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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 9 Hansard (22 August) . . Page.. 3185 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

argument, the clubs must be saying that if poker machines are not being used, staff will not be needed because people will not be in the clubs. If that is the case then these clubs are basically open for gambling at those hours. There is nothing else being offered to them.

Mr Stanhope: Have you heard of shift work, Kerrie? Have you heard of people coming off a shift at 2 o'clock in the morning?

MS TUCKER: Mr Stanhope says that there will be shift workers. I have heard that argument from the clubs. Are you saying that the only reason shift workers go to clubs is to play poker machines? If that is what you are saying then I am back to where I was, which is: if the only thing clubs are offering is poker machines then clubs are offering a gambling opportunity, and that is it. That is not what I hear the clubs tell us. The clubs tell us that they offer a lot more than just the opportunity to gamble.

I acknowledge that one of the dilemmas when restricting aspects of gambling is where to draw the line between preventing problem gambling and not restricting the wish of other people to access gambling as a form of recreation. Perhaps Mr Stanhope is saying that we want to be sure that this will have an effect on preventing or reducing problem gambling to counter the negative impacts of the restriction on other people.

Mr Rugendyke countered the specific example of shift workers by pointing out that some of the shift workers listed changed shifts later than the time identified. This does not mean that there are no shift workers but it does somewhat reduce the impact of the argument-in fact, the major argument-of the clubs.

Members may or may not be aware that I have had several discussions on this issue with Mr Rugendyke, his adviser and the gambling commission. In addition to the issue of this change being made outside the context of the commission's review of the act, there is the important matter of whether it would be possible to monitor the effect of the change. I have had assurances that, although some difficulties remain, the commission has access to baseline data on gambling on the machines at that time of day, and will soon have information on gambling after that period. We still have a lack of information on when problem gamblers gamble on gaming machines. We also do not have clear information on exactly who will be affected by shutting down at this time of the day.

Mr Rugendyke said in his media release that he has drawn on the expertise of Lifeline in researching the matter. On checking, I found that he was referring to studies that were being undertaken to determine why problem gamblers now in counselling were still gambling. This is similar to research carried out by the Productivity Commission in its study of the Australian gambling industry.

Barbara Anderson, the coordinator of gambling counselling at Lifeline, told my office that the aim of their in-house survey was to find out "what would have made a difference". They found a strong response that "If I'd had to stop playing the machine to leave the premises that would have helped". They did not know when problem gamblers might most likely be at a club. But, based on this survey, Ms Anderson said that, when on a binge, often only running out of money or not being able to access money via ATMs would make them stop. So problem gamblers may well be there for 24 hours.

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