Page 3345 - Week 08 - Thursday, 23 August 2012
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place limits, particularly for the small clubs, it could cause them significant damage and affect their viability. In a way the RUC, where it is in Barton, is also the local bank, apparently. People use it extensively just because of the ability to use the ATM.
So I thank the government particularly for that. We will argue over the number of machines in the cap that they are proposing, but it is good that that has at least been heard by all members of this place and acted upon by the government.
At the end of the day we still have in the amending bill the aspirational target. I am not sure how one puts in an aspirational target and says: “This is now law. We are going to aspire. You are bound by this law to aspire.” I think we all aspire to something. The true failing of course is that they cannot explain how they will get there. And you have only got to read the Auditor-General’s report where, on their reckoning, it will take something like 26 years to get there. So you have to question the value of a piece of law that is in effect inoperable and will not achieve the outcome that it purports to achieve. If you are putting it there to make yourself look good, good luck to you.
But the reality at the end of the day is, and there was a differing view in the public accounts committee, about perhaps matching New South Wales, which would have had a slightly higher target of about 4,500 machines. But what it is about is, and I have said this on numerous occasions in this place, that there should be some way that we can move forward over a long period. Perhaps the best way to do that is on a per capita basis whereby we determine a number through scientific process, not through what sounds like a good number, a guesstimate. That would give us a relativity that would allow it to be continued so that as the ACT population grew, then there would be automatic ticking off of the cap.
I think coming back to the Assembly every time you want to change the cap is not good process and puts it in the hands of politicians at interesting times in the electoral cycle. What the clubs want is some certainty. What we need to do is bed these down and then have a long-term discussion about how we can make it work even better for a very important sector in our community.
We have all heard chief ministers over the last couple of years going to club functions and saying, “We are a club town and we support the clubs,” but it has taken a very long time to get to this position. It is a shame that the club industry has been largely ignored by the government in that regard for the last five years.
With that, we will pass the amendments and will move our own amendment during the debate.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Leader, ACT Greens) (10.50): The Greens’ position on poker machines is very clear. We should be doing all that we can to help the clubs move away from their reliance on poker machine revenue and impose effective harm minimisation measures to reduce the very real problems that poker machine addiction causes in our community.
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