of the Caldwell report. In that critique, may I immediately make the point, I accepted two of their four recommendations without question, and I am happy to place a copy of my report also in the library for members to see.
I absolutely endorse the first two conclusions of the Caldwell report related to problems of gambling in the ACT, an inquiry that went beyond the question of gambling casinos. The report recommended the setting up of research into this matter on a long-range basis and of a special organisation to take care of the problems of compulsive gamblers or people in that category. I absolutely endorse that. But as Mark Dickerson himself recognised at the time when I gave this critique, other parts of the report were quickly done and inadequately staffed. They had to be very hasty in their research methods, as he acknowledged, and I wish to remind you of that.
In particular, it has to be said that one section of the Caldwell report, chapter 7, pages 123 to 133, is totally unacceptable as a piece of research about the image of the national capital. Equally deficient is the material about the perception of the impact of the proposed casino on that image. The report relies almost exclusively on an unprofessionally phrased public opinion poll, and Mark Dickerson would now acknowledge that. It ignores evidence in the field of city planning and urban research. Indeed, there was no one on the team who was competent in that area. Furthermore, there was no economist on that team who was competent to look at the question of section 19. I now urge in particular the continuation of an inquiry because the economic parts of the Caldwell report may now not only be criticised for their nature then - and I would question them then - but also they are now out of date. The Jebb material in that report is now inappropriate for what is now being discussed for section 19. It is particularly inappropriate because there are other plans for the whole City Hill area that go far beyond the very limited plans put together by the project group looking at section 19 - things that are far more worthy to be looked at and need very careful perception by this Assembly for the future of our city.
So I questioned that inquiry then almost a year ago; I question it now even more. I do urge on the Assembly that
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