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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 6 Hansard (18 June) . . Page.. 1983 ..

MS TUCKER

Applicants must comply with requests for information from the commission on any relevant matters. The commission can decide how many machines are suitable for the application. Licences are for particular venues, and for particular organisations and the particular people in charge of those organisations.

The commission in its review of the Gaming Machine Act affirmed the importance of the power to determine the appropriateness of particular venues. However, as the legislation currently stands, for clubs there is not much scope to consider the impacts on the area or on the premises generally. And why does this matter? The specific urgency is that there is an application with the Gambling and Racing Commission for a gaming machine licence at the premises of the new Belconnen community pool.

When Mr Stanhope learnt that the lease purpose clause for the pool complex, as set up by the previous government, would allow a social or sports club and that there was a possibility of poker machines as part of that social or sports club's facilities, he said it was an "unpleasant surprise". I believe that contemplating poker machines as part of the pool development is an unpleasant surprise for many people.

The development is described on Swimming Centres Australia's website as a very integrated whole. However, it is not appropriate because it links in the one premises swimming for young families with gaming machines. It is not appropriate because it is a community pool-it is not a club first and then a pool. This is a long-awaited community facility subsidised by up to $11 million in public money, with entry prices to be held at reasonable levels and so on.

A community swimming pool premises is a place to go and hang out and to absorb all that is on offer there. The notion that parents might be able to go and have a drink and a punt on the pokies while their children swim was raised in the media and has certainly stimulated community alarm, and this illustrates the potential for negative impacts on the premises as a whole of permitting such a tenant.

While it is possibly too late to change the lease purpose clause without huge expense, there is still the question of whether the regulator of gaming machine licences, the Gambling and Racing Commission, should allow a social or sporting club tenant a licence for gaming machines. The Gambling and Racing Commission is required by section 7 of its establishing act, the Gambling and Racing Control Act, to perform its functions in a way that best promotes the public interest, and in particular, as far as practicable, promotes consumer protection and reduces the risks and costs, to the community and to the individuals concerned, of problem gambling.

Of most relevance to this question is the obligation to reduce the risks of problem gambling to the community and individuals concerned. However, the act, as I have described, does not currently for clubs include any requirement to consider the overall impact on premises, beyond the requirement that members are happy with the addition. It is therefore hard for the commission to put into practice the requirements of section 7. That is what this amendment would achieve. It empowers the commission to consider the impacts.

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