Page 3876 - Week 10 - Thursday, 27 August 2009
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There are a number of outstanding questions. There are questions around the Gaming Act. There are questions around Corporations Law. There are questions around tax law. All of these issues have been put onto the public record now and into the public arena. Originally, certainly in writing, they were put by the president of the Labor Club Group.
These are serious matters that need investigation. What we have sought to do—what Mr Smyth has sought to do—in moving this motion is to say, first and foremost, that the Assembly is the proper place to inquire into some of these matters. The inquiry needs to be wide-ranging. And indeed, it is an issue not just around the claims that have been made but also around the possible implications—for the club industry and support from the community for the community-based gaming model—of an individual group making a massive windfall profit from the sale of poker machines. These are all significant issues that need to be resolved.
I again ask the minister to actually answer the questions that have been put. If she needs to go and check, she could come back and report to the Assembly by the end of the day on these detailed questions about the scope of this inquiry—about how it will be conducted, what will be reported back to the Assembly and what will be reported back to the minister—so that we can have some more certainty and some more knowledge about the detailed nature of this investigation.
We reiterate our concerns about it. It would be far better for the Assembly to inquire into this matter. That is why Mr Smyth has brought this motion today.
MR COE (Ginninderra) (5.02): It is a shame really that we are in a position where we had to move this motion today. If this government and if the minister were actually interested in good governance, integrity and process, then we actually might get a government that would actually voluntarily initiate this themselves. Instead, what we have is a minister who is resisting due process, who is resisting integrity and who is trying to come up with a second-rate solution. We want to get clarity and we want to give some assurance to the people of Canberra that all the laws are being abided by. However, obviously, the government thinks otherwise.
Paragraph (1)(a) of Mr Smyth’s motion says that:
(1) the Standing Committee on Public Accounts inquire into:
(a) potential changes required to the Gaming Act due to the unforseen circumstances raised by the potential sale of the Labor Club Group and therefore proposed profit taking by the ACT Branch of the Labor Party and the national office of the Australian Labor Party …
This is a very reasonable motion, yet we have a government that are dragging their feet, refusing to do the right thing and to actually let the people of Canberra scrutinise this issue to a point whereby even the Labor Party would actually be better off. Surely the Labor Party would be better off if they knew that the system in place was actually something that they could actually say with all honesty was transparent and done with the interests of the ACT public in mind.
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