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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (24 May) . . Page.. 1733 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

look at these issues. I do not feel well enough informed to say definitely that it should be a ban. But what is absolutely clear is that we need time to look at this because there are too many unresolved issues.

Whether the approach agreed upon is an open regulated market or a ban, it will obviously be more difficult to implement new policy directions once more and more providers have been entrenched, and that is another reason why we need to take a breath here and stop entrenching more people in the market. Obviously we will cause ourselves to be exposed in terms of compensation and so on if we do change it significantly.

I understand that Mr Quinlan is going to move some amendments to my motion. I will speak to them briefly at that time.

MR HUMPHRIES (Treasurer, Attorney-General and Minister for Justice and Community Safety) (8.47): Every so often a strain or an attribute of the Greens emerges which has much to do with the Luddite movement of the 19th century. People who belonged to this movement ran around with hammers and other implements and smashed machinery because they believed that machines were evil and were going to destroy society; that it was wrong to have these sorts of terrible things changing the world, disturbing their settled and accepted view of the world. We see this emerge from time to time from the Greens. We see opposition to genetically modified food, nuclear power, certain sorts of chemicals and things like that. There is the view that, "No, this technology is bad. You must stop this. Turn back the tide, stop it all from happening."

I can understand an almost obsessive concern with the precautionary principle-the principle that "if we haven't had 55 reports on the subject we should not be going ahead and doing it".

Ms Tucker: We have had two and they said, "Be careful."

MR HUMPHRIES: It is a reasonable approach to take in some circumstances. On occasions I have been seen to put my hand up and say, "I am in favour of the precautionary principle being used in this particular case."

Fundamentally, what Ms Tucker fails to understand is that this government in particular is not saying, as she has claimed, that we do not believe there will be any problems with Internet gambling. We are not claiming that we have understood the implications of this industry or the implications of the use of the Internet in other features of our lives. We are not saying any of that. What we are saying is that the Internet is not a kind of a creature waiting at the door to enter our house and we have to decide whether or not to open the door and let it in. The Internet is here. It has come in, it is already pervasive throughout the lives of every single person in this chamber and more or less every single person in this community. As a result of that, Internet gaming is also pervasive throughout this community and every other community in the world that is online.

So the idea of saying, "Let us stop the merry-go-round and have a little think about whether we want to go ahead with all of this" is completely and utterly missing the point. If we do not proceed to regulate the Internet, and regulate gambling providers in particular on the Internet, people will not be prevented from having that access and the

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