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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Thursday, 26 August 2004) . . Page.. 4294 ..

The Productivity Commission report referred to research with people who had had help with their problem gambling and asking them what would have helped. Some interruption to the gambling was cited. The forced slowing of the cash input to the gaming machines is one way of doing that, hence the cap.

My second amendment is a very sensible and, I hope, non-controversial addition to the list of notices that a gaming machine operator must provide when providing a player card to a gambler. This notice would point out the existence of the option of using the player card to set particular limits beyond $500 in a fortnight, which is quite high compared with many household incomes. The notice will present that as a general consumer protection mechanism. The point of this wording is that this should not be seen as something that only people with an identified problem could benefit from. It is about setting the parameters that make the gaming experience—which, after all, is about losing control for a time—less of a risk for the world outside the flashing lights.

The third amendment strengthens—again, I think in a sensible way—the existing cooling-off period for the extension of limits on player cards. In the regulations as presented, an increase in the limits would come into effect automatically seven days after the request was made in writing. Whilst this cooling-off period is important, I think that it would be improved by requiring a cooled off confirmation; so my amendment would mean that, instead of automatically coming into effect seven days later, the change would need to be reconfirmed in writing seven days or later after the first request was made. I hope that members will see that these amendments improve consumer protection, and support them.

MS DUNDAS (10.51): The Democrats are happy to support these amendments, given the time that we have been able to consider them. A couple of the amendments look at the gaming machine regulations and a few of them go to the issue of player cards. There are differing views on whether player cards are a good addition to the regulation of gaming machines, as potentially they allow gaming machine users to access large amounts of funds without having to physically handle these funds.

However, the use of player cards may also potentially allow gamblers to have greater control of the level of gambling they engage in and could provide greater records of gambling behaviour, which could be useful for research purposes as well as for identifying problem gamblers, although the last point needs to take into account the issue of the privacy of gaming machine users.

As I see it, Ms Tucker’s amendment simply requires not only that the gambling provider must give notice to anyone who requests a player card, but also that they must give the customer information about how the limits are set. That amendment is quite simple, is not onerous on gaming providers and extends the harm minimisation principles of the regulations.

The third part of Ms Tucker’s motion deals with the regulations in their current form that provide for a cooling-off period after a person applies for a higher fund limit for the person’s player card. The cooling-off period is seven days. However, this cooling-off period does not have to be confirmed by the player; it would simply occur automatically. This amendment inserts an extra harm minimisation strategy by requiring an additional

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