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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (24 May) . . Page.. 1735 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

I have to say I am not greatly less critical of my colleagues in the federal government on this matter. They have engaged in a bit of a stunt on the question of the Internet. A few weeks ago they came to the ministerial council on gambling-a council which the federal government itself set up and said should be a vehicle for consensus decision-making on issues affecting the national perspective on gambling-and said, "We want the states and territories to agree to a moratorium of 12 months on Internet gambling so that we can assess the viability of putting in place a ban on access to sites to stop Internet gambling as a growing phenomenon in our community."

Ms Tucker: That is not what the Senate committee said.

MR HUMPHRIES: I was at the council meeting, Kerrie. I know what happened there, for goodness sake.

Ms Tucker: I said it is not what the Senate Committee said.

MR HUMPHRIES: The ministerial council is what I am talking about.

Ms Tucker: I know. I am not though. I am talking about the Senate committee.

MR HUMPHRIES: I was there and that is what the federal government put to the meeting. With the exception of New South Wales, the states and territories rejected that proposal. New South Wales agreed with the federal government position-no other state and territory did, and nor did we. We made it very clear that if there was a consensus decision at the ministerial council on gambling it was that there should be no ban on Internet gambling, and no 12-month moratorium.

The federal government walked out of that meeting and some weeks later said, "We are going to proceed with the Internet gambling ban anyway." They eventually said this. After we had issued two licences under our own legislation, they came back and said, "Well, we do actually want to proceed with this matter," and have asked us not to issue any further licences.

It should be on the record, though, that at the meeting the Commonwealth sought consensus. It failed to achieve consensus. After the meeting, and at the meeting for that matter, it gave no clear indication of what it would do in the absence of consensus. It did not indicate clearly that it would proceed with a federally imposed ban.

In those circumstances, the ACT decided to proceed as it had indicated it was going to proceed quite some time ago-in fact, two years ago when the Interactive Gambling Act was passed with, I think, unanimous support in this Assembly. We said we were going to issue the licences we had been working 18 months to prepare and issue, and we did. The day after the licences were issued, the federal government said, "Well, we are actually going to have a ban, or try to have a ban, and we ask you not to issue any further licences, or at least to cooperate with us in the process from this point on."

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