Page 4494 - Week 14 - Thursday, 1 December 1994
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That letter says:
Dear Mr Lamont,
In response to your proposed legislation to alter the Betting (Totalizator Administration) (Amendment) Bill 1994, we on behalf of the Racing Industry offer the following:
We support the need for the Legislation to allow the practical operation of ACTTAB to be in line with Victab deductions.
However, we feel it essential for the protection of the racing industry that the 3.5 per cent return and the 0.5 per cent to the Racing Development Fund should at all times be maintained.
That is a very significant piece of information. Here are the three codes saying, "We insist for our future viability that the percentages of turnover we currently get should be left the way they are". The letter goes on:
Any reduction that needs to take place should come from the 6 per cent that the Government receives. Any shortfall in Government revenue will surely be offset by the telephone and betting auditorium levies generated by bookmakers.
That is a very interesting observation. We know that since June last year, while the Government has continued to take the 6 per cent, on top of the 6 per cent it has been getting the 1.25 per cent surcharge on telephone betting that was introduced and it has also been getting whatever the surcharge is on the proposed auditorium. However, the percentages received by the racing codes have remained the same. One would think that any well run organisation would be able to absorb those sorts of difference, should there be any.
The Minister in his advice also implies that the increased turnover generated from offering a competitive product will offset any reduction in prescribed payments. That is a very interesting statement. In other words, any increased turnover will more than offset the prescribed payments changes. When you sit down and do some calculations, you get some very interesting answers. I am advised that the approximate turnover of ACTTAB is $100m. At $2m a week, the current rate is 3.5 per cent, and with the 2.5 per cent the return to the three codes is $70,000, on the current turnover. You do not have to be a smart mathematician to realise that it would require an increase in turnover to $2.8m per week, or a 40 per cent increase in turnover, to obtain that $70,000.
We should keep in mind that, in the Minister's own words, we are not going to be looking at major meetings at the weekend; in the words of Mr Glanville, the chairman of the TAB, we are looking at something like the Geelong trots. Something like the Geelong trots, I am advised by the TAB, does not turn over anywhere near $800,000; yet that is what it needs to turn over in order to get that $70,000 currently coming out of a $2m turnover.
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