Page 1119 - Week 04 - Thursday, 22 April 2021
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process of applying for those funds. We will see some clubs funding their competitors to move forward. I just note that it is probably going to get a little uncomfortable in that space.
Mr Rattenbury tells us that we are not just doing this to satisfy his progressive voter base and that we are not just doing it to virtue signal to a cohort who have never been inside a community club. I would note, of course, that as we went to the election in October, the gaming policies from Labor and the Greens were vastly different. I was always forecasting that Labor would just put up the white flag in this space and hand it over to the Greens, and that is what they have done. But we are not just doing it to virtue signal; we are doing it to curb gambling harm.
One of the inconvenient truths that became crystal clear during the COVID pandemic last year was that if we close clubs in Canberra, we see a phenomenal spike in gaming across the border in Queanbeyan. When the New South Wales clubs reopened, many weeks earlier than those in the ACT, the increase in gaming in Queanbeyan was astronomical. In some venues, on a per machine basis, there was an increase of 600 per cent; it was off the chart.
That experience last year, combined with the fact that the government’s ongoing program of gaming regulation here in the ACT has delivered a big fall in turnover in the ACT, which has been mirrored by an increase of exactly the same numbers in Queanbeyan, shows us that the harm minimisation arguments being pushed by Mr Rattenbury do not stack up. We are an island surrounded by New South Wales. Those who are susceptible to gambling harm simply slip over to Queanbeyan when they are not able to play the pokies here. So the biggest single effect about the clampdown on gaming is to, in the first instance, take away turnover from clubs, thus removing jobs, ultimately to close clubs and then remove funding from the many sporting groups and community organisations that absolutely rely on funding from the clubs.
I know that Mr Rattenbury and, based on his reaction, Mr Barr are sick to death of me banging on with this argument. I also know that Mr Rattenbury does listen; he listens to what goes on in these debates. I just need to remind him what those on the ground are saying. Time and again the narrative from those on a mission to end gaming in the ACT is that the ACT has the most lax gaming regulations in the nation. We do not; we just do not.
The movement in this space in the last decade also is quite remarkable. I am not going to list those things, because no-one really cares. In addition to these regulatory changes, taxes have increased three times over this period. New gambling harm levies have also been introduced and increased. All these changes, of course, run alongside the growing and obvious disparity between us and New South Wales.
I would like to refer to the Gambling and Racing Commission 2020-21 budget statements and, in particular, strategic indicator 1. At the end of the day, it is something that I think we all agree we should be doing and that is to reduce gambling harm in the ACT. Much of our direction in this space is governed by data that came from the 2019 ACT gambling survey.
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