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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Thursday, 24 June 2004) . . Page.. 2663 ..

that a lot of facilities have been developed. Sporting teams—including junior sporting teams—cultural activities, charities and other groups have got money they probably would not have got from elsewhere. That is something positive and it is something that needs to continue.

A number of issues face the industry, one of which is when the smoking legislation takes full effect. That weighs very heavily on the clubs. In Victoria, gaming revenue immediately dropped by 20 per cent. If that happened to most of our clubs, club president Jim Shonk has told me that we would have about five left. They are certainly facing up to those challenges.

For that reason, apart from the other reasons, it is crucially important that they have certainty. The good thing about debating this legislation now and having this legislation passed is that it will give the industry a lot of certainty. That is important for where we go from here in providing entertainment for many people in Canberra, providing jobs for thousands of people and providing the assistance the industry gives to people and groups in our community. That is one thing this bill will do, and there are a number of other things, which I will touch on in principle. I have some amendments, which I might briefly flag now and talk more to when we come to the detail stage.

The Carnell government introduced the cap. The cap is a vexed issue. Currently, it is 5,200, and we are still under the cap. The reasons for this are that there are not too many new clubs, there is not a huge number of applications for extra machines from existing clubs, several clubs have machines held in limbo and several clubs are actually going to the wall, which is one of the sad facts of life.

Some of those clubs that have gone to the wall were small ethnic clubs. Second generation Australians have probably assimilated so well that the clubs do not have quite the same pull for them as for their parents. I was involved in a club like that fairly recently: the White Eagle Club, which was the Polish Club at O’Connor, which my father was instrumental in building. That is certainly tottering, and the Lithuanian Club and several others have ceased to operate in recent times.

It is an evolving industry and these things will change. Indeed, forward-looking people in the club industry will tell you that gaming habits will change. There will be changes as we advance through the 21st century. Nothing really says static. It is important that clubs have certainty, and it is important in a bill like this that there are sensible and workable restrictions and that there are not too many unnecessary bureaucratic imposts. There are several here that need highlighting, which resulted in three of the amendments I have foreshadowed, which are on the green sheet of paper.

The government has been stuck now on the seven per cent community contribution, and for the time being that is sensible. That is about the amount we envisaged when we introduced the community contribution scheme several years ago. The community contribution scheme has worked well. The latest figures show that about $15 million went towards community contribution in the last year.

Some people have problems with how it goes. Some people—in my view, misguidedly — worry that too much is going to sport. Sport is an essential part of the fabric of this town, and a lot of that money specifically helps junior sport, which is essential for

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