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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 2 Hansard (20 May) . . Page.. 412 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

(b) the Committee be composed of Mr Kaine, Mr Rugendyke, Ms Tucker and Mr Wood.

(c) the Committee be provided with necessary staff, facilities and resources, including a consultant with expertise in the area of inquiry;

(d) the foregoing provisions of this resolution have effect notwithstanding anything contained in the standing orders;

(2) this Assembly calls on the Government to place a cap on the number of poker machines in the ACT at 5,200 until the Select Committee has reported to the Assembly.

As members are aware, I have been working on gambling issues in the Territory for the last couple of years. Last year I was successful in having legislation passed that included a package of harm minimisation measures. Unfortunately, my call for an independent inquiry to look at the social and economic impacts of gambling, limits on the number of licences, the creation of an authority to regulate the future growth of the industry and the provision of funding for education, prevention, counselling and support services, as well as further research, was rejected by this Assembly.

I placed a motion on the notice paper this week asking again for a moratorium on increasing the number of poker machines in the ACT until a national inquiry into the effects of gaming has been completed and this Assembly has had an opportunity to consider the findings of that inquiry. I would have been delighted if this Assembly had accepted a local independent inquiry; but, in the absence of that, I believed a national inquiry would provide us with useful information for making a better assessment about the social impacts of gambling in the ACT. I will come back to discuss this national inquiry in a moment.

After discussions in the past day or so, I accept that it would be legally difficult to enforce a moratorium at precisely the current number of poker machines. I have therefore agreed to a compromise position, which is a cap of 5,200 machines. This number takes into account the applications for machines that have been granted in-principle approval, as well as other machines in another club, the development of which has been significantly progressed on the understanding that approval would be given for poker machines. It is also taking into account possible small claims for machines. It is actually a generous assessment of the need. I understand that there will need to be amendments to the Gaming Act to enforce a cap and that this is likely to occur in June.

Mr Speaker, unfortunately, the politics around gambling in this town dominate any debates on what is a very important issue. The vested interests of the various players provide an all too convenient mechanism for them to sidestep the critical issues around the social and economic impact of gambling in this town. Most of the major players

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