Page 3521 - Week 12 - Thursday, 20 September 1990
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Mr Stefaniak: I am sorry, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Hansard has difficulty enough with some speakers. Mr Wood is not a problem, but would members please press the buttons. They are there for a reason. Please proceed, Mr Wood.
Mr Duby: Old foghorn Bill.
MR WOOD: Well, 30 years of teaching does things to you, except that good teachers never speak very loudly. I think there are other reasons for my voice.
Mr Collaery: You will not be applying at Grammar next year, will you?
MR SPEAKER: Order! Please proceed, Mr Wood.
MR WOOD: I would be very well received there.
Dr Kinloch: You would be, Bill; you are quite right.
MR WOOD: Indeed, I would. I was asking the Minister to indicate in his reply, if the information is available, whether a set number of machines of different coinage have to be in the club. I think it is important that that be the case. I do not think it is a good thing if people are forced to play these casino-like $2 machines, effectively $10 a time. I see people playing from time to time and they are just as happy to do so with 5c coins. That is my preference, I might add, when I go to a club; but it is very difficult to find a machine that will take those coins. So, in this Bill, we are changing - I think, substantially - the nature of our clubs.
It is something that I am aware of. I accept it, though, as I said in the beginning, with many reservations.
MR DUBY (Minister for Finance and Urban Services) (11.03): Mr Speaker, I rise to speak in support of this Bill which is an essential part of the Government's budget package.
Mr Wood: The taxpayer's package. Is that the one?
MR DUBY: The budget package, Mr Wood. My colleague, the Attorney-General, has already outlined the elements of the Bill in his presentation speech. I wish to deal with criticisms of the Bill and explain further some of its features. I will deal firstly with the gaming machine taxes paid in the ACT compared with those paid in New South Wales. New South Wales, of course, has had poker machines in its jurisdiction since 1956, whereas the ACT did not introduce them until some 20 years later.
Before giving the comparative figures, I should point out that because of the different taxation systems used in New South Wales and the ACT the figures that I am about to
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