Page 3319 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 19 August 2009
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If there is any doubt that this deal in effect sells poker machines or proposes to sell poker machines against the spirit of the original legislation, we have only to look at some of the reports in the media in recent days. On 15 August, we saw Labor club president Brian Hatch reported in the Canberra Times as saying:
Cancelling the Gaming Machine Licences would make much of the clubs worthless.
So what is it that they are actually selling? Is it the clubs or is it the poker machines? If they are worthless without the poker machines, then effectively a large part of the sale price—a large part of the asset—is the poker machines themselves.
We have seen the headlines. On 25 July 2009 we saw “ALP branch sells ‘river of revenue’”. There was “Labor in for $20m boost on club sale”. There was this:
The national executive also made it clear in high-level talks on Thursday that the proposed $20 million sale of the party’s lucrative Canberra Labor clubs to the Tradesmen’s Union Club might not reflect market price.
Poker machines were not and never have been provided to enable a group to build and sell private gambling empires; yet this is what appears to be happening. This undermines the intent of the legislation; it undermines the community’s support for the community-based gaming model.
We now move to the second part of the motion. It is in relation to issues around the gaming act. It raises concerns about a number of things—“reports that Labor Party representatives, and members of the current Government, may have been involved in influencing decisions of the board of the Labor Club group”—and “calls on all ministers of the ACT Government to make full and frank disclosures”.
That is what we are calling for. We are asking for information. In all my public statements I have made it clear that I make no judgement as to whether anyone has breached any legislation—the gaming act or anything else. It has been the president of the Labor club who has put these issues out there as potential issues of concern. What we are saying is that there needs to be full disclosure and there needs to be independent investigation.
It is worth looking at the Gaming Machine Act and “influential persons”. The act says that, to “avoid the influences of people not properly registered and scrutinised under the Gaming Machine Act”, “influential person” includes “a person who, though not mentioned in paragraph (a), can exercise as much influence over the actions of the corporation as someone mentioned in that paragraph”. Indeed, it says:
An initial licence application must—
(f) for a corporation—name each influential person for the corporation and the person’s relationship with the corporation …
Section 14 goes through the grounds for refusing an initial licence application by a club. One of the grounds is this:
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