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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (10 July) . . Page.. 2445 ..
MS TUCKER (continuing):
members of the Assembly would be as well, to understand how the commission came up with those objectives.
An argument which keeps coming up-I have had it come up many times recently-and which does concern me is the argument that "gambling is just another form of entertainment which a few people have a problem with, but not many; it is really just another form of entertainment". Well, as one counsellor has expressed it, people do not threaten to commit suicide after participating in other forms of entertainment, such as going to a movie or watching a football match. Neither are they likely to lose their home.
Mr Quinlan: Oh, yes!
Mr Kaine: I feel like it sometimes when Hawthorn loses.
MS TUCKER: It is okay to joke about it, I guess, but it is a very sad truism that gambling does cause people to commit suicide.
Mr Humphries: I felt a bit suicidal after the Wimbledon final last night, actually.
MS TUCKER: People here might like to make a joke about it, but I think it is very serious. People are not likely to lose their homes in the process of watching a football match, although with sports betting and so on there is now a capacity to make bets on quite a large number of aspects of a football game; so maybe that is not true anymore, either.
The second part of my amendment deals with what the commission has not yet been able to set in place. When you read this report, you realise that the commission is still in the formative stage of determining how it is going to operate and how well it will be able to undertake the functions required of it under the act. What this amendment is doing is asking what the rush is about.
We know what Mr Humphries thinks the rush is about. We know that Mr Humphries thinks that we could be losing an incredible revenue opportunity and we should grab our market share as we would be able to do it better than other people anyway. (Extension of time granted) When you have a body such as this set up by legislation, you have an expectation that it will actually work properly. It is quite clear from this report that it is not. It is actually quite early in the formative stages with a couple of its very important functions.
The commission has made an interesting comment on its structure, saying:
Whilst obviously not an intended outcome, the method by which the Commission was established has meant that within the current organisation there is a degree of misalignment between the structure, resources and staff responsibilities and the objectives and role of the Commission.
I think that we need to reconvene the Select Committee on Gambling. I have been talking to some members about that. We could do that to look at the structure we have used. I had a meeting with the commission and the minutes of that meeting, of which I have a copy, point out that there are some concerns about conflict in the role of the
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