Page 4838 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 1 November 2017
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women’s sport are, I think, really good evidence as to why we need to think about putting some of this money into an independent fund. I do not think the contributions scheme is working in the way that it should be.
Other key items are the exploration of mandatory precommitments and bet limits for poker machines in the territory. We know that the intentionally addictive features of poker machines make it harder for people to make informed and rational choices about their spending. The Productivity Commission found that around 70 per cent of poker machine players report exceeding their spending limits sometimes, while 12 per cent exceed those limits often or always. Higher risk gamblers exceed their limits more often and report greater harm when they do. Mandatory precommitment aims to help high-risk gamblers control their spending and ensure that those limits are not exceeded.
In relation to bet limits, all poker machines across the ACT currently allow players to bet up to $10 per spin, which can lead to losses of up to $1,200 per hour. We support the Productivity Commission’s finding that a bet limit of $2 or less is needed to make some useful inroads into reducing harms, and we have been public in saying that we think that $1 per spin is best practice. Research has found that recreational and non-problem gamblers usually bet at a lower denomination, with 80 per cent making bets at or below $1. Therefore, we believe that lower bet limits should not impact on recreational gamblers but would provide strong protections for those at risk of gambling harm.
The Greens acknowledge the important contribution that clubs make to our community. We want to work with clubs and their representative bodies to help them have diversified and sustainable business models into the future. We do not support Mr Parton’s motion because it does not recognise the need to improve harm minimisation and address gambling harm, which is inherently linked to the issue of clubs being reliant on poker machine revenue.
Mr Parton gave us the “reasonable bloke” speech and talked about people at the extremes of this debate. The reality is that, unfortunately, some either representing the industry or in the industry have also taken extreme positions in recent times. They have simply said, “We will never shift on the number of poker machines and harm minimisation issues in this territory.” That is not helpful either. That discussion does not get us very far either.
Every person in this place knows that the future of clubs is a live question. We have to try to find ways to work on it together. We have heard today the suggestion of a moratorium on tech change. I am not sure that that is actually what the clubs are arguing for either, because some of the clubs are lobbying me for new types of technology to come into clubs. If we are going to have a moratorium on tech change, that has to cut both ways. I do not think that is where the clubs are at either. And I do not think we want to be there, because we want to think about what they can be doing to make themselves viable going forward.
We do want to let the clubs serve our community, but it does not serve our community to be overly reliant on poker machine revenue and revenue from problem gamblers.
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