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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 3 Hansard (25 March) . . Page.. 853 ..
MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, the options that we identified at that particular meeting, from memory, were three. One was the option of ACTTAB going down the path of sports betting to see whether that would produce the sort of extra revenue that was needed. The second one was the potential for interactive gaming. The third one was for the unallocated poker machines inside the cap to move over to the TAB for them to manage. This was one of the issues that I rather hoped the committee report that was tabled this morning would handle, but it appears that the committee report tabled this morning did not handle much at all. We were waiting for the committee report to determine whether that particular approach was a goer and to see what direction the committee report took. Obviously, as it does not give us any particular direction on any of those things, we will have to have a look at whether the poker machine approach is feasible.
I understand that the TAB themselves are looking at issues around sports betting, although initial indications would suggest that sports betting for entities like the TAB has the potential for only a small amount of revenue because they have to lay off so much of their bets to cover potential losses. Because sports betting is basically a two-horse race at fixed odds, the risk factor is very high. Entities like the TAB that cannot handle a lot of risk have to lay off bets, which reduces potential profitability.
All of those things are currently being looked at. When we have some information, we will bring it to the round table. Again, one of the things we were waiting for was the report that the Assembly committee brought forward this morning.
MR CORBELL: I had not thought it was the committee's fault. My supplementary question is: Can the Chief Minister indicate whether any interstate or overseas TAB operators have visited ACTTAB since the September 1998 stakeholder meeting, and has the Government had any discussion with any interstate or overseas TAB operators concerning a possible sale of ACTTAB since the last stakeholder meeting in September last year?
MS CARNELL: I have no idea whom ACTTAB has spoken to. They are a Territory-owned corporation. I cannot really speak for other people but, as the Minister responsible, I can certainly say I have not spoken to any of those entities or entered into discussions with any interstate TAB about the possible sale of ACTTAB.
MS TUCKER
: My question is to Mr Smyth as Minister for Urban Services. Minister, you would be aware that since 1994 your department has been trialling a number of natural gas powered vehicles. This came about through a memorandum of understanding between the then ACT Fleet and the AGL gas company in which AGL agreed to pay for the conversion and decommissioning of five vehicles and one changeover to five new vehicles so that there would be no extra costs to government from running the natural gas vehicles. A review of this trial was undertaken in August 1996 and recommended that the trial be extended to 20 vehicles because natural gas had been shown to be an effective, financially attractive and environmentally beneficial fuel. However,
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