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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 12 Hansard (5 December) . . Page.. 3605 ..

MS CARNELL (continuing):

think of. Why? Because they have responsibilities to governments, to the community generally and they should be transparent. And that is what Corporations Law does - nothing more or nothing less. It just adds to transparency and this is what this Assembly has been very definite about.

Why have we decided that we should put forward an amendment that would further enhance the accountability and regulatory requirements of clubs by suggesting that the capacity of associated organisations to appoint the majority of the boards or the directors of these clubs should be taken away? The membership should be able to appoint or vote for the majority of directors because, again, this will improve accountability.

Clubs in this city have a capacity to have poker machines. No other people do. Clubs have a monopoly on poker machines and on that basis surely the members of a club - not somebody else; not some other organisation that is not democratically elected - should be able to determine who the directors are. The members themselves, the community, the people who want to input into a club, surely should be able to elect the people, or at least the majority of the people, that run the club. That seems so basic.

Should we have clubs that purport to support particular sporting organisations but those sporting organisations do not actually elect the majority of the directors? Well, I would not have thought so. If we in this place support democracy and transparency then surely the members should be able to elect the directors, or at least a majority of the directors, of a club.

Mr Speaker, these are not dramatic amendments. They are about transparency, openness, community building and social capital. Why are those opposite so negative? Why would they be shouting from the rooftops that this will bring the club movement to its knees? Why would transparency or democracy or putting aside 5 per cent of net gaming machine revenue bring the club industry to its knees? There is no reasonable answer to that except possibly that some clubs, and I cannot really believe this, are scared of transparency and openness and of their members electing the directors. For some reason unknown to me, they do not want to have to give 5 per cent of their net gaming machine revenue to the general community, to be used for sports fields, sports clubs and charities and all of those sorts of things. They would not have a monopoly on poker machines if they had not convinced this house that they were set up in the community interest. We have in front of us the capacity for the clubs generally to show, in a transparent way that nobody can argue with, that that is exactly what they are doing.

I know that the majority of clubs do not have a problem with this legislation, particularly now that the guidelines for approving community contributions have been spelled out so clearly by the Chief Minister. There is no reason to oppose this piece of legislation, unless some clubs have something to hide - and I cannot believe that that is the case - or, alternatively, the clubs that are run or are owned, shall we say, by the Labor Party or the trade unions, are not contributing appropriately to the community generally. Mr Quinlan said that was not the case, that they are contributing over and above all other clubs. If that is the case, they have nothing at all to fear.

But we have a right to know, the community has a right to know, where the money, where the profit from poker machines, is going. It has to go back into this community. It cannot be going to other places, to other organisations outside the ACT. Maybe this is

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