Page 3719 - Week 12 - Thursday, 22 November 2007
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instances for their families, create significant problems in their lives. Their capacity to continue to contribute to gambling or a gambling addiction can be very, very corrosive of individuals, their health and welfare and, very particularly tellingly and sadly, of their families. We need to do everything we can in the first place to prevent it and, in the event that there are people with a gambling problem, seek, as a compassionate society, to assist them. This bill seeks to address that in one small way by encouraging clubs.
The point that I am trying to make is that the clubs, very pleasingly, just in the last little while have energised their response to issues around problem gambling. I was very pleased that just this week the President of Clubs ACT, David Lalor, announced that 25 clubs had combined to commit in excess of $800,000—$830,000 I believe—each year for the next three years to the Clubcare program. I wish to acknowledge that very, very significant contribution by a significant number of licensed clubs within the ACT to re-energise the Clubcare program, which in the last year or two, I believe, was being supported only by 11 clubs and to the tune of only a couple of hundred thousand dollars.
So this is a very significant expression of commitment by the club industry to the issue of problem gambling and a very significant recognition by Clubs ACT and the clubs that as the providers of gaming machines or poker machines they do accept a responsibility to seek to address some of the negative outcomes or aspects of gambling for some people. I recognise that and wish to recognise that, in tandem with the passage of this bill, the industry itself has responded unilaterally and separately to increase its level of commitment to problem gambling initiatives. I think it is $830,000; that is a very significant contribution, particularly in that the commitment is for more than a single year. These were issues that were raised and discussed by both the Leader of the Opposition Mr Stefaniak and me at the Clubs ACT annual conference in Narooma on the weekend. Indeed, at that conference Mr Lalor signalled that he would be making that announcement this week.
A further issue that I will touch on, because it is very relevant to other minor objective amendments that have been made in this bill today, is considerations that the gaming and racing commission will make in relation to the allocation of excess machines. As members know, the ACT has a cap on the number of poker machines that can be licensed within the territory—5,200. The cap has been reached during this year. The arrangements that are in place are that, where poker machines are surrendered—where a club determines for whatever reason that it no longer wishes to maintain a licence, or indeed where it wishes to reduce the number of poker machines for which it has a licence—those poker machines are returned to a pool and are available for redistribution.
Most significantly, that was a scheme that operated in a circumstance where the cap had never been reached or achieved. The cap has now been reached—a cap of 5,200—and the gaming and racing commission has recommended that the cap not be extended. That is a recommendation that the government is at this time inclined to accept, and will accept, on the basis that we have asked our officials to develop a new process for arranging the transfer of poker machines between clubs. This is something that has not previously been available to the club industry. We believe that there
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