Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Thursday, 24 June 2004) . . Page.. 2676 ..

From what Mr Quinlan has said, it is pretty obvious that he thinks that the cap could go up, and he speaks about the inequity of the distribution of poker machines. It has to take me back to the original concerns of the community, particularly of people who are looking at the social and economic impact of poker machines on the community. Equity is the word we are focusing on. There is inequity in terms of the impact playing poker machines has on those who come from a lower income sector of society—the very detrimental impact felt by people who gamble in a way that is not appropriate to their income. There are real questions of equity around that.

Mr Quinlan has said that the clubs need to be congratulated in the ACT. They have lifted their game on this, and I acknowledge that. Lifeline has worked with them. But as the person who first started raising issues around gambling in the very early days of the Assembly, I have seen the slow progress over the years. We have had an inquiry and a recommendation out of that to set up a commission; we have had the setting up of the commission and then the review of the legislation.

Watching it year after year, while we have certainly seen a framework that attempts to bring in a more socially responsible management of gambling in the ACT, there is no way that anyone in this place can say that we have dealt with the issues, because we have not. There has never been a thorough evaluation of the different harm reduction responses that are in place at the moment, and we still see quite concerning practices in some of the clubs, with the inducements and the drawing for the cars to get people in for that draw night, and so on.

Questions about the impact of clubs on the local economy and small businesses, on which, as members are aware—and I will not go into detail here—there have been some studies, have never really been evaluated in the local context. Both Labor and Liberal have been dragged along in this debate to try and address some of these issues, but I do not really think we have changed things all that much in the last eight years or so I have been working on the issue.

We have got a few more things happening, and I commend the work of the commission, but the reality on the ground, for people using poker machines, is not that different. I hear that from Lifeline and from people who are working at the ground level about the impact of the poker machines and how seductive they are. That is why we are pushing this note, except that it is being reduced to $20. As I read out before from Dickerson, it is a lot more complicated than just the four per cent of so-called problem gamblers. The whole atmosphere and environment of clubs and poker machines—poker machines particularly—are about seducing people to keep using them and spending money.

Of course, this is associated with alcohol—the very fact that you can only have poker machines where you have got alcohol. If you came and looked at a society and someone said, “Okay, we’ve got these things called poker machines, and this is how they work. We’ve got this substance called alcohol, and this is how that works. Let’s put them together,” you would think, “Maybe not. That’s maybe not such a good idea.” These are the basic realities we are dealing with. I can see that the major parties will not be supporting the measures that Ms Dundas and I are putting forward, but I wanted to make these comments in response to Mr Quinlan’s comment.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .