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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 3 Hansard (25 March) . . Page.. 810 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

out in the States, particularly New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria, which could reasonably be applied to the ACT. The committee recognises, of course, that such information cannot always be applied directly to the ACT without qualification, but we were satisfied that general propositions derived elsewhere can have legitimate application here in the broad sense.

Because of the lack of local research and data, the committee's first recommendation is that the new ACT Gambling and Racing Commission should undertake as an early priority a program of research and set up comprehensive data collection arrangements. Our intention is that this will facilitate future policy decision-making about gambling by providing information upon which informed decision-making can proceed.

A significant matter that emerged from the committee's inquiries was that there was a genuine and substantial concern in the community about the levels of access to gambling in the ACT. Deriving from that concern, questions were raised about such significant issues as gross expenditures on gambling and the impact of that on the wellbeing, firstly, of families, but also on expenditures in other sectors of the community; secondly, the incidence of problem gambling - that is, addiction to gambling - and the impact on both the gambling addict and family members and friends as well as on the community at large; thirdly, whether the redistribution of gambling revenues, whether in the hands of organisations such as clubs or even in the hands of government, is necessarily the best in terms of the public interest; and, fourthly, concern about the increasing dependence of government itself on gambling as a revenue source. These are major issues, and we attempted to deal with them and to come to some conclusions about them.

The committee notes that some of the ground traversed by the committee overlaps matters dealt with in the Allen report. Our conclusions did not, however, always coincide with those of the Allen report because of the different bases from which the two inquiries proceeded. One matter where a different conclusion is reached by our committee is that of further expansion of gambling activity, particularly with relation to poker machines. Allen suggests that gradual expansion should occur, based on the competition issue, with post-hoc review of the consequences. That is because they were concerned about questions of competition.

The select committee, however, took a different view because we were looking at the social and economic impact. Our view was that further expansion without prior knowledge of the ramifications of so doing is unacceptable in light of the concerns that were expressed to the committee and which I have already outlined. It is suggested that we have a higher ratio of poker machines to population than anywhere in the world. Because of that extraordinarily high ratio and concern about it, we believe that we should proceed with caution in making policy decisions about further proliferation and about increasing that ratio. We recommend therefore that the existing cap of 5,200 machines be maintained until completion of an adequate program of research and the development of a comprehensive database on which informed decision-making can be made.

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