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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 9 Hansard (4 September) . . Page.. 2977 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

(2) A licensee shall, in the record under subsection (1), specify -

(a) the organisation to whom, or the purpose for which, the contribution is donated; and

(b) the amount or value of the contribution and the date on which it was donated.

(3) A declaration under paragraph (1)(c) is a disallowable instrument for the purposes of section 10 of the Subordinate Laws Act 1987.

Having examined that issue, I thought to myself, "What if the Minister refused to declare an organisation in the Gazette as is provided for in the legislation?". Nothing would happen. The Minister has total power. The other day we had a debate in this place about legislation in relation to occupational health and safety. The Minister has certain powers under the Occupational Health and Safety Act to grant certain exemptions, but if he refuses to grant an exemption there is a right of appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. This particular provision in the Gaming Machine (Amendment) Bill is draconian and gives the Minister far too much power. It must be remedied. Otherwise, all of the power will lie with the Government in relation to what is an organisation entitled to be in the Gazette and what is not an organisation entitled to be in the Gazette. I have circulated some amendments which deal with that issue.

The proposed new section on records of charitable donations is fairly narrow in its view of the sorts of donations that ought to be recorded. For example, it misses out on the members of clubs, as if they were not in the community. It also misses out on sporting organisations. I have taken care of that by dealing with community organisations, sporting organisations and club members in a different way.

There are other issues at large in this legislation which I will deal with in the detail stage, but there is one burning point of significance that this legislation gives rise to. On my recollection of the club industry, it was never intended that clubs would be measured in their performance by the way they made contributions from their profits to the community at large. On my recollection of this legislation and the way the clubs operate in the ACT, it was always intended that the clubs, subject to their constitution, would perform in the interests of their particular members or owners. Therefore, the club, the corporate body, would make decisions about the allocation of funds to members for particular social, sporting or community benefits and they would continue to operate as a monopoly in relation to gambling machines.

It has become of interest to Mr Moore and others that the Labor Club supports the Labor Party. In Mr Moore's view, a club can exist for a community purpose as long as it is not a political one, unless it supports his political aspirations. Hell might freeze over before we get to that point. The facts of the matter are that these clubs have been operating in this environment for a long time, and this legislation seeks to set the scene for a different set of arrangements to apply to clubs. Clubs, in defence of their monopoly on

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