Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Gambling Reform Bill 2012, the National Gambling Reform (Related Matters) Bill (No. 1) and the National Gambling Reform (Related Matters) Bill (No. 2). Here we go again—another flawed piece of ill-considered legislation rushed through the parliament without due consultation. It is typical of what we have seen from this government, because this legislation will cause harm while failing to address the mischief it is meant to tackle. This legislation will not do anything to help problem gamblers, but it will add an estimated billion dollars of unnecessary cost to the gaming industry. And where will this money, this billion dollars in extra costs, come from? It will come from local charities and from the pockets of local sporting groups and community organisations.

It is interesting to go through the genesis of the main bill. In order to form government, as we all know, after conning the Australian public on the eve of the last election with that infamous promise, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead,' this Prime Minister entered into negotiations with the member for Denison—and I acknowledge his presence in the chamber today as well as his concern about helping people who are addicted to gambling.

The result of those negotiations was this written agreement I am holding up, between our Prime Minister and the member for Denison, which is about as solemn and formal a document as you can get in our parliament. It is not surprising that the member for Denison sought to get this in writing, given the Prime Minister's track record on the broken 'no carbon tax' promise.

I have the agreement here. In clause 7, from 7.1 to 7.8, the details are set out of the promises made by the member for Denison and the Prime Minister. At the bottom, it says, 'Signed this day, the second of September 2010,' and then there is the signature of 'the Hon. Julia Gillard MP, Prime Minister'. We all know how meaningless this signature is: it is just as meaningless as the Prime Minister's statement that there would be no carbon tax under a government she leads. It is simply worthless, as the good member for Denison was later to find out. Just as the Australian people were completely betrayed by PM over the carbon tax, being punished with the world's largest carbon tax, the PM also betrayed the member for Denison over this written agreement.

I will quote a statement made by the member for Denison on the ABC news on 22 January 2012. Referring to the government's plan—this legislation—the member for Denison said:

It is so different that today I have withdrawn my support from the Gillard government. … The Prime Minister made a deal with me, she signed it, and I think Australians expect her—even if they disagree with the content of that deal—to honour that deal.

Frankly, a deal is a deal. I think that our democracy is too precious to be trashed with broken promises and backroom deals.

Senator Xenophon also made some comments on this in an article published in the Sun Herald on 23 January 2012. In that article, he said:

By betraying Andrew Wilkie, Prime Minister Julia Gillard has shown a written, signed agreement with her is as worthless as her word. Don't be fooled by her pathetic claims that she is adopting any real reform. Her plan is a smokescreen that relies on a future government in 2016 to implement any precommitment. (I think we can safely assume that won't be a government Julia Gillard leads.)

Labor has been so obsessed with internal party politics that it forgot about the people it was meant to be protecting. It is a sad but all too familiar pattern of mendacious conduct by this Prime Minister and this government, which will do anything to cling to power.

Moving on to the details of this bill, firstly this bill will require new electronic gaming machines manufactured or imported from the end of next year to be capable of supporting precommitment. Further, all gambling machines will be part of a state-wide precommitment and will be required to display electronic warnings by 2016, with a slightly longer implementation timeline for small venues only. There will be a $250-a-day ATM withdrawal limit for gaming venues other than casinos, which are exempt. It will also create a new government bureaucracy—something that this government is highly skilled at—a federal gaming regulator. This bill also provides that that regulator may charge fees for services and establish two new levies to support measures in this package. Effectively, this legislation is an opportunity for the government to create a new tax on our gaming industry.

Then there is the complete nonsense of the ACT trial. Why have a trial if you have already legislated that gaming machines must have certain new technology? It is like a factory starting production of a good before they have even built or tested a prototype. With this bill, the trial becomes a complete nonsense. And it is absolutely pointless to have a trial here in the ACT when someone can simply jump in their car, drive across the border in 10 to 15 minutes to Queanbeyan, where the trial will not apply; where the precommitment will not apply. The trial in the ACT is a complete and utter nonsense.

The other problem with this is the unrealistic time frame that this bill imposes. That runs completely contrary to the expert advice from the Productivity Commission, which stated:

Realistically, most State and Territory governments could not quickly implement a genuinely binding pre-commitment system. Full-scale implementation and advanced interfaces with the gambler would also require all machines to have card readers (or other player identification devices) and software upgrades—a costly measure if required to be done quickly.

The timeline that this bill imposes is a reckless rejection of the advice of the Productivity Commission.

Furthermore, the government is ignoring the technical evidence received by suppliers of gaming technology such as the Gaming Technologies Association, which suggested that the timelines for implementation could not be achieved, not least because the term 'precommitment' is not even clearly defined. It is important to note that the Gaming Technologies Association, which is the sole body with expertise in this area, categorically stated that the implementation timelines cannot be met. In a letter dated 22 November—only last week—from the Gaming Technologies Association addressed to Minister Jenny Macklin, they said:

GTA has repeatedly put on the public record the processes necessary to make changes of such significance at a national level. Once the Regulations, definitions, functional specifications and technical standards are in place, then GTA's members will require at least 12 months development time for changes at the machine level …

The 12 months development time above does not take into account the time needed for changes to the plethora of state-wide monitoring systems, casino management systems and venue loyalty systems. In addition, it does not take into account the complexity and potential delays which might arise at the State and Territory regulatory level …

And it goes on. GTA called on the government to amend the bill. This government simply cannot ignore this evidence. With this government ignoring important evidence from technical experts, is it any wonder that it is known for its reverse Midas touch, where everything it touches completely turns to mush?

This bad policy will cost the clubs billions of dollars to implement. Rather than them updating their gambling machines every 10 years or so, this legislation will force them to upgrade all their machines in just a few years time. And of course this has a cost. Who is going to pay for it? It will simply come from the pockets of local sporting groups and local charities.

This year, Club Central Menai, which is located in my electorate of Hughes, gave a donation of $400,000 to the Sylvanvale Foundation and a further donation of $1 million to Calvary Health Care—a total of $1.4 million to provide respite care for children with disabilities. Donations of this kind are at risk because clubs will be forced to divert money that they are giving for this type donation to upgrade their machines to something that is completely useless.

Then there is the list of other, smaller grants going to so many local sporting groups in my area, which will all be at risk because of this ill-considered generation. I will go through some of the groups whose donations and money that ClubGRANTS distributes is at risk. Sporting groups such as the Barden Ridgebacks Football Club, the Barden Ridgebacks Netball Club, the Bangor Barden Ridge Comets Cricket Club, the Bangor Football Club, the Menai District Junior Rugby League, the Menai Dragons Basketball Club, the Menai Hawks Football Club, the Menai Illawong Physical Culture Club, the Menai Swim Club, the Menai Volleyball Association, St Patricks Soccer Club, the Comets Baseball Club, Illawong Softball Club et cetera. Then there are the community groups and charities that are at risk of losing their donation because of this legislation. They include—and this is just from Club Central Menai in my electorate: Autism Spectrum Australia, Alzheimer's Australia, Australian Red Cross, Cure For Life Foundation, Enough is Enough Anti Violence Movement, the Lions Club of Menai, Make-A-Wish Foundation, the Starlight Children's Foundation, the Children's Hospital at Westmead, the Wesley Mission, the Salvation Army, the Prostate Cancer Institute, the Rotary Club of Engadine, the Rotary Club of Menai—the list goes on. All of these organisations will be at risk because the clubs will be forced to divert money that goes to these associations to bring in this new technology that is being rushed through.

What is it for? To bring in mandatory precommitment—an idea for which there is no evidence that it even works. The reason this will not work is that a player can set any limit that they want. Someone who is a problem gambler can set a $1,000 or $2,000 limit—any limit they want, well above what they can afford to spend. If someone feels they cannot control the urge to put an unlimited amount of money down the throat of a poker machine, the solution is simple—they take a limited amount of cash with them to their club or their pub and they leave their cash card at home.

This does nothing for internet gambling. Today you can sit in the comfort of your home and you can play on the internet exactly what looks and feels like a poker machine. In fact, here it is, Mr Deputy Speaker Murphy—I have logged straight on to the internet. You can sit there and press the button and you can play a gambling machine that looks exactly like a poker machine from the comfort of your home. Of course, when you do that there are none of the counselling services available that our clubs and pubs provide. No tax is paid to the Australian government. There is no support service. The money simply goes straight overseas.

We have seen this failed idea happen in exactly the same way with the alcopops tax. We saw where the government thought, 'We normally have a problem here with people drinking pre-mixed spirits, so we will increase the tax on alcopops.' But what happened? Consumers simply moved and bought a bottle of bourbon and a bottle of Coke and they mixed it themselves. The risk is of the same thing happening here, where people will move to online gambling.

I believe that there is a better way. I genuinely admit that there is a major problem with gambling for some Australians, but we must also acknowledge that many Australians do love a punt, because ultimately gambling is a form of entertainment. The best way to tackle this is with informational remedies. A person playing a poker machine today has no idea what the rate of return is that they are playing. They can be playing two identical machines, side by side, which can be set at different rates of return without the player knowing. If we bring in these informational remedies they will cost an absolute fraction of what these costs are; it has been shown that the best way to cure addictions is through informational remedies and counselling. That is a better way. We bring these informational remedies in, we bring in price mechanisms into the club, and that would be a better way to tackle problem gambling. Time expired.

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

This parliament presents an historic opportunity for poker machine reform, and it is vitally important that we seize this opportunity and that we put our support behind the government's package of reforms in the National Gambling Reform Bill 2012, the National Gambling Reform (Related Matters) Bill (No. 1) 2012 and National Gambling Reform (Related Matters) Bill (No. 2) 2012 before us now. Yes, the reforms on the table now are much less than what might have been—much less than the one-dollar maximum bets recommended by the Productivity Commission in 2010 and which I tried to secure immediately following the election, also in 2010. Yes, they are much less than the rollout of mandatory precommitment also recommended by the Productivity Commission in 2010 in which the Prime Minister agreed to personally but then walked away from in January this year. Despite all that, I believe these bills have merit and are worth supporting. They are worth supporting not because voluntary precommitment is much use, but rather because the bills make explicit in section 33 of the principal bill that the precommitment to be rolled out must be capable of disallowing unregistered play. In other words, it must be capable of mandatory precommitment at the flick of a switch—as the expression goes. This is very important, because all it would take in the future is for a federal, state or territory government of good heart to flick that switch and in doing so finally provide one of the most effective harm-minimisation measures available.

These bills are also worth supporting because they will finally establish the precedent of federal intervention in poker machine regulation. That is important because all of the states and territories, with the exception of Western Australia, have shown that they simply cannot be trusted when it comes to regulating their poker machine industries, or when it comes to implementing meaningful reforms to protect gamblers from the scourge of problem gambling. It seems the rivers of fool's gold in poker machine taxation revenue are just too attractive for the states and territories, even though quality research out of Tasmania this year has shown that the cost to the community of problem gambling is as much as twice the tax collected.

I understand that the numbers are tight for these bills, in part because many of the members and parties in this place are every bit as conflicted as their state and territory colleagues. For instance, the opposition opposes the bills for political reasons, even though voluntary precommitment is in fact their policy. Any number of members throughout this place do not like these bills, and many members will indeed vote against them, because those members are effectively on the payroll of the pokies industry on account of the fat donations they have received already or have been promised. In my opinion, that is corruption—not, of course, in the criminal sense, but it is every bit as dodgy as bags full of cash changing hands in some corrupt developing country.

Of course, politicians on the take are just a part of this story, because the real villains are the greedy poker machine barons who lie and bully to get their way, determined to do almost whatever it takes to fleece the unfortunate and to protect their profits. Make no mistake: we are not talking here about harmless recreation or quaint little businesses. No, we are often talking about big business, as illustrated by the fact the Productivity Commission found that in 2008-09 some $11.9 billion was lost on the pokies in this country.

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

A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have reflected on the comments made by the member for Denison and I believe they are offensive to me. He is implying that I am involved in, to use his word, 'corruption'. I ask that he withdraw it.

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Denison?

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

I have been very careful not to level that accusation at any member. I was very careful to say corruption not in the criminal sense but every bit as 'dodgy'—that was the word I carefully chose—as the way cash changes hands in a developing country.

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Denison.

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

So we are often talking about big business, as illustrated by the fact the Productivity Commission found that in 2008-09 some $11.9 billion was lost on the pokies in this country. How much of this was lost by problem gamblers, I ask? Some $5 billion. Yes, that is right—some $5,000 million was lost by problem gamblers in just one year. Yet the industry says that spending just a fraction of one year's loss, spread across a number of years, is unacceptable. That is unadulterated hogwash. What about the people involved, I ask the industry? What about the 95,000 Australians with a poker machine gambling problem? What about the five to 10 people affected by each one of those problem gamblers who push the number knocked around by poker machines into a million plus? What about the mums and dads, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters? What about the bosses, colleagues and friends?

To the parties and members in this place who will oppose these bills, I ask: how on earth can you put money ahead of people? I also ask: what do you say to the constituent who has spent eight years in jail on account of poker machine related crime, or to the taxpayers who paid for it, or to the hospital patients who went without timely treatment because the money that might have gone into health care went into the prison service instead? Or will the pokies industry donation to your next election campaign make it all worthwhile? What do you say to the constituent who has been spending the housekeeping money on her pokies addiction and keeping it secret from her partner and who has now run up a $6,000 Aurora power bill and finally, after repeated warnings and four failed payment plans, had the power cut off? What will you say to the children if child protection takes them from their parents? Or, again, are you okay with all that because the pokies industry election donation will take the edge off your sadness?

To those who would vote against these bills, I also ask: what do you say to the constituent whose employee had been stealing from the till for so long that their business failed and they were bankrupted? How do you reckon they felt when they lost their house—or do you actually have no idea or interest, the more pressing issue for you being the concern that your local pokies venues learn quickly of your loyalty this week and donate handsomely to your re-election account?

Finally, what do you say to the man who emailed me last year to tell me about his brother, who lost the lot at Crown Casino, again, and who then went upstairs to his free room—supplied because he was a 'good customer'—only to kill himself because he could not handle the misery of his terrible pokies addiction any longer? Would you say it was his own fault for not being responsible for his actions? Perhaps you would look concerned, wring your hands theatrically and mutter something about Crown being a responsibly run venue employing a great many people. Maybe you are already a beneficiary of Crown's largesse, or maybe you are not and are hoping like hell the casino empire notices your loyalty this week. But just watch out, because you may well go to hell.

In any case, don't turn around and say the pokies industry is doing a better job than it is given credit for and that it is committed to reform, because frankly that would be crap. For a moment at least, spare a thought for the witness who appeared before the Parliamentary Joint Select Committee on Gambling Reform this year who recounted how she had frequented almost daily one of three pokies venues in South Australia during more than a decade of poker machine problem gambling and who was never once approached by a staff member about her gambling problem. In other words, all they ever cared about was her money—bastards. And, for the record, that was the New York Bar and Grill, the Flagstaff Hotel and the Tonsley Hotel.

These are venues run by the same sorts of characters who run Clubs New South Wales and Clubs Australia and who threatened to sue me last year and who are yet to withdraw that threat. I say to the poker machine industry: well may you continue to try and silence your opponents, but eventually the reformers will win. In fact, they are winning. Mark my words: those who fight for change will win and the pages of history will justly condemn those who have stood in their way.

Mind you, Deputy Speaker, there are already plenty of books full of stories about poker machines and the case against the current pokies industry—like the benchmark 2010 Productivity Commission report, which has been central to the political and public debate raging over poker machine reform these last two years. There are also the four reports which have now been brought down by the Joint Select Committee on Gambling Reform—and again I thank the committee secretariat and, in particular, Committee Secretary Lyn Beverley for their assistance progressing the issue of gambling reform in often controversial and difficult circumstances.

Notable also are the recent study out of Victoria which found problem gambling to be the second most prevalent cause of crime after drugs and the 2008 study commissioned by the Tasmanian government which found that employment in pubs actually fell after the introduction of poker machines, making a mockery of all the recent nonsense about poker machine reform being a job killer. Frankly, there are not many jobs in emptying machines of cash and turning the lights out for four hours or so a day, which is what is done in many pokies venues. Or maybe it is the unpleasant job of cleaning the carpet and stools of the urine left by the problem gamblers desperate to stay at their machines where all these jobs the industry keeps talking about are to be found.

I will not go on, because by now I reckon everyone knows where I land on the need for poker machine reform and the fact that I will support the government's bills. But I would add that I will not support any significant further watering down of the reforms, and in particular I will not support any attempt to remove the crucial section 33, where the requirement is detailed that the precommitment to be rolled out must be mandatory-ready. Those two paragraphs, just nine lines, are the heart of this reform and must be preserved.

It is obviously now up to the parliament to decide this matter. I can only hope there are enough men and women of genuine goodwill to see these bills proceed. If not, if these bills are voted down, then this parliament should stand condemned for failing the Australian community and failing it very badly. But I do not think that will happen. I think instead that, despite the shortcomings of these reforms, we are actually about to see a moment this parliament can be proud of.

In closing, I recognise the Reverend Tim Costello, who joined us here in the gallery for a short while, who leads the Churches Gambling Taskforce and has been a very strong voice for gambling reform. Thank you, Tim, for being here today and thank you for what you do to help some of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable people in the country.

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

What an extraordinary speech that was by the member for Denison on the National Gambling Reform Bill 2012 and the two related bills. In fact, I would put it as one of the most extraordinary speeches that I have heard in this chamber—not on the basis of its soundness and not on the basis of its dispassionate approach to good public policy and good policy advocacy but on the basis that it was so completely filled with sanctimony and moral superiority and an attitude that if you are not with me then you are part of some evil cohort destined to ruin the lives of thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of Australians.

Let me make it very clear from the outset that I stand here as someone who is concerned about problem gambling, despite the empty rhetoric that comes from the member for Denison. I challenge the member for Denison, and indeed all of those who wring their hands in this chamber and outside this chamber and claim that they have moral superiority when it comes to being concerned about the lives and the families of problem gamblers. They do not. The reason they do not is that this is not a choice between black and white; this is not a choice between saying, 'I stand with the families of problem gamblers,' or, 'I stand with those that are involved in the industry.' It is much more sophisticated than that. It is much more grey than that. It is much more complex than that.

The attitude of the member for Denison, like that of many in this debate, betrays the problem gamblers that he tries to assist. Not once did I hear the member for Denison make reference to the personal internal challenges that those who struggle with addiction must face. Instead, we heard a litany of gross overexaggerations from the member for Denison about how the problem is the evil industry that causes these issues. That is the betrayal of the problem gamblers that the member for Denison and others seek to help.

The problem with the approach that has been adopted by the speaker previous to me is this: while he expresses profound concern about the devastating impact of problem gambling, I do not hear the member for Denison—or other advocates out there—adopting the same approach with those who are, for example, addicted to alcohol. I believe the impact of alcoholism is as strong on those individuals and their families as the impact of pokie addiction. I also do not hear the member for Denison and others going out there and talking about people's addiction to food. There are people who are morbidly obese. The cost to the public payroll as a consequence of that morbid obesity is significant and profound. Believe you me, a father or mother upon whom a family is dependent who dies of a heart attack or stroke at 40 years of age leaves just as much of a hole in their family's lives as does a pokie addict who unfortunately takes their own life. But there are no claims from the member for Denison or others about those that are addicted to food. There is no finger-pointing at the industry, no-one saying that the industry is the problem.

Let us continue the madness of the approach that is put forward by the member for Denison and others. What about those who are addicted to credit card shopping? There are people who get over their heads when it comes to the amount of money they put on their credit cards. I would suggest the number of Australians indebted on their credit cards because they cannot control their spending would far exceed the numbers of Australians who are addicted to poker machines. Where is the focus on the industry when it comes to those who cannot control their spending on credit cards? There is no mention. They are apparently not victims, nor are those who are morbidly obese, nor are those who are alcohol dependent. Instead, there is this complete preoccupation, driven by the member for Denison and others, about poker machines.

It is not that simple. Apart from the glaring hypocrisy of singling out one particular industry over a multitude of others, each with almost equal, if not more significant, impacts on taxpayer dollars, the reality is that that is all conveniently brushed aside by those who like to pretend that this is all about the evils of the club industry and the hotel industry. Well, it is not. It is certainly not that. There are of course some irresponsible operators. I am not going to pretend that there are not. But I also sincerely believe that the industry labels them irresponsible operators and the industry works in a constructive way in an attempt to ensure that those people do not continue to operate in the industry. Why? Because it is uncommercial, in the first instance. Even if that is not a good enough reason, even if profit motive is not a good enough reason, I also believe it is because, at their core, these people who make decisions have families and these are community clubs that benefit their community, and they know the negative outcomes that flow from operators that are irresponsible.

So, on a number of levels, I reject completely the approach of and, most importantly, the sanctimony that comes from the member for Denison, because it is a fraud perpetrated on problem gamblers. They need to see through the rhetoric that we hear from the member for Denison. Frankly, the comments about and accusations made against members of parliament on either the Labor side or the coalition side that in some way we sell out our point of view on the basis of electoral donations is an absolutely shameful and disgusting comment to make. It strikes me that the member for Denison likes to throw out these allegations but when it comes to standing up and backing it up he runs for the hills, not even having the courage—and I know exactly what the member for Denison was saying—to stand up to the comments he made only a minute earlier.

Mr Wilkie interjecting—

You had your opportunity! I think the member for Denison needs to realise that he needs to follow through. It is one thing to stand here in cowards castle, as we call it, and to level accusations at Labor members and at coalition members, but it is an entirely separate thing to back it up. I say to the member for Denison: if you have an ounce of backbone, if you have any evidence, go out there and say it. Do not cast aspersions in this chamber. Do not make accusations without having the backbone, the spine, to support your comments, because those comments are disgraceful.

I note, in addition to that, that the member for Denison has Betfair in his constituency. I do not see too much concern expressed by the member for Denison for those that are engaged in Betfair's exchanges. Likewise, I note that the member for Denison and Senator Nick Xenophon, the No Pokies party senator, are very happy to stand alongside GetUp! They are very happy, when it comes to measures like this bill, to stand alongside an organisation like GetUp! What do we know about GetUp!? Its principal financial backer is actually a key supporter and one of the founders or operators of a thing called NextGen Gaming, one of the biggest operators of not EGMs but online poker machines. They are happy to take the money from an online poker machine operator. They are happy to stand alongside NextGen and GetUp!

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

Mr Deputy Speaker, I raise a point of order. That was an outrageous accusation. I have never received a cent from the GetUp! organisation. I want that recorded in the Hansard, please, and I would ask the member for Moncrieff to correct what he has just said.

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Denison will resume his seat.

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

I said that they are happy to stand beside GetUp!, because they have done joint doorstops and numerous media campaigns with GetUp! In fact, GetUp! and Senator Xenophon stood alongside each other at the Woolworths AGM only a week or two ago.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I raise a point of order. I am reluctant; I know that this is a very passionate debate. But I would ask you to draw the member back to the content of the bill, please.

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The parliamentary secretary will resume her seat.

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

It is clear to me, and let us just make the record very clear on this as well, that problem gamblers have a problem by definition in the same way that alcoholics do, in the same way that people who spend more than they can afford on their credit cards do and in the same way that people who are morbidly obese do. They all have problems. In fact, I think it would be a human condition. We could say that each of us does, and they are personal challenges that we must overcome. To suggest that there is a silver-bullet solution in legislation like that before the House today is to betray the problem at the core of this issue.

For that reason, we are bound in our obligation to the Australian people to make policy decisions based upon good and sound public policy, reasoned public policy, recognising that the decisions we make in this chamber have a profound impact in the community. We do not do it on the basis of some simplified, distilled-down view of the world that says it is industry or it is the problem gambler. We owe it to those who are affected to do it on the basis of sound public policy. Sound public policy, when you scrutinise this legislation, does not support the case for this legislation.

First and foremost, the reason why this legislation is not a panacea is that it is undeliverable. For those that manufacture EGMs, for the industry that employs roughly 200,000 Australians, for the industry that supports community clubs throughout the country, for the industry that provides a great deal of recreation for millions of Australians—very few of whom have a problem when it comes to controlling their gambling—the consequences of this legislation are significant. This legislation—which, by the way, was slammed through the Joint Select Committee on Gambling Reform with one day of hearings—is going to massively impact on the ability of this industry to keep people in jobs, to continue to invest in local communities and to continue to operate for the benefit of employees, employers and the community.

The member for Denison and others would say, 'Well, I don't care. If there's a consequence to that I don't care, because this legislation has got to go through, because we've got to be seen to be doing something. Even if it's not everything I want, it's better to do something than it is to do nothing.' Well, I am not sure that is the case. Industry has made clear that this legislation will not be able to be complied with in the timeframes that have been assigned to it. In the first instance there was confusion, and I would suggest that the member for Denison, based upon questions that he asked in the committee hearing, was confused about this exact matter.

For starters, new games that have to be applied across EGMs require regulatory approval from state and territory based regulators, and in order to be compliant with this legislation new games will require approval, effectively, within 12 months. That is almost impossible for the industry to deliver, because they rely upon the regulators approving the development of new games. So the industry has a gun held at their heads saying, 'You must comply and roll out new EGMs in 12 months that have regulatory approval. Oh, by the way, we haven't spoken in any meaningful way with state government regulators.' We had the South Australian regulator indicate that the department had not even spoken to them about what the requirements were going to be.

We have an industry employing 200,000 people. We have the threat of significant job losses. We have small clubs being forced to engage in expenditure that, in many instances, is likely to drive those clubs to the wall, but apparently that does not matter. Apparently it is the better to do something than to do nothing. What we are seeking to do as a coalition is to say that the timeframes in this legislation are unrealistic and undeliverable. In fact, the timeframes in this legislation are not even in accordance with what the Productivity Commission recommends. The question would be: on what basis were the timeframes altered? Were they altered because it is good for industry? No. Were they altered because this government has more superior insight to the problem than the Productivity Commission? No. They were altered for one reason, and one reason alone, and that is the member for Denison. That is reason the timeframes on the legislation were altered.

I say to the member for Denison in the concluding moments of this debate: the families of problem gamblers are important, but just as important are the families of employees in the pub and club sector. These are families who rely on a breadwinner with a job in the pub or club industry that helps to pay the mortgage for those families. You will not help the family of a problem gambler by putting an employee or by putting a family on the breadline, on the dole, when it comes— (Time expired)

Government members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Emotions seem to have bubbled up in this debate. That is very interesting. Who has moral supremacy? Who is sanctimonious? It gets a bit rude when it is done in such an unctuous way. I have to return to my electorate where problem gambling is front and centre, and I have to be judged by my actions. Those opposite suddenly think that this is all about the parliament suddenly becoming anti an industry—clubs and hotels—and that we have painted them with devil tails and horns. I know that people I represent work in that industry, and I hold nothing against that industry. In fact, I am of an age to understand that that industry has been pretty flexible and has always been profitable. I suggest, Deputy Speaker, that you may also be of an age that understands that hotels were profitable before they were allowed to have poker machines.

I am not standing here asking that the poker machines be ripped out. I remember that, as a young exchange student in the US state of Maryland, I was taken to a dining institution because the crabs of Chesapeake Bay were supposed to be a great cultural experience for me. As I went into the great hall, where the crabs were piled up and you were given a bib and got the shells all over you, we passed through the gaming room. The old one-armed bandits were in the gaming room. But for every one-armed bandit there were two spots where there had been one-armed bandits. Now, without divulging my age at the time, this was the late sixties. So these debates have been going on for ages. With all due respect to the member for Denison, in this place the debates did not start when he arrived.

In its present iteration and in the previous contributions to this debate the Productivity Commission's inquiry was mentioned, but we must remember that that was the Labor government as formed in the last parliament which instituted that. Certainly, the member for Denison, as a great catalyst, focused more attention on what we could do to mitigate the issue of problem gambling, The one thing that the member for Denison said, which I agree with totally, was that no matter what we think of this piece of legislation, no matter if we think it is inadequate, it is the first time we have seen the intervention of the national parliament to address this problem.

To the member for Moncrieff: of course there is no silver bullet. There is no silver bullet for most problems we confront. But all we are saying is that this is an example of where we are willing to say, as a national government and as a national parliament, that (a) we think this is a problem and (b) we want to start on a journey to see if we can do something to lessen the effects of problem gambling, not only on the problem gamblers themselves but, even more importantly, on their families and the communities in which those people live.

The part where there is the flexibility, the part where we can be sure that things will survive, is the broader umbrella of the industry. But it is not the hotel and clubs industry that this is confronting. This is confronting poker machines. And why should we confront that? At least we do not have the nonsense so far in this debate that this is in some way nanny state legislation, because that was one of the things on which in my previous role in this place I decided I could not be silent on on a piece of public policy. There were two reasons for this. There was the argument that all of this was nanny state—that we were telling people what they could do with their own lives—and, secondly, that from a Commonwealth point of view it is best if we just encourage the communities themselves to make a solution.

Let's get this straight: this becomes a problem because the state, whether it is the Commonwealth government or state and territory governments, creates legal gambling—in this case, legal gambling through electronic machines. So it is the business of government to be concerned about what that initiative creates.

The second thing is the assumption that all is really happy out in the world because we have people who know of these problems and they are tapping people on the shoulder and saying, 'Do you realise what you are doing to yourself?' For a decade in the City of Whittlesea, one of the municipalities in my electorate, there has been a responsible gaming forum, underpinned by a document called the Responsible Gaming Strategy. This group had representatives from gaming venues throughout the municipality, from non-government organisations that dealt with the problems that arose out of people's misuse of machines and from the local government authority itself. In the early days it appeared that slowly but surely some things were occurring. But it did not last long. Sadly, in the last month we have seen the non-government organisations walk away from the group because they do not believe that the venue operators will sit down with them and tackle in an appropriate way the issues that need to be discussed.

It is not about trying to destroy something. It is about saying something. In the last contribution I heard talk of irresponsible gaming venues. I agree that there are probably very few of those, but what worries me is that even the most responsible of venues, working as they are under the regulations they have to work within and under the laws, cannot be standing alongside everybody as they interact with these machines. That is a nonsense.

We have to acknowledge that there is great evidence of the scourge of problem gambling, and it is something that happens at a cost not only to the individuals and their families but also at a cost to the community and to government, both of which have to pick up the pieces. Even if you take the most economic rationalist view to this, or if you are a bean counter in east block or west block or wherever Finance is, you have to start to realise that there is a public benefit to tackling this problem.

And then there are the doomsayers talking about the loss of jobs. Please step back and think about what you are saying. There is the argument about the machines. I must admit that it is a long time since I have been in a gaming venue. I was very worried when smoking was banned from venues, because that was one of the reasons that I never bothered with it—I could not put up with the smoke—and I was a bit worried that I would start to go back, but I have not. But every time you would go to one of them there would be some different animal, beast, sphinx or something that was supposed to attract you with the flashing colours and the music—the whole palaver. Some would say it is the entertainment value. So there is the issue of the flexibility of the way people produce machines and the turnover of machines that already occurs. We have not gone into the fact that there is a lot of tie-up between a very few because of control of the machines. If we had a true debate about the whole industry there are plenty of things we could do on behalf of those who actually operate the venues. Because of the way that any market works, there is not the degree of fair trade that we would like to see.

But I digress a little. The main reason I support this bill is that four hotels in my electorate are among the top 10 hotels for electronic gambling machine turnover in Victoria. When you look at the top venues, you find that their gambling machine turnover is—surprise, surprise!—statistically tied to the socioeconomic disadvantage of the community in which the venues are located. I find it a little bit galling that community damage from problem gambling is most likely to occur in communities that can least afford to be damaged. We should sit down and calmly look at damage to communities from problem gambling and decide whether we: (a) acknowledge the problem; and (b) are willing to do something about it.

There is unlikely to be a book about my time in this place even though people might be very interested in a chapter about the period from late 2011 to the end of my parliamentary career. If people say that this period might be relevant to why we are standing here today debating this bill, I say to them: the book is not going to be produced, so you will never know. Problem gambling is an issue on which it is appropriate for this place to have a view. We should not run around like Henny Penny and say, 'This is the end of clubs in New South Wales and Queensland.' Rather, we should calmly look at what we are going to do about problem gambling, which is acknowledged to be a scourge of individuals and families. Plenty of examples of this scourge have been given in the debate on this bill, and we all know somebody who has fallen foul of being able to get over the urge to see some sort of golden nirvana which they hope will come to them overnight by some great stroke of fortune. If that is entertainment, it is not in accord with any definition of the word I know.

A lot of things in this bill will enable us to test the effectiveness of various measures which people now contest, to see the degree to which various measures can be effective and to impose—without having to worry about the cooperation of venue operators—a limit on ATM withdrawals in venues. A limit to such withdrawals was simply requested, without any dialogue being entered into, at the City of Whittlesea responsible gambling forum, and that was the straw that broke the camel's back there. On balance, I would like to see more done than is envisaged in this bill; but, on the basis that the bill puts us as a federal parliament in the game and we can build on it, I am in full support of it. I, like the member for Denison, hope that we do not see too much tinkering along the way as we produce the final bill. (Time expired)

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a privilege to follow the member for Scullin in this debate. He is a decent man who gave what I consider to be a passionate speech. However, in this place, while we sometimes make speeches which are based in our hearts, we also give speeches which are based in our heads. I stand here as somebody who is concerned about problem gambling. I do not like the prevalence of pokies in our clubs, in our pubs and in our casinos—and I never will.

The Productivity Commission has found that 600,000 Australians play the pokies on a weekly basis and that 15 per cent of these Australians—some 90,000—are problem gamblers. These figures are too high. Also, there are 200,000 electronic gaming machines across the country, which is a significant number.

In this place we need to advocate for good policy which is efficient and effective and which produces good outcomes, not policy which merely makes us feel good or which we make on the basis of political weakness or some grand political bargain. I have no doubt that the member for Denison passionately believes in his cause. Senator Xenophon in the Senate, along with the member for Denison—and many others like them—are only pursuing the eradication of problem gambling, which they consider to be a vital issue.

I am asked to speak and to vote on the legislation before this House, and it is not good legislation. In fact, it is rushed legislation. It might surprise people listening to his broadcast to know that only one week was allowed for consultation on this bill—only one week was allotted to the presentation of submissions on it. There needs to be a proper inquiry. We need to allow the states, whose powers are to be usurped by this bill, the opportunity to properly consider its implications. That is what COAG is about—it is a body that brings the Commonwealth and the states and territories together to consider legislation such as this. It does not surprise me that Senator Xenophon, who is so passionate about the issue of problem gambling, said that he is voting against this bill.

We need to trace the origins of the legislation before us. It all started after the election, on 21 August 2010, when the now Prime Minister of this country did not have the numbers on the floor of this House to form a government. So what did she do? She reached out to the Independents to get their vote, and the member for Denison responded in kind. He put in requests for hundreds of millions of dollars of government money—of taxpayers' money—for his electorate. And he struck a deal—what he considered to be a deal—with the Prime Minister, in which he was promised her government's commitment to mandatory precommitment. It is there in paragraph 7.5 of a document agreed to by the Prime Minister of Australia—an agreement which says that this government will commit to implementing in full a mandatory precommitment policy. And then, after no consideration and no consultation, it was presented to the Australian people as a fait accompli.

I am a member of the Joint Select Committee on Gambling Reform that was asked to look at this mandatory precommitment idea. And so we did. We heard from expert witnesses like Professor Alexander Blaszczynski, Director of the University of Sydney's Gambling Treatment Clinic and Research Unit, who warned that the 'unintended consequence of introducing precommitment devices is the development of a black market in player cards, whereby player cards can be sold or hired to players who have exceeded their personal limits'. Another submission highlighted, 'Nova Scotia in Canada discovered that 37 per cent of players shared their player pre-commitment cards for periods up to one week.'

So there we have it: the Prime Minister of Australia agreeing in writing to a mandatory precommitment scheme in order to win the vote of the member for Denison—a scheme which has been criticised and critiqued by leading professors. It would only be with an Orwellian Big Brother biometric identifier that we would be able to put in place some effective precommitment system. Despite all these legitimate concerns by experts in the field, the Prime Minister proceeded with this mandatory precommitment idea.

Then things started to get rough—the waters started to get rough. The political climate started to turn and the Prime Minister had members on her own side, like the member for Eden-Monaro, coming out and criticising this mandatory precommitment idea. The member for Eden-Monaro said that he had 97 clubs in his electorate—a bellwether seat for the Labor Party and for this parliament—and that we need a solution that will not 'kill' our clubs. Suddenly you had members from the other side, like deer or rabbits in the headlights, going out to public forums in their electorates where thousands of people expressed their concerns with these mandatory precommitment ideas. And so then we had the successor to the carbon tax backflip and the border protection backflip—the mandatory precommitment backflip. Our Prime Minister changed her tune. She suddenly went out and said:

The circumstances in this Parliament are clear … there is not the support in the House of Representatives for the Andrew Wilkie plan …

Hang on! You agreed to Andrew Wilkie's plan. You signed an agreement on Andrew Wilkie's plan—a contract with him. But when the political waters started to get rough, you backed out. Jenny Macklin, minister for families, said, 'We have to work with the parliament that we have'. Come on! You made a deal! You led the Australian people into believing the deal that you were going to deliver mandatory precommitment. Then Mr Wilkie, the member for Denison, came out and said:

… I regard the Prime Minister to be in breach of the written agreement she signed, leaving me no option but to honour my word and end my current relationship with her Government.

Therefore, Mr Wilkie is a man of his word, but the Prime Minister is not.

I am going to leave you with the daddy of them all—with what Senator Xenophon, a man who is passionate about this issue, said. He said:

… Julia Gillard has shown a written, signed agreement with her is as worthless as her word.

In fact, you have to wonder how the remaining independents can trust any assurances they receive from the Prime Minister.

Ms Gillard, it seems, reserves the right to back out of anything if it suits her immediate political interest.

Senator Xenophon continued:

Don't be fooled by her pathetic claims that she is adopting any real reform.

There we have it: the Prime Minister saying that suddenly the mood in the parliament has changed, and Andrew Wilkie backing out of that deal because the Prime Minister did so first. And there we have it: Senator Xenophon saying, 'Don't be fooled by her pathetic claims that she is adopting any real reform.'

No wonder the Prime Minister propped up the member for Fisher, the then Speaker, Peter Slipper. No wonder the Prime Minister propped up Craig Thomson, the member for Dobell. It was all about getting the numbers to roll Andrew Wilkie. That is what those opposite are about: political expediency. They do not care about problem gamblers.

We have before this House legislation which will do three things: it will require that new machines required or imported from the end of 2013 be capable of supporting precommitment; it will require that all gaming machines are part of a state-wide precommitment system and display electronic warnings by 2016, with longer implementation timelines for smaller venues; and it will require a $250-a-day ATM withdrawal limit for gaming venues other than casinos.

We have concerns with this legislation. As I said at the start, when we come into this parliament, our job is not to support feel-good policies; it is to support good policies—policies that produce real outcomes for the Australian people. What we have in this legislation before this House are bills that provide insufficient time for consultation or review. They will have an impact on employment in the hospitality sector, and that impact will be particularly acute in regional and rural areas. There is a lack of time for implementation of these new measures, and those measures will come with a major cost burden. There are going to have to be significant hardware and software upgrades. We heard concerns from constitutional experts that, while gambling should fall under the jurisdiction of the states, this legislation is firmly placing it under the jurisdiction of the federal parliament. We have yet to see a demonstration of direct causality between ATMs and problem gambling. The Gaming Technologies Association, the expert peak body for this industry, said categorically that the time lines in this bill cannot be met.

As I said at the start, I am concerned about problem gambling—90,000 problem gamblers, as reported by the Productivity Commission, is too many. We heard from people whose lives have been ruined by gambling. But we are asked to think about how we can best improve the lives of problem gamblers and the answer to that was never going to be the mandatory precommitment policy which was first agreed between the Prime Minister and the member for Denison. We heard expert testimony to that effect. It was never going to work. That does not, however, excuse the Prime Minister and the Labor government for ratting on that deal simply because it did not suit their political purposes.

We need more harm minimisation measures. I am all for that. In fact, one-on-one counselling for people in need is so important. But we also need to breed greater responsibility on a personal level in our community and we need to get help for those people who cannot help themselves. But the legislation before us is a top-down solution to a bottom-up problem. My fear is that, since we have seen so many backflips, about-turns and costly mistakes by this government, the Australian people no longer trust them to deliver good policy in the national interest. We do need to help problem gamblers. We need to find a better way. But that does not mean we support bad legislation.

Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The National Gambling Reform Bill 2012 and related bills, which I strongly support, have been a long time coming. It is worth going through some of the history, particularly as I am following the member for Kooyong. Uncharacteristically for him, his contribution provided more heat than light in explaining the problem and the legislation before the House.

Problem gambling is real and the weight of evidence about the incidence of problem gambling in this country is indisputable. It is true that many Australians enjoy a punt—I am one of them. But it is equally true that gambling is different for the close to half a million Australians who are either at risk of becoming problem gamblers or who already are. For them, their family and their friends, it is no longer about enjoying a punt. They have an addiction. They have a problem.

It has been estimated that the social cost of problem gambling is somewhere in the vicinity of $4.7 billion a year. On average, problem gamblers lose somewhere in the vicinity of $21,000 per year. For anybody, perhaps with the exception of the high rollers of this world, $21,000 a year is a hell of a lot of money. It is money which could be spent on groceries, a new musical instrument for one of the kids, a pair of footy boots or netball shoes, sending kids to school or paying down the family mortgage. Instead, this money, in the vast majority of cases, is being fed into a poker machine and feeding the problem gambler's addiction.

The member for Kooyong, in his fiery contribution, suggested that this parliament was somehow rushing into consideration of this legislation—political amnesia on his part. Like me, he participated in the first inquiry the 43rd Parliament had into the issue of problem gambling and the proposal to introduce mandatory precommitment. If my memory serves me correctly, we visited most of the mainland capitals, as well as Tasmania and other places in between. There were more than 10 to 15 days of public hearings. A weighty report was then considered and debated in this House.

That was neither the first or the last parliamentary inquiry into this technology, nor was it the first or the last inquiry into the proposal to introduce mandatory precommitment. In 2009, the government commissioned the Productivity Commission to conduct an inquiry into problem gambling and its causes, and to propose some solutions. It is the Productivity Commission's recommendation which forms the heart of this legislation before the House. It is true that, upon the conclusion of the 2010 election, the Prime Minister, in good faith, entered into an agreement with the member for Denison in an attempt to deal with both the recommendations of the Productivity Commission and the member for Denison's very real concerns about problem gambling—concerns which are shared, I would have thought, by every right-thinking member in this place.

The heart of that agreement was to put in place the recommendations of the Productivity Commission. It is true that we were unable to implement each and every one of the provisions of that agreement. The sole cause of that lies with those on the other side of the House. It is galling to hear the member for Kooyong and others like him point the finger at this side of the chamber for failing to implement each of the items in the agreement. It is like mugging somebody on the way to the shops and then complaining because they have not come home with the groceries. The sole reason the legislation could not get through the House was that those on the other side said consistently, from the beginning to the end, irrespective of what the evidence was, that they would oppose it. There is a name for that sort of behaviour, there is a name that we give to people who make the sorts of speeches that have just been made by the member for Kooyong, but unfortunately such language is unparliamentary.

At the heart of this legislation is the proposition to enable mandatory precommitment. Mandatory precommitment is a form of technology new in this country but it is based on a very old notion—a notion known by psychologists and economists alike as the Ulysses pact. According to Greek legend, Ulysses was desperate to hear the dulcet tones of the sirens but he knew that exposing himself to the sound of their songs and the vision of the sirens would lead him and his sailors to a terrible death on the rocks. As a remedy, he instructed his sailors to put wax plugs in their ears and to tie him to the mast. He told his sailors not to remove the plugs from their ears and not to untie him from the mast at any cost. That enabled him to sail through the straits and listen to the beautiful songs of the sirens without putting either him or his crew in peril. It was, in effect, a promise to himself to guard against future behaviour which he knew would ruin him—a Ulysses pact. That is at the heart of the precommitment technology.

Nothing could be further from the concept of Big Brother coming in here and telling individuals how to spend their money when we in a free country exercise our own choices on how to spend our money, but it provides punters with a tool to make a present promise to themselves to guard against their future behaviour. Each and every one of those poker machines, after the introduction and full implementation of this legislation, will enable a punter, a poker machine user, to make a promise to themselves about how much money they are willing and able to lose. How much money they are willing and able to lose will be in their control, giving the individual control over how much money they spend and how much money they are willing to lose on a poker machine. When you look at it from that perspective, you would think it was a proposition entirely consistent with Liberal Party philosophy—give the individual the power to choose how they spend their money and the tools with which they can do that. That is at the heart of mandatory precommitment.

We understand it is not a simple matter to provide the thousands and thousands of poker machines in clubs, pubs and casinos with the capacity to do this overnight, which is why we have put in the legislation a timeline that will enable the phase-in of this proposition. New machines manufactured or imported by the end of 2013 must be capable of supporting this precommitment technology. All gaming machines must be a part of a state-wide precommitment system that enables the display of electronic warnings. By 2016, if you are locked in the fury of play, the machine will have to provide some dynamic warning about how much money you have spent and how long you have been playing. We are putting in place longer implementation timelines for smaller venues. In addition, we have put in place a provision that there be a $250-a-day automatic teller machine withdrawal limit. Of course this is not the first case of ATM withdrawal limits in venues which have poker machines—Victoria has already done that. As far as I can see, when that legislation was introduced the sky did not fall in. The sky is still hovering safely above Victoria.

These are all important measures and they deserve the support of every member of this place. There has been some opposition to the provisions, and we have attempted to engage with the industry. I am pleased to say that after some fiery exchanges over the last two years the clubs association has said that clubs support the introduction of voluntary precommitment technology, and we welcome that. Over recent days a furious campaign has been waged by the Australian Hotels Association, and I have found this curious both in its content and its philosophy. A press release from the Victorian branch of the Australian Hotels Association dated 2 December 2011 states:

AHA (Vic) supports the policy of the Baillieu Government to implement a voluntary pre-commitment (VPC) on all gaming machines in Victoria.

That is right—they support the policy of the Baillieu government to do this. The AHA goes on:

Whilst the announced implementation timeframe of 2015/16 is challenging in itself having regard to the required technological development and implementation over a relatively short period of time, such developed and implementation will also be appearing in the period up to and following the August 2012 adoption of the venue owner/operator model of gaming.

They say they are challenged by it but they will be able to meet the requirements—although, apparently, what is a only a challenge and can be done in Victoria is something that is going to make the sky fall in over hotels around the rest of the country.

I fully support the rights and, indeed, the need of businesses like hotels in this country to form a union, to associate with each other and to be able to negotiate, organise and run a hard argument. But it will require them to be consistent, and the sort of stuff that is coming out of the AHA at the moment, regrettably, I would say, is falling a little bit short of the mark.

I return to the point I made at the beginning of my contribution. We have a big problem with problem gambling in this country. We need to do something about it. The various parliamentary committees that have inquired into this matter have heard submission after submission from problem gamblers, who are looking to this parliament and parliaments around the country to act—to act decisively, on the basis of the evidence—and to ensure that we are not creating another generation of problem gamblers in this country. We are not standing here saying that the voluntary precommitment technology will solve all problem gambling; but it will go a long way towards ensuring that we do not create another generation of problem gamblers. I commend the legislation to the House.

John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Gambling Reform Bill 2012 and cognate bills, and to express my concern that these bills represent a failed attempt to deal effectively with a serious social problem. The gravest outcome of the enactment of these bills will be that this issue of problem gambling will be taken off the political agenda for several years until finally, after data has been collected and analysed and a review committee has written a report, the government of the day will say that these changes did nothing to reduce the incidence of problem gambling.

I wish to make it clear: I am not pro gambling. I certainly do not believe that people who suffer from a gambling addiction should be ignored. As with any addiction, these people need support from their community—not to be demonised or labelled a problem.

Even though the member for Denison said in his speech earlier that I am likely to go to hell for opposing these bills, I greatly respect his efforts and have no doubt that his sincerity is absolute when it comes to using the opportunity of his position to legislate change in this important area. He did a deal with the Prime Minister to support her in return for genuine action on this issue. One year later, the Prime Minister welshed on that deal, showing a lack of sincerity about acting on gambling reform and showing that a written, signed agreement is of no value. However, the scandal surrounding the Health Services Union and the member for Dobell led to a change in the numbers and, suddenly, the Prime Minister was forced to do something on gambling reform to win back the support of the member for Denison. Subsequently, we have been left with this transparent attempt at legislation that will achieve very little in resolving addiction but requires compliance measures that will present a major thorn in the side of club and hotel operators.

Gambling is seen by many as a bit of an Aussie right. Our history books take us back as far as 1798, when the game two-up was played by convicts—a game that has become entrenched in our Anzac tradition. We now have wide-ranging gambling opportunities. Through an increased range of electronic devices, you can now gamble from your phone, from your office or from your car if you are hands-free. Yet the Productivity Commission has estimated that more than 99.4 per cent of Australia's population do not have a gambling addiction. So we are then presented with the question: what can we as policymakers do to provide the support and assistance needed by the remaining 0.6 per cent of Australians?

Some may think that the answer to this question is the development of targeted support programs or perhaps the implementation of evidence based solutions proven to reduce the incidence of problem gambling. Instead, the answer we have here in these bills is to treat 100 per cent of Australians as problem gamblers. On a personal level I might not play poker machines or Keno, or join the weekly poker night at my local pub, but there are many in our society who derive great enjoyment from doing exactly that. For the vast majority, this is a harmless way to wind down at the end of a week, to try their luck and have a bit of fun. For some, however, this pastime has become an addiction. Just like any other kind of addiction, this is a major problem and deserves policy measures that will effectively tackle and prevent the entrenchment and growth of such an addiction. This goal will be supported by additional, better equipped and more effective counselling and support services. A voluntary precommitment scheme like the one already introduced in Victoria may help some of those people to limit their losses, but this is no silver bullet.

As law-makers in this place we must be conscious of the fact that gambling has always been a state power. As a result, each Australian state has its own rules and has developed programs and systems accordingly. Clubs in New South Wales have had electronic gaming machines since 1956—the same year television arrived in Australia. In contrast, no clubs in Western Australia have any pokies. Intervention by the federal parliament in an area traditionally regulated by the states must be as a result of detailed and careful consideration, and based on real evidence.

When you pull back the veneer of these bills you find that they are effectively bills to establish a new tax. We have multiple bills because the legislation is for multiple new taxes. One of the taxes is to recover the costs to the Commonwealth of the administration of these bills. Part of these costs is for the establishment of a new federal bureaucracy to support a new federal gambling regulator. These bills do have a provision for the Commonwealth to delegate the regulatory function to the states and territories, although there is no assurance that the Commonwealth would in fact give up this power.

The funding of this new federal regulator through a new tax is a clever legislative trick to allow the Commonwealth to draw on its taxation powers in the Constitution and therefore avoid claims that federal intervention in gambling is unconstitutional. The other tax is recognition that the Commonwealth cannot actually mandate particular activities in this area. Instead, the government has invented a new big tax that will be paid by anyone who does not comply with the new compliance standards.

The other constitutional power used is a broad interpretation of the corporations power, that any person or company involved in the construction or installation of electronic gaming machines must be a constitutional corporation. The irony of this is not lost on me or my colleagues. It was not long ago that those sitting opposite, who then occupied the opposition benches, complained on a daily basis that the Howard government had overreached in its application of the corporations power in order to enact the Workplace Relations Act, even though this legislation very obviously related directly to the function and conduct of corporations. Five state Labor governments, together with Unions New South Wales and the Australian Workers Union, took this complaint all the way to the High Court in a failed constitutional challenge. Yet here we are with a bill from a Labor government that stretches this interpretation of the Corporations power much further and appears to be sharply at odds with the intention of the writers of the Constitution.

Legal scholars may argue that this extension of the corporations power is in line with the precedence set through judicial interpretation over the past few decades. However, the people we represent do not want to see another expensive legal challenge whereby the taxpayer funded states take on the taxpayer funded Commonwealth, using some of the most expensive legal representatives in the land, to resolve a perceived power grab by the federal parliament. When the Rudd-Gillard government came to office five years ago it was with a fanfare of 'stopping the blame game' and 'working in cooperation with the states'. In this spirit I urge the Commonwealth government to reconsider its strategy on this important social issue.

In 1999 the Howard government established a ministerial council on gambling, which has since been rebadged as the COAG Select Council on Gambling Reform. Membership includes federal, state and territory government Treasurers and ministers with responsibility for gambling regulation. I quote from the families and community services department's website, which was last updated on 30 May 2012:

The Select Council is expected to meet again in the second half of 2011 to continue the work of the Council, including to consider its national response to the Productivity Commission Inquiry Report into Gambling.

The minister may have noticed that we are now debating these bills, which arrived without any consultation with the states, in the final sitting week of 2012. It seems pretty clear that the select council presents a perfect opportunity for the Commonwealth, states and territories to work cooperatively, to stop the blame game and to develop genuine workable policies on gambling reform that can be owned and implemented by all parties to try to help people suffering from a gambling addiction. Instead, we have these bills being rammed through with no consultation, no time for stakeholders to review the individual provisions of the bills, no consideration of whether this will actually achieve the stated goals, no analysis of unintended consequences and no discussion on how these new compliance measures will affect the pubs and clubs that form a big part of our local communities.

In Bennelong we have 17 clubs employing approximately 788 people and with 732 volunteers. These clubs have a total 87,037 members, provide and maintain 41 sporting facilities, make an annual social contribution of $22.46 million and make an annual economic contribution of over $62 million. To put this in perspective, to comply with the government's legislation the 14 clubs in Bennelong that have 21 poker machines or more will have to spend up to $20.4 million, or 90 per cent of the local industry's total annual social contribution. We also have nine hotels employing 252 staff, with 217 gaming machines. These hotels support 75 local community, sporting and social groups; serve around 9,000 meals to patrons each week; and provide an affordable place to socialise and relax.

The North Ryde RSL, together with its amalgamated club, the Eastwood Rugby Union Club, manage Leslie Fields at North Ryde RSL and the three football fields collectively known as TG Millner Field at the Eastwood Rugby Union Club. Many here would recognise this great club as last year's Shute Shield premiers and one of only three teams to have won the shield over the past 13 years.

The Epping Club is part of the Club Grants Scheme and every year gives above the legislated amount to the local community. Their support to community organisations includes $20,000 to The Shack Youth Outreach, a youth drop-in centre that offers disadvantaged youth a safe space and helps them to find work and regain control over their lives, and $10,000 to the Lynne King Cancer Care Foundation, helping people with cancer in the community and in palliative care as well as the families of cancer sufferers.

Ryde Ex-Services Memorial and Community Club, where I celebrated on election night with all my Bennelong supporters, is also a part of the ClubGRANTS scheme and gives about $60,000 to the community each year, well above the legislated amount. Examples of this community support include Christian Community Aid in Eastwood, who run learning classes for seniors and adults, most of which are conducted at the club to avoid the costs of hiring a venue. With many Chinese migrants in the community, this is a great way for people from different ethnic backgrounds to integrate into the local community. The Eastwood Chinese Senior Citizens Association, whom I have regularly joined for community events, is primarily made up of Chinese migrants who do not speak English. The club provides funding for trips, such as a recent adventure to the Blue Mountains, including food and a translator. There is also radio sponsorship on the local Ryde Regional Radio 88.5FM, on which I am a weekly guest, providing support for four young presenters working towards a regular youth radio program.

Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club employs 176 people and has 138 volunteers and 35,000 members, making 1.2 million visits per year. This club alone provides half a million dollars in its annual ClubGRANTS contribution, $6.4 million in annual social contribution and $17.6 million in annual economic contribution. They have a gym and sports facilities, including a swimming pool which provides learn-to-swim programs and rehabilitation. They also sponsor the Balmain-Ryde Eastwood Rugby League Team and the mighty Wests Tigers.

Some of the organisations supported include: Youth Off The Streets, Alzheimer's Australia, Men of League, Christian Community Care, Wheelchair Sports, West Ryde Public School, Cerebral Palsy Alliance and the Children's Medical Research Institute. I have gone through this list to highlight the deep and important connection that our clubs and pubs have to our local community. They do not shy away from the fact that they make a profit along the way, but they also carry a huge amount of social responsibility and are very generous with their support.

It is not a secret that a portion of their revenue is derived from electronic gaming machines and, as I referenced earlier, if there are 20 people in a VIP room playing pokies it is possible that two or three have a gambling problem that requires assistance. As with any policy response, particularly when dealing with a social addiction, there is no silver bullet. Voluntary precommitment is one of a variety of tools available, and the coalition supports this measure as part of a comprehensive policy response to address this complex issue. People with addictions will still be able to set a limit as high as they like, perhaps even subconsciously justifying even greater losses, or they can sit on their couch and access online gambling services far away from the support services supplied by our clubs.

The Productivity Commission tells us that this issue is a complex task for public policy and that the coverage and design of gambling regulation requires particular care to ensure that the benefits exceed the costs. Time expired.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Gambling Reform Bill 2012. It is not a moment too soon for this federal parliament to be addressing the harm of poker machines. Pokies have wrought destruction on the lives of hundreds of thousands of Australians. They are manufactured by an industry that has spent literally billions of dollars engineering their product to be as addictive and as profitable as possible. They are operated by an industry that is addicted to the money siphoned off from problem gamblers and will stop at nothing to protect that revenue.

Australians are the world's most prolific gamblers. We spend an impressive $1,200 per capita every year on wagers. Of the $19 billion gambled by Australians every year, 60 per cent, or $12 billion, goes into the pokies. About 600,000 people—four per cent of the adult population—play these pokies at least weekly. It is not hard to find a venue to play. There are over 200,000 poker machines in Australia, of which approximately 50 per cent are in New South Wales alone. We have the seventh highest number of these machines in the world, which is alarming given our relatively small population. There is abundant evidence that gambling, especially pokies, causes enormous harm in the community. Up to 15 per cent of the people who gamble weekly are considered problem gamblers. Forty per cent of the revenue that goes through these machines can be attributed to these same poor souls. This means that they are often losing $30,000, $40,000 or $50,000 a year or more. This has terrible consequences for their lives and the lives of their families. The harm this causes the community is enormous. As money is taken out of family budgets the social costs add up, and are estimated by the Productivity Commission at $4.7 billion per year. The problem is now out of control. Significant reform is needed to curb the harm done by the pokies to our community.

It is not news that gambling causes harm in Australia. The Productivity Commission conducted a detailed examination of Australia's gambling industries, and handed down their findings in February 2010. After detailing the litany of harms caused by gambling and pokies in particular, they made a series of recommendations for reform. One of the prime causes of harm is the speed with which it is possible to lose money on Australian poker machines. The Productivity Commission report focused on this intensity of gaming machines, measured in expected losses per hour. In states where a $10 maximum bet applies and the spin rate is unregulated, such as in New South Wales, one could expect to lose $1,200 per hour with significantly higher losses possible. In some jurisdictions the losses could be even greater. In Crown Casino, just over the river from my electorate, there are even machines that allow $50 per button push. The ability to lose such large amounts of money in a short period heightens the risk for people with a gambling problem, or who are at risk of developing one. These high-intensity machines can be contrasted with the machines where hourly losses are limited to ranges consistent with other forms of entertainment.

At the present time in Australia there are no low-intensity machines where bets are restricted to ranges consistent with normal recreational play. This contrasts with other jurisdictions around the world, such as New Zealand and the United Kingdom, where certain venues are restricted to machines with limits on the maximum stake and maximum prize. In the United States, high-intensity machines are generally limited to casinos. Here, they can be found just around the corner in most towns and suburbs.

Poker machines also have a terrible record when it comes to social justice. Just look at the maps of where the concentration of poker machine losses are highest. It is the same map as areas of social disadvantage. The people losing the most on pokies are those who can least afford it. Because of the ubiquity of the machines and the extent of the harm, there is now enormous pressure for reform. Until now, the states have had jurisdiction over poker machines. It is welcome that we here in the federal parliament are discussing what we can do to ensure that there is federal regulation.

The Greens support this bill because it a step in the right direction. We maintain that the case is solid that the poker machine industry needs a major overhaul. This bill does not accomplish that but, hopefully, it will make future reforms easier. The bill will require all machines sold in Australia from the end of next year to support precommitment. In the future, every poker machine, old and new, will have to support a pre-commitment scheme. That means that voluntary precommitment will be possible. More importantly it means that, if a future government wants to return to the reform this government has left lying on the table, enabling mandatory precommitment will be a simple matter. It also requires all machines to be part of statewide networks so that precommitment will be effective once enacted. This opens the door to other potential reforms as well.

The bill creates a national gambling regulator. While its functions are to be delegated to the states for the time being, this precedent gives further hope that the parliament or a future government will have the tools it needs to tackle problem gambling once and for all. The regulator has the power to place a levy on poker machines, another tool to signal reform. There is an ATM limit of $250 a day. In Victoria it is zero, but at least this is a step in the right direction. If the trial of mandatory precommitment in the ACT goes ahead, this also provides for a Productivity Commission analysis of the results. We do need to see more research, and that is why this reform will also see the establishment of the National Gambling Research Centre. The Greens asked for this in order to keep the issue of problem gambling on the policy radar. The more research there is, the harder it will be for industry to derail future reforms. Finally, the clubs do not like this reform, and that is hopefully a sign that it will achieve something.

This bill does not go as far as it should. With the issues of pokies and problem gambling front and centre on the national agenda, we in this parliament had a rare opportunity to make a bold reform, but the government squibbed it. Sadly, this bill is not that reform. After the provisions in this bill have been implemented, a poker machine addict who sits down at the machine will have no help in limiting their losses. They will not be forced to set a limit, putting a fence around the rent and grocery money before they get carried away chasing losses. There are no bet limits slowing down the rate of losses, giving a gambler time to sober up and go home before the losses have mounted up to unsustainable levels. There are other places where the reform could be more ambitious. As I mentioned before, the withdrawal limit on ATMs could also be stronger. In my home state of Victoria, we have banned ATM withdrawals altogether and the sky certainly has not fallen in. There are other solutions that we will continue to argue for.

It is important to recognise that Australia's poker machines are not benign games for passers-by to have a $10 flutter on. They are carefully engineered to absorb enormous amounts of money. Some of these machines can churn through thousands of dollars in a single hour. Australia's 'casino style' machines are infamous around the world. Many experts and plenty of solid research have pointed to the need to rein in these machines. The research says that high-intensity machines with the possibility of large but infrequent wins have taken the gambling experience far away from the low-risk recreational activity it used to be.

The Productivity Commission recommended changes to the way these machines operate, such as offering 'low-intensity' machines with $1 bet limits that only take $20 credit at a time, as well as mandatory precommitment for high-intensity machines whereby users specify a loss limit before gambling on pokies. The Greens endorse this research. Limiting machines to $1 per spin and lowering jackpots will mean problem gamblers will only be losing hundreds an hour, not thousands. Limiting machines to lower intensities is a simple reform that will not affect recreational players. It will help problem gamblers limit their losses. We propose nothing more than taking claims that poker machines provide entertainment at face value. This change would bring machines more into line with other forms of recreation and would do so over a time frame that is realistic and fair to industry.

Industry's reaction to these proposed reforms from the Greens has been a mix of outrage and bullying. They claim bet limits and mandatory precommitment will not work. They also claim it will kill local clubs. Precommitment cards would amount to a 'license to punt', they say. They say it is the nanny state gone mad. In particular, the industry suggests the costs to move to this system would be astronomical, up to $5 billion. These numbers have of course been sharply contested. But in any case, without the need for a hardware solution, and with sufficient time for existing machines to fully depreciate, the cost to industry would be minimal compared to the value of the machines and the revenue they generate. These machines make billions of dollars each year in profits. The costs to industry to implement this policy in fact would be negligible. All machines in Australia already support bet limits and the time frames involved would be more than adequate to upgrade or replace any machines that needed modification.

But it is clear that we are not going to get that kind of reform here, because there has been a distinct lack of courage. So, left with this or nothing, the Greens will support this bill. It creates some precedents that should make future reform easier, if there is a government with the foresight and the guts to tackle it. This watered-down bill is the result of intense lobbying by the pokies industry, but they are still not satisfied. They will not be satisfied with anything but free rein to take as much money as they can out of disadvantaged communities. So, although the reform could be bolder, we need to move ahead with it. But it must not be the last word in poker machine reform.

Problem gamblers need the help of this parliament. Problem gambling on the pokies can be a wrecking ball through the life of a family. It can cost a marriage, a job, the family home. It can and does drive people to crime and there are clear public health and social justice imperatives to tackling pokies reform. The cost to the wider community is also well known. It costs this country billions each year. Poker machines have been carefully engineered by the industry to be highly addictive, to disguise losses as wins and to efficiently empty the pockets of their customers.

Many in the community have worked hard to push us to gambling reform. The churches have worked hard on behalf of their members, including those who work with people whose lives have been ruined by the pokies. They are at the coalface and they deserve applause for their work in this area. Academic experts also want to see reform, and they are the ones who have quantified these harms and informed the debate. And the punters affected by problem gambling want to see it too. We have heard from them time and time again about the toll it has taken on their lives and that they want help. I therefore commend the bill, but I sincerely and desperately hope that there is more to come sometime soon.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Gambling Reform Bill 2012 and related bills. These bills seek to introduce a range of new measures for gaming machines. This involves requiring a raft of new technology for gaming machines. Precommitment technology, the ability to set loss limits, new on-screen warnings, and ATM withdrawal limits, are all part of these changes. The new electronic features will be required on all new machines from the end of 2013 and on all gaming machines by 2016, with a longer time frame for smaller venues. Two Productivity Commission inquiries will also be undertaken, one in relation to a trial of mandatory precommitment systems and another into the progress being made by premises and manufacturers towards compliance with the new systems.

Additionally, a new bureaucracy—hello? Another level of red tape?—a gambling regulator, will be required to provide for the monitoring of compliance with the new regulations that are set out in the legislation. This will include administering the civil penalty orders, infringement notices, injunctions, enforceable undertakings and compliance notices that have been outlined—as well as, most probably, a lot of visits to popular spots for on-site inspections, probably with free meals! Finally, the bills allow for the new regulator to charge fees for its services and establish two levies to support the new procedures. This achieves the one-two punch that this Labor government loves—red tape and taxes—that is already hurting small businesses in Townsville and all over the country.

Let me say from the outset: I cannot stand the pokies. I cannot see the sense in them. They tell you, when you enter the place, that you cannot win. There used to be some science, when you could use your own technique on the arm that you had to pull—the 'pull, pull back, knock down again' was always a favourite—but now, to me, just sitting and pushing a button on these things makes watching paint dry exciting.

I recognise the impact that problem gambling has on individuals and families. I understand addiction and what is required to break addiction. But, if you want to do something about problem gambling, you cannot just take one form of gambling and load that up with regulation and red tape and pat yourself on the back and say, 'Job well done.' This legislation is a mirror image of the alcopops legislation, which was supposed to cure binge drinking. Remember that? They put a tax on it and walked away saying, 'Job done.' The kids now buy 1,125-millilitre bottles of straight spirit and mix them themselves, so the standard drink measure is completely out the window—'Job done. Nothing to see here, people. Move on.'

If you want to see desperate gamblers, go to a newsagency on a Saturday morning, Lotto day, or stand out the front and watch the people as they line up for Oz Lotto when it hits $100 million. As a mate of mine said, 'Oz Lotto is God's way of proving that humans do not understand statistics.' Up until then, I knew Lotto was on Thursday and Saturday; I never knew there was a draw halfway through the week as well. If you want to see desperate gamblers, go to a newsagency on Lotto day.

Online betting businesses are forking out millions of dollars for prime time advertising, and the line between sports shows and betting promotion is getting more and more blurred—but fixing pokies is apparently the solution to all these things! That my 10-year old son can ask if $13 on Matty Bowen being the first try scorer is a good deal, but we are only interested in talking about the pokies, shows the narrow-mindedness of this debate. Any attempt to tackle problem gambling needs not just to look at poker machines but to look at the underlying problem of gambling addiction. That is what the coalition believes.

We do support improvements to the way we address problem gambling. But we cannot support gambling reform that sidelines the state and territory governments, the governments that are actually responsible for governance of the gaming industry. We want to see support services and counselling for gamblers become better resourced and more widespread. We do see a need for voluntary precommitment to help fight this problem. But it should be one part of a bigger approach that tackles every layer of the issue. We should also acknowledge that the pubs and clubs are already doing their bit to curb this blight on our society. We want a response to gambling to be the result of detailed consideration, not just a handshake deal between a single member of parliament and a Prime Minister desperate to hold onto her job.

There can be no doubt that this legislation is being swept through as fast as possible, regardless of the consequences, regardless of the cost. When I talk about consequences, I am talking about the jobs of people employed in our pubs and clubs—apprentice chefs, bar men and women who are working their way through uni, and mums returning to work slowly while the kids are at school. These will be the consequences of this legislation if we keep letting this bad government continue to load up our hospitality sector with additional charges and levies and taxes. Part of that includes swift arbitrary and uniform time frames and conditions that have been placed on state and territory governments. The Productivity Commission has already pointed out that this is completely at odds with reality.

The technology required for a precommitment regime is costly—it involves card readers and software upgrades on all gaming machines, paid for by the businesses and venues. It is simply not realistic to force smaller venues to invest in major changes on the same time frame as big city casinos. It is inevitable that meeting the requirements in the designated time period will not be possible for a lot of small businesses, so they will be forced to risk noncompliance or shut that part of their business down and maybe go out of business entirely. The result is an ineffective policy, all because we have a government that would not take the time to work with stakeholders to do the job properly.

In Townsville I have been hosting a series of red-tape forums. The purpose of these is to find out from small business owners and managers where bureaucracy is costing them too much money and time, often with no apparent reasoning behind it. The Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, has already said we want to remove red tape from business, but the people in Townsville are telling me that we cannot just remove red tape; we must remove red tape with a view to improving productivity. There is no point just removing rules and regulations if it does not have the consequence of making it easier to do work or to get more work out of the place. The first forum was for the hospitality industry, and a few of the attendees owned businesses that have poker machines. Apart from the multitude of red tape already surrounding the pokies, a common thread throughout the discussion of operating a business in this industry was the overlap of layers of government. This comes in alcohol, transport, and health and safety regulations. Across the spectrum, managers have to meet a multitude of expectations and requirements from every level of government.

Here we see it yet again: more forms for small-business owners to spend time filling out and more taxes and fees for them to pay. State governments are responsible for the pokies, yet in waltzes the federal Labor government just to appease the member for Denison. For two years of a Labor majority government while Senator Xenophon was in the Senate, pokies reform was a state issue. It certainly was not a big enough issue for Labor to take a gambling policy to the election. But now we find ourselves in a hung parliament, and suddenly it is a major issue.

As the member for Moncrieff so succinctly put it in his contribution, where will this end? When I was first elected, I met with the member for Denison and Senator Xenophon to get their perspective on this matter. I asked them about other forms of gambling and why they limited their action to poker machines. The member for Denison told me, and I will never forget this moment, 'You have to start somewhere.' So, if you like a punt or you like a game of cards, they are coming for you. This is only the start for them and their nanny state.

I take great issue with the ALP on this. When this was first raised, out trotted members of the ALP to forums where they told nearly identical stories of people crying in their offices about their losses and addiction to poker machines. It was a national imperative. Mind you, had anyone raised it with them in the lead-up to the last election, they would have received a short, sharp response: 'That is a state matter.' As soon as Harry Jenkins was knifed as Speaker, it was no longer a national imperative. We needed a more considered response.

Sharon Grierson (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member must use correct titles when addressing the parliament.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Now that they need the vote of the member for Denison once more, they trot out some wishy-washy legislation which will achieve nothing except that it will close down a couple of small clubs and pubs, lose a few jobs, but raise a fair bit of tax. 'Whatever it takes' is their mantra.

Every state government supports voluntary precommitment. They are already moving towards voluntary precommitment schemes, working with the industry to do so. It is simply a waste of time and money for a federal government to be pushing these changes when they are already being looked at by the governments that are actually responsible for them, let alone to be attempting these changes with as little consultation with those state and territory governments as this government has had.

To implement these changes with any level of success, the state and territory governments have to be on board. Instead, the critical input of these governments, along with that of the hospitality sector and other stakeholders, has been sidelined in the determination to race this through the parliament. The legislation was first introduced on 1 November, and suddenly it has to be passed before the end of the sitting year.

Mr Lyons interjecting—

We'll see you at your club, mate! We'll see you at your club! If this government is really serious and determined to do something about gambling, why not work with the states? That is what the COAG process is there for. We all know that this is about political outcomes, not responsible ones.

Townsville has 45 venues with gaming machines. These are mostly clubs and small-business pubs. They have not seen any evidence that a precommitment system will reduce problem gambling. We are still waiting for the trial of mandatory precommitment, yet here we are pushing bills that come with great expense to local businesses and clubs in a knee-jerk reaction to a hung parliament.

The impact of this legislation will also be felt more by the smaller venues. The cost of compliance with every level of government is killing the will of businesspeople to get up every day. At the recent red-tape forum I held for the hospitality industry, I asked them if they were having any fun in their business at all. That is why you go into business. They all just sighed and said that the fun was being sucked out by all levels of government and by the cost of compliance and regulation. Now we are going to make it harder for them in an area in which we have no real jurisdiction—or is it just this government trying to muscle in on state government revenues? The legislation calls for levies and compliance costs. It calls for funding for new bodies that it must have to run this show. Is it just another tax grab by a cash-strapped government?

These businesses contribute to the community. They have real estate. They take on apprentices. They employ permanent and casual staff. And they are already paying a massive tax bill through the pokies that is redistributed to give grants to local organisations. We owe it to these businesses to take the time to get this right. In Townsville there are three main licensed clubs. They are the Townsville RSL, the mighty North Queensland Cowboys club and the Brothers Leagues Club. They have nearly 100,000 members, and I am proudly a member of each. The clubs and casino give back to the community over $3 million annually to projects which would never be funded otherwise. They take pride in their community because they are their community. They are my community.

I would like to share a story about the Townsville community transport, TOTTS. They had 39 volunteer drivers. The drivers are not required to have a first-aid certificate, but they wanted to make sure that all their drivers had a first-aid certificate. The cost was $120 each. I approached my licensed venues: the RSL, the Brothers Leagues Club and the Cowboys Leagues Club. To a person, they just said, 'We'll pay for it, and every time they get a new driver we'll put them through.' I said, 'Thank you very much for this.' They said: 'Don't thank me. This is what we're here for. This is what licensed clubs are for. This is the perfect example of why we have licensed clubs, of what we do in our community.' That cost is borne by those clubs because that is part of their community.

This is bad legislation. It will not help a single addicted gambler. It will not help licensed clubs provide for their members. I will not support this legislation, which specifically attacks major private sector employers and trainers in my electorate. Let me be as clear and unambiguous as I can. This legislation is not about problem gambling. This legislation is all about politics and staying in power.

Sharon Grierson (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the member has concluded his speech, it being approximately 1.45, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate will be resumed at a later hour.