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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 01 Hansard (Wednesday, 11 February 2004) . . Page.. 169 ..

of class C machines. It struck me, however, that a very sensible compromise for everyone concerned would be to enable hotels and taverns access to at least class B machines, especially given that hotels with accommodation can already have up to 10.

I would like to thank Jim Shonk from the Licensed Clubs Association for his efforts. He is a man I have an immense amount of respect for. I have know this very lateral thinking person for many years and I think he does an excellent job. I think he certainly sees the sense in this. A commonsense approach is being taken by some of the people at the other end of the spectrum—by tavern owners such as Darcy Henry from Moby Dick’s, who was also very helpful in dealing with this issue. I think the gaming commission should be commended, too. Obviously, they have assisted the minister. I will even commend the minister for whatever effort he played in overcoming an issue that has been a problem for at least 18 years.

As a result of the gaming commission report, I am pleased to see in the government’s bill a recommendation that class B machines be introduced in the way I propose in my bill. Indeed, the government’s bill proposes that class B machines be treated in the same way.

I think this legislation is a watershed. It is a sensible compromise by all concerned. It introduces a degree of equity. I think we can now move forward quickly to have both of these bill debated cognately in the sittings of the Assembly in March. We still, of course, have to be told what the government is going to do in relation to the rest of the gaming commission’s report.

The second part of my bill addresses the issue of clubs that have more than one licensed premises. A lot of restrictions and conditions are placed on clubs and I think they are important, especially when one club buys out a smaller club. I appreciate that in those circumstances there is the possibility of a club denuding the smaller club of all of its machines, putting them in its larger premises and then demolishing the place and doing something else with it. There are a number of issues in respect of the restrictions that the gaming commission quite sensibly imposes to stop that from happening.

A number of clubs own more than one premises and at present they are licensed to have a number of machines at each premises. Clubs such as the Labor Club, the Tuggeranong rugby club, the Southern Cross Club and the Ainslie Football Club own more that one premises and operate from those separate premises. At present it is very difficult, nigh on impossible, for those clubs to move machines between their premises. Because of demand, demography or whatever, it makes good economic, commercial and practical sense for the clubs to move machines between premises in a simplified way.

Often clubs have a real demand for extra machines, and my bill gives a couple of examples of this. I will add a third. The drafters of the legislation have referred to the Barbarians Football Club, which has premises in north and south Canberra. Let us say that Barbarians north, which is going gangbusters, currently has 20 machines and Barbarians south has 30 machines and that Barbarians north has lots of patrons and there is a real demand for extra machines and Barbarians south is not going quite as well because, say, it is located in an ageing area and there are not as many patrons. My bill would enable Barbarians south to transfer, say, 15 of its 30 machines to Barbarians north, which would give Barbarians north 35 machines.

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