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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (24 May) . . Page.. 1727 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

I am also, of course, interested in exactly what the Gambling and Racing Commission's role is here. Clearly, the structure of the commission means that it has dual roles of regulation and giving policy advice. There is a need to understand in which role it is acting. Has the commission been able to look at the broader public interest issues in the process last week. I think it is reasonable for the minister to explain this to the Assembly. I would ask him to table for the information of the Assembly the records of communication between himself and the commission on this matter.

I would like to remind members that we set up the Gambling and Racing Commission to ensure that public interest was taken into account in policy decisions related to gambling; not just to take responsibility for the regulation. Mr Humphries seems very shy about asking for that advice on policy; he referred the issue of sports betting licence fees only after I raised it in the Assembly. Also, he did not seek advice from the gambling commission before he went to the ministerial meeting to put the ACT's position on the proposal for a moratorium.

One would have thought a minister of a minority government, which set up the Gambling and Racing Commission to ensure that the gambling industry is responsibly managed, might have had some interest in the considered views of such a commission as well as the views of the Assembly. One would have thought he would have done this particularly on an issue as fundamental as the proposal from the netbets Senate report, which called for a moratorium on further expansion of provision and online gambling opportunities in Australia until certain matters of consumer protection and social harm are addressed.

The main arguments that have been put against a ban or moratorium on online gambling are the difficulties of controlling the Internet and the lost opportunity costs relating to revenue to governments-in other words, we might as well cash in on online gambling because if we do not, someone else will. This is a morally bankrupt argument. If we agree as a community that an activity creates more social harm than good, surely we have an ethical responsibility to oppose it or at least to bring ethical considerations into the discussion.

Would proponents of that position behave in that way as individuals? For example, if they found themselves in a situation where law and order had broken down, would they as individuals make the choice to take advantage of the situation for personal gain because if they did not someone else would? A typical example of that is looting, which can occur when law and order breaks down.

The next question then is: if we do think we have the right to address the ethical questions, do we agree that this activity does create more social harm than good? Two recent national investigations of gambling-the Productivity Commission report and the Senate report on online gambling-certainly support the need for caution and concern. The netbets report noted inadequacies in regulations, which apply in the ACT as well despite the minister's constant claim that the ACT does not need to look at its regulations because they are so good.

The Senate committee's netbets report has reflected community concern about the social harm by recommending at least a moratorium until certain national consumer protection measures are in place. The level of knowledge about the new challenges of online

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