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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 12 Hansard (5 December) . . Page.. 3710 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

It is true that we have said that the minister should set the guidelines. That was Mr Quinlan's amendment No 9. That is fair enough. I think that is a job for the minister. The question here is assessing the worthiness of individual clubs to be exempted from the requirements to -

Mr Quinlan: And setting the rate.

MR HUMPHRIES: And setting an alternative rate for these particular clubs. The guidelines issue is an issue of setting a global requirement across the board. The issue in proposed section 60G is about allowing particular exemptions from those arrangements.

Mr Quinlan: It will not be too hard. There is only a page of them.

MR HUMPHRIES: If I am the responsible minister, I am happy to do that, but we did go through some pain last year to appoint an independent Gambling and Racing Commission and give it responsibility for areas of administration of the gaming legislation and related legislation such as interactive gambling legislation.

Is this not an application process which the commission ought properly to deal with? Guidelines which cover everybody are for the minister. I accept that. But is considering applications not a job for the commission? For example, we say that individual applications under the interactive gambling legislation to register as an interactive gambling provider are decisions made by the gambling commission, not by the minister. Why should those arguably rather more important decisions be considered by the commission but a less important decision be considered by the minister? I do not mind either way. I can live with the responsibility of making those decisions on a case - by - case basis, but it seems to me inconsistent. Should the commission not properly have that job, given that it considers all other applications under the gaming legislation for individual -

Mr Quinlan: Yes, examine; yes, recommend. You decide.

MR HUMPHRIES: That is not how it works in other cases. I do not think I get recommendations to consider interactive gambling licences. My recollection is that those decisions are made by the Gambling and Racing Commission. I have no role in that, and arguably I should not. That being the case, why should this be different? Why should the minister be making decisions about these matters, which are arguably of lesser importance? I would like to be satisfied on that question. I do not understand why we are being asked to change the policy we have used consistently throughout gambling and racing legislation.

MR QUINLAN (9.44): The number of clubs we are talking about in total fit on one page. The number of clubs with a gross turnover of less than $200,000 is only a part of that. I do not think it is too onerous a job. I rather think that those clubs for which these decisions are going to have very material effect might at least have confidence in the knowledge that their particular case is being considered at the highest level.

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