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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 11 Hansard (22 October) . . Page.. 3957 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

provide all sorts of relevant material for the Assembly to make its decision. On balance, I think it is a decision for the Assembly rather than the Commission.

To date, the cap has worked fairly well in limiting the number of machines and concentrating people's minds. I have heard you give the figure of 3,000. You have not given much justification of why it should be 3,000 except that we have a much greater number of machines pro rata than anywhere else.

Any sort of gambling is a problem, be it playing poker machines or people betting on flies going up walls. But I wonder whether arbitrarily reducing a cap will make much difference. A problem gambler will gamble wherever he or she can. Making it zero-Western Australia does not have any machines-may make a dent in the problem, but people will just go off and gamble elsewhere.

You also need to be cognisant of the fact that we have a very sophisticated club industry here. Clubs are where the poker machines are, but a lot of good is done by that industry in terms of services to their members and the significant contributions made to a number of very important activities in our town. Not the least of these are sporting activities, which are very much assisted by our local club industry.

Clubs are social centres in Canberra. They are somewhat unique compared with similar institutions interstate and have been for some time. For all the damage poker machines can do to individuals-and I do not doubt your figures for problem gamblers; I would like to see some more details-gaming machines benefit our community by enabling clubs to do some very good work.

For example, the Tuggeranong rugby union club fund 51 or 52 sporting and other organisations. When I was minister, they spent $750,000 a year on various sporting organisations. They spent money from their gaming revenue to build a magnificent complex at Erindale-two football fields and a grandstand. The Ainslie Football Club have used their money to build a magnificent Australian Rules oval, which has doubled as a soccer pitch for some very good matches by Canberra Eclipse.

Even the Labor Club, dare I say it, was sponsoring some arts thing-Tommy at the Street Theatre. There are any number of good uses that money could be put to, apart from the detrimental effects any form of gambling has on people in our community. It is important to make those points in the equation too.

We in the opposition look forward to seeing what the government will come up with in its response to the Gaming and Racing Commission's report, which makes a number of recommendations. It would be far better for us to give careful consideration to that, looking carefully at the evidence, rather than support a motion that is very much a one-off hit at this stage and which appears to have a somewhat arbitrary figure. I have advice that there are strong arguments for the numbers going down, but let us consider that in light of the full report, Ms Dundas. The opposition will not support this motion.

MR QUINLAN (Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Business and Tourism and Minister for Sport, Racing and Gaming) (5.21): This motion is more about getting the mover's name in the paper than it is about doing anything constructive. It is not based on sound argument. Ms Dundas asks why we spend more on pokies. I have been given

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