Page 944 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 26 July 1989
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rehabilitation assistance, et cetera, then the estimated cost to the community will be high. (Extension of time granted)
If we look at 86 average family welfare payments, we find that the cost is slightly over $1m. The loss of average family tax payments to the Government or the community would be $588,000. If only 65 per cent require counselling or psychiatric help, on a conservative estimate of $19,000 per annum, that will again be over $1m. It is a total figure of $2,904,000. This does not take into account the extra police manpower and facilities that will be required to ensure that street crime does not increase, and I am sure that that can be made sure of, but there will be a financial cost. It also does not allow for the short-term loss of jobs in the licensed club or other gambling associated industries.
We look at whether or not a casino in Canberra will increase the money into the Canberra community. Evidence has shown that 80 per cent of the gamblers in a casino will be local Canberra people, not tourists. Seventy per cent of the money gambled or lost in a casino will be from people in the local community - you and I, if we gamble. I say that people do not win at a casino; the odds are totally against it.
If we accept the Government's submission that in the first year $5.4m profit will be made in taxes from the casino, we should also accept that $3.8m of that amount of money will come from local people. This will not be new money. It will be money that will come from other areas in the Canberra community. It will come from other gambling related areas, it will come from people not spending money in the retail area, and it will be a cost to the Canberra people. Basically, the money will be moving around. It will not be coming into the community. However, it will be leaving the community.
A casino in Canberra would no doubt be run by or controlled by people out of town, as is the case in most other States or territories. So where you have a situation when people gamble at their local club on poker machines and so on, the money tends to stay and be circulated through the community, this would not be the case with a casino in Canberra. It becomes a tax on lower and middle income earners because they are the people who spend the great majority of money in a casino.
Let us look at the question of whether or not Canberrans want a casino. The suggestion by Mr Humphries that all surveys have shown that the majority of Canberrans do want a casino is simply not true. Let us look at various areas. There have been an overwhelming number of letters on this subject to members in this Assembly, the vast majority of which are opposed to a casino. The vast majority of letters to the editors are also opposed to a casino. The Canberra Chronicle ran a poll which showed that 79 per cent of people were opposed to a casino. Yesterday there were
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