Page 1337 - Week 04 - Thursday, 4 April 2019
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I am pleased to introduce the Gaming Legislation Amendment Bill 2019 into the Assembly. The bill amends the Gambling and Racing Control Act 1999 and the Gaming Machine Act 2004 to establish the diversification and sustainability support fund. The establishment of the fund was recommended by Mr Neville Stevens AO in the ACT club industry diversification support analysis report. This report laid out a pathway for the government to support clubs to reduce their reliance on gaming machine revenue while maintaining a strong, sustainable, diverse and community-focused club sector. This included the provision of financial and non-financial incentives for the voluntary surrender of gaming machine authorisations.
I am pleased to inform the Assembly that the government’s incentives to encourage voluntary surrender have been successful in reducing the number of gaming machine authorisations and were well supported by the club industry. There are now 4,003 gaming machine authorisations in the territory, down from nearly 5,000 12 months ago. The government will deliver on its commitment to reach 4,000 authorisations by 2020. We will deliver that commitment as part of a comprehensive strategy to promote a diverse, sustainable and even more community focused clubs sector.
The main objective of the bill is the implementation of another recommendation of the ACT club industry diversification support analysis: the establishment of a diversification and sustainability support fund. The purpose of the diversification and sustainability support fund is to support initiatives that will assist clubs to diversify their income away from gaming machines. In line with the recommendation of the Stevens report, guidelines for the fund will give priority during the first three years to small and medium clubs, being those with gross gaming machine revenue of not more than $4 million and clubs who have voluntarily surrendered authorisations in accordance with their surrender obligations.
Governance arrangements for the administration of the fund are included in the bill. An advisory board is to be established to provide recommendations to the Attorney-General, as the responsible minister, about matters concerning the fund, and to make recommendations about payments to be made from the fund. Up to four members will be appointed to the advisory board by the minister, based on their skills and experience. As the advisory board’s role will include the assessment of applications from clubs for diversification support, the bill includes a number of provisions to manage conflict of interest. These provisions provide strict criteria for the appointment of members and board decision-making to maintain the integrity of the board’s recommendations.
As the A-G has told the Assembly previously, the fund will receive contributions from clubs based on the number of gaming machine authorisations held at each club venue. The contribution will be set at $20 a month pre-authorisation for the first 99 authorisations held in each venue and $30 a month pre-authorisation for every subsequent authorisation. The government is committed to supporting industry diversification activities. To this end, we will be matching industry contributions to the fund for the first three years. It is expected that this model will provide the fund with contributions in excess of $2 million a year. The monthly contributions based on gaming machine authorisations held will provide club licensees with the incentive to divest themselves of gaming machines where they are deemed to be surplus to their needs.
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