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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 9 Hansard (22 August) . . Page.. 3204 ..

MR BERRY: Pursuant to standing order 47, I would like to mention something that I think was misinterpreted by the minister in his speech to this place. I read a letter that I will table in a moment. One paragraph reads:

In particular, if the members who currently use clubs at those times react to the reduced trading hours by not attending their club in the hours leading up to the restricted trading hours, then already marginal operations will become unsustainable because of the high staff costs that are involved. As a consequence the affected clubs will close for the whole of those shifts rather than remain open for a part of those shifts. The effect of this will be that the clubs will cease 24 hour trading and staff will lose jobs ... 40-50 permanent and casual duty managers/supervisors, bar staff and security staff could lose their jobs.

Mr Moore: I take a point of order. Under standing order 47, Mr Berry is not able to debate the matter, just clarify it.

MR SPEAKER: I appreciate that. Do you seek leave to table that?

MR BERRY: Yes.

Leave granted.

MR BERRY: I present the following paper:

Gaming Machine (Amendment) Bill 2000 No 2-Copy of position paper by Clubs ACT on the bill, dated 22 August 2001.

I now seek leave to speak a second time.

Leave granted.

MR BERRY: I want to thank Mr Humphries for generously providing this brief, because I think it will assist members. It certainly has assisted me. It has confirmed my suspicions. The figures that Mr Humphries read on to the record relate to the planned prohibition period. Workers do not go to work for the planned prohibition period. Shift workers go to work for a shift. The clubs are saying that if you cut out the planned prohibition period then the entire shift will go and workers will lose their jobs.

There has been a bit of a play on the figures here. Mr Humphries has said that there is only a small amount of money involved in these periods and that the clubs are wrong or fibbing by saying that 40 or 50 jobs might go. The clubs are saying that if you take out the prohibition period then more often than not the whole shift will go. Mr Humphries interjects, "That is scare tactics." It is a reality of shift work that people do not turn up for work for two or three hours. They come in for a whole shift, especially at that time of the morning. If the whole shift is affected because two or three hours are taken out, then workers lose their jobs.

All that aside, I go back to my original point on the matter: it should be evidence based. A report is due. We should wait.

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