Page 2448 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 9 August 2016
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Mr Stanhope has said the Labor Party simply should not be associated with gambling and that the association of gambling and the conflicts of interest, perceived or otherwise, are both morally and politically unacceptable. And I concur, Madam Deputy Speaker.
The reality is that the Tradies, owned by the CFMEU, and the Labor clubs, owned by the Labor Party, are funding politics in this town and the organisations that regulate them. There is no way you can get away from that conflict of interest, and it is people like Mr Stanhope who are raising these issues—not just me.
Potentially, part of the reason we have seen this ideological assault on our clubs is the desire to suggest there is no conflict of interest. I do not know, but it is genuinely not helping.
I quote from Gwyn Rees, the Chief Executive of ClubsACT:
The ACT Government has attacked Canberra’s club industry for far too long …
The Government has deliberately chosen not to consult the industry, which is very disappointing and frustrating, and will leave the community clubs very angry … We remain opposed to any erosion of the community gaming model.
Of course, he is referring to the plan this government has to put pokies into the casino. We know it is 200 to start with, but there is no doubt that the longer term plans will take that number up closer to 500. And we have been advised that the plan is that those pokies will be coming basically from the CFMEU. There may be other clubs that engage in that sort of deal, but the bulk of those pokies will be coming from the CFMEU.
That gives some insight, does it not, as to why this deal is going ahead? Again, this is a compromised Labor Party that is all about power, and influence and getting money into the coffers of the Labor political machine and the CFMEU, which then donates massive amounts of money to the Labor Party and the Greens. To be honest, outside of the Third World, you probably would not see this bizarre situation where the government of the day owns and controls and is the beneficiary of the gambling assets in a particular jurisdiction. That is incredibly compromising.
I will say again, as I have said many times in this place: we will not be supporting that deal. We will not support pokies going into the casino. We will not allow an end to the community gaming model. Let me be very clear that, if Canberra Liberals form government in October this year, the deal to put pokies into the casino is off. It is off: let me be very clear.
We will work with our community clubs to help them to grow, prosper, and provide ongoing support in this community. Many of the solutions, many of the ways forward for the clubs, are contained in the bipartisan committee report into our club sector conducted by the public accounts committee. As you will recall, Madam Deputy Speaker, there was a debacle with note acceptors. You approved a change to note acceptors; Mr Barr knocked that decision down, reversed that decision and publicly
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