Page 942 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 26 July 1989
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issue, but we firmly believe that for the future of the ACT this development should go ahead, and should go ahead as soon as possible.
MR STEVENSON (11.32): Mr Speaker, there have been a number of myths exploded this morning to do with the casino or a proposed casino in Canberra. The Canberra people have been told that if we gamble on a casino we will win three plus one - a theatre complex with three theatres plus a library. We have already heard that this is not true. The suggestion, we now know, is that we could possibly receive a lyric theatre if we agree with the bribe of a casino. We are also told that there will be a tourist bonanza, if you like, and also a great influx of money into the local economy. These things are also untrue.
First of all, let us take what I call the bribe. Most people in Canberra, I believe, consider that if we do not have a casino we do not get a theatre complex of three theatres and a library. If we accept the bribe, we do not get them anyway. The money, perhaps most of it, would need to come from elsewhere. It has been the experience when we talk about casinos that proponents of casinos use the community bribe. In 1983 the people of Canberra were told that, if they did not accept a casino then, they would not get a convention centre. Experience has shown us that, one, the casino did not go ahead but, two, the convention centre did.
Perhaps a major concern of people who oppose a casino is to do with the crime aspects. Mr Duby said that the members of the committee, including the dissenting members, of which I was one, have not given any proof in any way of any criminal involvement in casinos in Australia. Once again I dissent. Let us look at some of the evidence that was presented to the committee. The major concern is that casinos, because they are places of large cash flow, will be used to launder black money, criminal money, money that has been obtained by unpaid taxes, et cetera. The belief as to how this is done is that someone goes into a casino with cash, buys chips, may win a few grand or lose a few grand during the evening, but then comes out at the end of a night with a cheque which he can suggest were winnings in the casino. The committee, however, learned that this was handled by the casinos by having winnings cheques and non-winnings cheques. The casinos say that if gamblers cannot show that the money was actually won during the evening then they do not receive a cheque with the word "winnings" across it, and this was the main concern.
While we were in Tasmania we learned that a senior manager of Wrest Point Casino signed a $20,000 winning cheque when that was not a winning cheque; he knew full well that it was not. The reason we were told he did it is implausible to say the least. We were told that the gambler was a high roller, a regular customer, as it were, and that he had been pestering this senior casino manager for a winnings cheque and that the manager had sort of made an honest
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