Page 4946 - Week 13 - Thursday, 2 November 2017
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By the letter of the law, if this bill is passed in its current form, the casino could convert restricted authorisations into authorisations to operate the machines by simply getting the planning and land authority to approve a redevelopment of the women’s toilets at the casino and by putting up a drinking fountain within the casino precinct.
If anyone believes for a single moment that Aquis is going to continue with the original casino and precinct development, they have got another think coming. At the time of the original proposal, Aquis made it clear to the government that the redevelopment relied upon income from those poker machines.
The harm minimisation measures that appear in this bill are absurd. They are absurd in a casino space. When you line them up against any other casino in the world, they are absurd. Under the absurd harm minimisation measures, it is very clear that the casino would fall well short of the proposed income figures from those machines, and that is not to mention the enormous cost imposts to comply with the measures in the set-up phase.
Aquis sent a submission re this bill to my office and, I am assuming, to others in this place, where they spell this out. They say:
The revenue and cost implications of the pre commitment system and lower bet limit are likely to have significant implications for the viability of a business case for any redevelopment and more broadly the sustainability of a business that makes significant contributions to employment and tourism in the ACT.
The other great problem is access to the actual hardware. It is possible that Aquis or any other operator would be able to access the hardware if we were at a $5 level. But this bill does not set it at $5. Instead, the government has put it out to the community, asking people who have never ever been into a casino in their entire lives what they think the maximum bet level should be.
We understand that we have some amendments coming. I do not know where we will end up. The Gaming Technologies Association of Australia and Aristocrat have confirmed to me—I am sure they have confirmed it to those on the other side—that, if the government arrives at a number lower than $5, there simply will not be machines available. Nobody makes them. When you consider the small size of this mini-harm minimisation jurisdiction, it is not viable. I guess there is a price for everything. You can get anything for a price—just look at Northbourne Avenue. It is not viable for any manufacturer to develop the product.
We have not even started with a mandatory pre commitment system. No such system exists in Australia for this form of gambling. The cost of developing one for such a small mini-jurisdiction, again, would be prohibitive.
I know that Gaming Technologies Australia have already indicated to the government that setting up a mandatory pre commitment system without a centralised monitoring system is simply not possible. I heard Mr Rattenbury in the media saying that they were spruiking for their own industry. They are talking themselves out of business. There is all this stuff that could be made here. They would make a fortune out of it,
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