Page 244 - Week 01 - Thursday, 15 February 2018
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My law reform and policy development agenda for 2018 will be focused on ensuring that our legislation and services support the most vulnerable people in our community. Over the next year I will be introducing legislation and consulting on reforms that represent a commitment to restorative practices. The drug and alcohol court is one such example of those restorative focuses. We are developing a new court that will offer intervention, treatment and support for people whose involvement in the criminal justice system is primarily the result of addiction.
A central piece of our work in 2018 will be responding to the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Changes to our criminal laws and court procedures following the commission’s report will ensure that our treatment of survivors in the court process, criminal and civil, is based on the royal commission’s thorough examination of the latest evidence. I will continue to work with my commonwealth, state and territory colleagues to develop a redress scheme that will provide real, tangible support to survivors of sexual abuse.
Another area where I will continue to direct significant energy is in gambling harm minimisation, working in partnership with our community clubs to encourage diversification away from gaming machine revenue while working to ensure the long-term sustainability of these organisations which give back so much to the community.
I will continue to engage with all stakeholders in this area, including representatives of clubs and club groups, workers in clubs, people with lived experience of gambling harm, community organisations, academic experts and regulators. We will work to ensure that the territory’s gaming regulations continue to offer meaningful and effective harm minimisation, remain up to date with developing technologies and support the Gambling and Racing Commission’s implementation of its public health approach to reducing gambling harm.
This year the government will be announcing the way in which we will achieve a reduction in the number of gaming machine authorisations in the territory. They will come down to 4,000, from 4,985, by 2020. We will be talking with clubs, with workers and with members of the community throughout the process.
This is fundamentally a harm minimisation policy, meant to reduce the impact of problem gambling in the community. We will at the same time be looking at ways to support clubs to keep offering their important community services, like sport and recreation. Towards that end, we will this year review the community contributions scheme and look at ways to ensure it is still achieving its purpose.
Following on from this government’s achievements last year, 2018 will see the end of the greyhound racing industry. The government’s commitment to end the industry will take effect from 30 April this year. The greyhound industry transition task force will continue taking applications for individually designed transition support packages until 30 June. Funding will be available, to be rolled out until 30 September.
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