Page 6170 - Week 19 - Tuesday, 17 December 1991
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Mr Moore: A deep and meaningful statement.
MR COLLAERY: Mr Berry and Mr Moore continue to laugh through the debate. I think this is a serious debate. I am pleased that the Chief Minister is listening. Mr Speaker, the current tax structure in New South Wales is a simple one per cent of the first $100,000 profit per club per year, and 22.5 per cent of profits in excess of $100,000 per club per year. The tax in New South Wales, unlike the proposal here, is paid on a quarterly basis, with returns lodged within 21 days of the end of each quarter.
I come to my main point: New South Wales clubs then enjoy a tax rebate system whereby any club spending 1.5 per cent of its net revenue from poker machines on approved welfare purposes - my colleague Dr Kinloch is listening - can receive a refund of one-third of the qualifying expenditure. I could not think of any better purpose for us to bring in a rebate system than to get a properly based server intervention program going for people with an alcohol consumption problem and to get some gambling counselling for that percentage of the gambling circuit who are compulsive gamblers. I have not seen that explored in this Bill.
This Bill typifies, as did the response in the house earlier this morning, the absence of a real community sensitiveness, a community awareness, by the Labor Government. It is not really aware. It wants to make sure that in February it will not be forced to the line with a mini-budget before the election. It really wants to plug the gaps and get on with getting the money in and is not moving on those social justice issues that many of us in this house have commended for so long.
Mr Speaker, the comments Mr Duby made, I believe, are quite accurate and prophetic. The Rally will support this Bill. We indicate again that this is no way, over the space of a few days, to bring in legislation with this ramification and not to consider innovative ideas of recognising the community awareness of clubs, of recognising the prospect of a rebate to fund some of the services that we still need to close gaps left by the Federal Government when they handed this Territory over to us.
I believe that the licensed clubs in this Territory do a great deal for the community. I am not entirely happy, I have to confess; I am conservative about seeing great floors of poker machines. They do not excite me, but many people avail themselves of those facilities. There needs to be a gloss of services to support problems emerging from that area, in both alcohol and machine compulsion. But we have gone out of kilter with New South Wales because the
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