Page 6210 - Week 19 - Tuesday, 17 December 1991
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Thirdly, we oppose it because we are dubious about the number of supposed jobs for young people. What kinds of jobs? On Noel Coward's birthday, may I say, "Don't put your daughter in a casino, Mrs Worthington". In any case, some increase of jobs in one place means a decrease elsewhere. We hear from the club industry that they fear the loss of thousands of jobs. I suspect that they are exaggerating, but that is what they said. In any case, what about the long-term careers of these young people?
Fourthly, we oppose it because of the overall problems faced by Australia. We need real increases in productivity, the kinds of industries and enterprises which flourish as a result of our natural benefits and our well-developed Australian skills in agriculture, mining, manufacturing and service industries. We do not need to allow ourselves to sink, to become a throw-away-your-money haven for overseas tourists. Their losses and the losses of the locals - and 70 per cent of casino business is from locals - are then siphoned back to the sources of overseas funding. That is an unhealthy economic situation. Anyway, will those overseas tourists be forthcoming in sufficient numbers as more and more casinos are opened?
Fifthly, we oppose it because of the damage to the tourist and visitor industry in Canberra. To be sure, we may find ourselves, in a casino economy, as the hub of a wheel of buses arriving from surrounding country towns. We damage them incidentally. But the long-run basic and crucial image of the nation's capital as a visitor capital will be debased in a building which at the moment bears the name "National Convention Centre". Presumably, it is now to be called the "Austrian Convention Centre".
Sixthly, we oppose it because of the heritage of false promises from the Labor Party. John Brown, Gary Punch and Clyde Holding inveigled us, you will recall, with the promise of a gambling casino and a territorial library. That was a bizarre notion which I always opposed - a casino with a library right next door to it, on the same square. But now that bizarre promise has proven completely empty. It is the rhetoric of one segment of the Labor Party. I quickly say that I recognise that there are segments of the Labor Party which oppose this whole scheme.
Seventhly, we oppose it because we believe in better enterprises and better outcomes in education and research - the very kind of thing that Mr Berry put forward so splendidly a few minutes ago. We should be looking forward to our expanded, skill-related industries; not money-shuffling enterprises, but growth enterprises for the future.
Eighthly, we oppose it because the side effects are disastrous, as so well explained by John Tully to the select committee which met here in this building and only yesterday on the ABC. I urge all members to vote against this Bill.
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