Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is an opportunity to thank those in this parliament who have pushed for substantial reform with regard to problem gambling to respond to two Productivity Commission reports over the last 11 years and also to put on the record some further work that, hopefully, the government can do along with some legislative reform that is expected shortly. The reason for putting this motion forward is that I hope the challenge of dealing with problem gambling as well as the issues of money laundering and transnational crime do not stop with the legislation before the House and all the debate that goes along with that. I hope as well that there is engagement with the states, where the fundamental problem of addiction lies—that is, the states are addicted and wedded to the revenue from electronic gaming machines and from the vast range of gaming and gambling options.

This motion is calling for a national cap to be agreed upon through a national partnership agreement or some equivalent. That should not, I hope, be too hard. Most if not all states now have a cap of some form. I would hope that through the Select Council on Gambling Reform a genuine discussion about turning that into a national cap could take place and could be the start of a long-term national reduction strategy underneath that cap. In the theme of other topics of last year, that fits in with the cap-and-trade model of long-term reductions in something that is a problem.

As well, a critical part of that will be breaking the link between state government revenues and gaming. On the back of the tax forum that occurred in October last year, a state tax working group has been formed. That is a bipartisan working group that includes the New South Wales Treasurer, Mike Baird, and the current Queensland Treasurer, Andrew Fraser. Of different political persuasions, they are working throughout this year to look at ways of harmonising state taxation and hopefully reducing some of those bad state taxes through negotiation with each other and with the Commonwealth. This is an opportunity, therefore, to feed into that process the topic of the moment, responding to the Productivity Commission and feeding in this issue of how to break the link between state revenue and gaming options. If that can be done—and I include in there not only electronic gaming machines but also online gaming, sports betting, the horses, the harnesses and the greyhounds—and if there can be a genuine conversation between the different jurisdictions, if a tax deal can be done that allows the states the capacity to raise revenue in other ways in a long-term strategy, that then allows a reduction in machines and achieves, I think, an important goal of therefore reducing problem gambling, about which most if not all members of parliament are concerned.

The Productivity Commission report that is the basis of the legislation about to appear before the parliament is an important one, but I hope that this House does not forget or reject the first Productivity Commission report from 1999, which really talked about proximity as being a core problem in the number of problem gamblers emerging in Australia. The fact that gaming machines were starting to turn up on every corner in New South Wales, for example—the decision to put poker machines into the pubs—really turbocharged problem gambling in Australia. So this question of proximity is very real as a cause of the problem but also an opportunity for us to consider in addressing the problem. If we can, over time, reduce the number of machines and reduce the number of sites where machines are, then we are reducing problem gambling as well.

I sincerely hope that the government, the executive and the parliament consider this motion and not only consider the legislation that is about to appear before the House but really push government to follow a COAG process as well. (Time expired)

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to speak on the motion with respect to problem gambling and gambling reform. I must say that I have had a long and abiding interest in this for a number of reasons. I note that the member for Denison and the member for Lyne are both, of course, in the chamber this evening. There is one issue that I would like to touch upon as part of this broader discussion of gambling reform, that being the fact that the Independents have said on numerous occasions that they remain committed to the Labor Party on the basis that the Labor Party is effecting good governance. But when it comes to what has been the epicentre of the discussion from a policy perspective on problem gambling and on gambling reform over the past, roughly, year and a half since the last federal election, we know—and the member for Denison is still, no doubt, feeling the bruises off the back of the complete and utter betrayal of his bona fides by the Prime Minister—that the Independents were basically grist for the mill. We had a Prime Minister who said and did whatever she thought was required of her in order to harness the support of the member for Denison, the member for Lyne and others, and then chewed that up and spat it out on the basis of political expediency.

It was obvious to those of us who have been around this chamber for some time—and I have the privilege of having a couple of years of service under my belt now—that this was always going to be something that the Labor Party was going to walk away from. And I have to say that, standing on the floor of the Bankstown Sports Club faced with three members of the Labor Party, including a cabinet minister, and surrounded as I was with angry Labor heartland people, I knew that there was no way that the Labor Party was going to continue to embrace its so-called commitment to gambling reform. So it was on the basis of political expediency that the written commitment by the Prime Minister to the member for Denison was junked, as was the case in terms of the Prime Minister's commitment to not introducing a carbon tax, and a whole raft of different things—a people's congress on climate change et cetera. There is such an endless list, that I will not go through them all.

We know that political expediency reigns supreme with this Prime Minister, and so the member for Denison was left high and dry. But what concerns me the most is that the Independents potentially are supporting something, in terms of a so-called trial, that completely runs contrary to good governance in this country—a benchmark that all members should remain adhered to, especially those who say that their support of the federal government is dependent on it.

On 10 February 2012—only three days ago—there was a very interesting announcement that was made with respect to best practice for regulation requirements. It was issued by the Australian government, very under the radar. I will read it:

On 21 January 2012, the Prime Minister—

and others—

jointly announced the Government’s plan to tackle problem gambling. Of the regulatory measures announced, the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) has responsibility for

A Regulation Impact Statement was required to inform these regulatory decisions but was not prepared. Consequently, the Office of Best Practice Regulation has assessed the proposal for these measures as being non-compliant with the Australian Government’s best practice regulation requirements.

So a department of the Australian government that the Prime Minister presides over and that the Independents support says:

… the Office of Best Practice Regulation has assessed the proposal for these measures—

that is, the announced trial—

as being non-compliant with the Australian Government’s best practice regulation requirements.

So what does the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Senator the Hon. Penny Wong, say about the Office of Best Practice? Again, I will quote from a release from the minister dated 28 October 2010, where she says:

Well designed regulation is of critical importance to the Australian economy. Good regulation can encourage innovation and minimise compliance costs for business, including small business, and the not-for-profit sector. Poorly designed regulation, however, can cause frustration and impose unnecessary costs on all sectors of the community.

We have a government that are committed to political expediency, to imposing costs on this sector and to being seen to be doing rather than actually doing something for problem gamblers—and they stand condemned.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Lyne and I note the presence of the member for Denison and their longstanding commitment to gambling reform in this country. We have just heard everything about what is wrong with the opposition. Not once in a speech of five minutes did the member for Moncrieff, who sits on the same committee as me, the Joint Select Committee on Gambling Reform, offer one solution, one idea, one notion—not a scintilla of a suggestion—in relation to good gambling reform policy in this country. The coalition always say no. That is the reality. I thank the member for Lyne for moving this motion. As he knows, the states and territories traditionally regulate gaming machines. The COAG process has in the past and will continue in the future to discuss gaming reform in this country. The Productivity Commission investigated caps in 1999 and 2010. The Productivity Commission remained sceptical about their effectiveness as a harm minimisation measure, as you would know. Their report said that, at the current level of gaming, machine caps are likely to be largely ineffective in addressing gambling harm. The Productivity Commission recommended a cautious approach to relaxing gaming machine numbers whereby no further increase in the number of gaming machines should be made.

The government agrees with the recommendations of the Productivity Commission report. We agree that precommitment is a more effective measure to reduce problem gambling. About 500,000 Australians are at risk of gambling problems, and in my household I was one of them. My father, tragically, when he was alive, had a gambling problem which meant that we lived not just in a working class background but in poverty. He had an alcohol addiction as well. So this is not just political; it is personal for me. To hear the member for Moncrieff talk about that and to politicise this issue in that way is a disgrace. These are important matters.

This government, along with the member for Denison, who has agreed to support legislation—and I ask the other crossbenchers to do something—is going to tackle problem gambling in a way that no government has had the guts to do in the past. We will have a trial of a mandatory precommitment scheme, supported by the Productivity Commission, in the ACT. We will bring in a $250 daily withdrawal limit from ATMs, because about 85 per cent of the withdrawals at ATMs at pubs and clubs are for less than $250. Electronic warnings and cost-of-play displays on poker machines by 2016 are another reform we are going to undertake. There are many other reforms, including additional funding to support 50 new financial counsellors and improved training for staff in pokies venues.

Why do I say this is important? In my electorate we have 42 venues, boasting—I use that word advisedly—1,169 poker machines. In the Ipswich City Council area, the average expenditure per poker machine each month is $5,024. Figures show that gaming machines in Ipswich collect on average about $7 million a month. So Ipswich has a big problem in this regard. Ipswich punters are losing over $5,000 a month on each machine.

There has been a campaign of misinformation attacking this Labor government, the member for Denison and anyone seriously wanting gaming and gambling reform in this country. We see the normalisation of gambling at football matches and on TV screens. We see young men think it is normal to do this. We see older women and older men sacrifice their pensions. The misinformation from Clubs Australia and Clubs Queensland has been disingenuous and inaccurate, and they should be ashamed of themselves. The truth is that Australians lost about $10.5 billion on the pokies in clubs and pubs in 2008-09. And, much worse, during the floods in my home town of Ipswich in January 2011, we saw a significant increase—about an eight per cent increase—in people trying to recover and trying to get back the money they lost during the floods. Clubs that are not dependent on problem gamblers will not have a problem, and it is a point I have made repeatedly. I thank the member for Lyne and the member for Denison for their commitment to gambling reform. We want to work with you to make sure we achieve good outcomes for the people of Australia.

Andrew Wilkie (Denison, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to start by commending the member for Lyne for his interest and involvement in the important issue of gambling reform. His motion clearly has merit. Even more significant, perhaps, is that here we have another member of the federal parliament standing up and arguing for reform in another sign that problem gambling is now a national issue warranting a federal response. If there is anything in the motion of the member for Lyne that I might question, it is not in the substance but rather the member's optimism that state and territory can be trusted to cooperate on any kind of meaningful gambling reform. After all, these are the same governments, with the admirable exception of Western Australia, that have grown fat on the tax revenue off the $12 billion lost each year by poker machine players and in particular the $5 billion from poker machine problem gamblers. No, state and territory governments are part of the problem. It is my belief that gambling reform is now very much a federal issue and that it is the responsibility of the federal parliament to deliver a solution.

Indeed, the Australian government will soon introduce legislation into the federal parliament in an unprecedented move to finally do something about poker machine problem gambling, albeit one disappointingly short of the meaningful reform agreed to by the Prime Minister after the 2010 federal election.

I would also like to commend the member for Lyne for addressing the issue of tax reform in his motion. Currently, the tax collected by the states and territories is not counted as revenue when GST is calculated. This gives a disproportionate advantage to the big gambling states, in particular New South Wales and Queensland. Reform in this area is not only sensible but something that would be to the great advantage of small states like Tasmania that have lower pro rata revenue from gambling taxes.

I have been greatly heartened by the number of my parliamentary colleagues who have expressed a deep interest in problem gambling and its impact on Australia. They know that when a person has a gambling addiction they bet away their money, their family's money, the money to send their children to school and the money that they plan to retire with. In many cases, problem gamblers even steal from their parents or employers. In fact, some 60 per cent of problem gamblers commit crime to support their addiction, according to one study. The percentage of prisoners in Australia with a gambling addiction varies between 17.4 per cent for Queensland and 33 per cent for South Australia.

After borrowing and stealing what they can, problem gamblers are left with no money and no job, so they are likely to lose their marriage and their family. They may lose their house if they have not sold it already. The time it takes varies, but eventually most problem gamblers hit rock bottom. They run out of money, out of options and out of friends and family. Some manage to fight the habit and start their life anew. But others tragically end their lives. Up to 17 per cent of suicides in Australia are thought to be gambling related. There are currently more than 100,000 problem gamblers in Australia. Each one affects between five and 10 other people, so it is not so much to say that gambling adversely affects millions of Australians. That is why I remain focused on this issue.

Australians are among the biggest gambling losers in the world. Gambling addiction causes greater harm to our communities than in other country in the world. On balance, I support this motion and certainly will support the parliament discussing gambling reform at every other possible opportunity. The federal parliament is now the place to tackle gambling reform. I urge each and every one of my colleagues to look for opportunities to take real action to stop the loss of money, the loss of jobs and ultimately the loss of lives. Frankly, we owe it to the Australians who are hurting, the most vulnerable Australians and the Australians who this government is meant to work for and who we are elected to represent.

Debate adjourned.