Page 2820 - Week 07 - Thursday, 7 June 2012
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
The reasonable conclusion of the Auditor-General, when she did her report on the machines, was that it will take 26 years to deliver the 20 per cent reduction required. That is what the government is saying—26 years to address this problem. That is not a solution. That is just throwing up your hands, abrogating your responsibility and saying, “We clearly don’t have any solutions for this problem.” It is quite a shift in the government’s position, of course. I notice that many of the members of cabinet are quite brave now that the former Chief Minister is gone; of course, nobody would stand up to Jon Stanhope when he was in cabinet. The then Chief Minister, Jon Stanhope, said to the Canberra Times:
We’ve done the hard work, we’ve done the research and we know that simply reducing the number of machines won’t address a problem like problem gambling.
There you have the view of the government a couple of years ago. Clearly the view of the government has changed since the demise of Mr Stanhope. It probably says more about the existing members of the government than it did about him.
It is quite clear, both from what the commissioner said and from what ClubsACT said, that, given the circumstance that the ACT finds itself in, it is quite accurate to say that by simply reducing the number of machines we will not address the problem. We have more machines per capita than the rest of the country, but we are not the highest ranked in terms of problem gamblers in the country. You have got to take into account those unique circumstances.
The committee report says, yes, proceed with parts of the bill that will allow the clubs some certainty. Over the last five years, the clubs have had no certainty. They have been waiting for this reform for a long time—reform the government has not been able to deliver and reform that the government has not been able to properly legislate for.
The report says that, while we allow something to go forward, we need to come up with a long term system. I have said for a long time that some sort of per capita system is the way to go. Taking the poker machines out of the Assembly would be a good thing, because we have always got the conflict of interest that the Labor Party has in getting its money from the Labor clubs and the pockets of problem gamblers.
We should have a system going forward that allows the new areas to have access to clubs. Let us face it: access to clubs will be dependent on clubs having poker machines into the future, and a per capita formula is probably the best way to go about that. We need to have some sanity over reforms, particularly over the ATMs, because we are talking about a system where all the clubs are linked, where all the banks are linked and where all your finances are linked so that the club can know whether or not you have hit the $250 cap. I am not sure how it will work. I am not sure how a voluntary scheme will work. I suspect it will not work, because if I know that I have to have more money I will either just leave the club and go and get more money or make sure I get the money before I go there. Around most clubs there are other areas where there are ATMs where you can go and get money if you so choose.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video