Page 3871 - Week 10 - Thursday, 27 August 2009
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quote part of conversations. Having been coached by the puppet master over here, he is likely to do that.
Mr Seselja: Clarify what you said, then, John.
MR HARGREAVES: I will. What we are seeing before us is a commercial arrangement. We have rules around the future of poker machine licences, and people have to adhere to them. There have been many clubs subsumed into larger ones, particularly over the past decade.
The actual decision to sell or not sell is not, in my view, in the purview of the commissioner. Rather, what happens to those poker machine licences? That is the bit you ought to write down: l-i-c-e-n-c-e-s, licences.
Mr Seselja: None of his business.
MR HARGREAVES: Yes, we can selectively quote. Knock yourself out.
Mr Smyth: That’s what he said.
MR HARGREAVES: You would just be true to form. You are just so true to form—predictable. No wonder you got a short tenure.
We are talking about a private concern which is no business of Mrs Dunne’s—none. You are not a member. Any disposal, any sale, of any club like that has to be determined by the members. When the members determine that such an action will happen, that is fine. But these guys! Mr Smyth is a member of the Vikings club. What he is proposing will cause anger in that club. I want to be there when they come around to his house and have a chat. I want to be there. I would like to know whether he has had a conversation with the board of the Vikings and said, “How do you like what we are doing?” They are going to say, “Brendan, we really don’t think this is a good idea, mate—not a good idea at all.”
Members interjecting—
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ms Burch): Mr Seselja and Ms Gallagher, can we stop the cross-floor conversation.
MR HARGREAVES: Whether to get in or out of a business is a business decision of the board of that particular business, regardless of whether it is a viable or an unviable prospect. We know that when a business that has the opportunity to have poker machines on its premises decides not to continue business, the rules applicable under the purview of the commissioner kick in. I do not see a problem. That is where that commissioner’s involvement actually sits, and rightly so—quite rightly so. But whether to be in business or not be in business is nobody’s business except the people who are running it.
This is an amazing statement that I see coming out of Mr Smyth, who wants to muck around on the internal affairs of a small business. That is what it is—not big business. BHP it ain’t.
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