Page 4503 - Week 14 - Thursday, 1 December 1994
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Mr Lamont: What control would I have over its distribution to the clubs? Absolutely none. It is sheer hypocrisy on your part.
MR DE DOMENICO: The Minister should refrain from doing that. He is not at the Kingo now. He is here, and we are trying to have a rational debate on legislation that is very - - -
Mr Lamont: I hear more sense there than I have heard out of you this afternoon.
MR DE DOMENICO: I suggest, Mr Lamont, that, if you hear more sense at the Kingo, you should go there and let somebody who is more competent debate this legislation. This Opposition will not accept anything that this Minister says. This legislation is flawed; this legislation is unnecessary to achieve what you want it to achieve. This legislation, without the amendments proposed by this Opposition, Mr Minister - the Independents should listen very carefully and should read again what the Auditor-General has said - is flawed. It does not have the support of this Opposition, unless you support the amendments.
MRS CARNELL (Leader of the Opposition) (6.28): I would like to ask the Minister a couple of questions quite seriously. In reality, this side of the house has no problems with the TAB being competitive. I want to make that comment straightaway. We do want to corporatise it. That is not a new statement. In terms of this legislation, we want to ask a couple of questions. Mr Lamont, can we stay linked if this legislation is not passed? Is it not true that we can adjust the amount that we pay to the punter without this legislation? If a mid-week trots meeting goes from 84 or 85 per cent to 90 per cent, that adjustment can be made now under existing legislation. I am very interested in getting an answer. If you could actually clarify some of these questions for us, we could be persuaded very easily on this Bill.
Mr Lamont: No; you could not.
MRS CARNELL: Actually, we could be persuaded very easily.
Mr Lamont: You are supporting the Bill. You have supported it in principle. None of your amendments go to that question.
MRS CARNELL: We believe that the current legislation would allow you to adjust the amount that the punter gets, without any extra legislation.
Mr Lamont: So, we could pay the same dividend.
MRS CARNELL: No. But that is very important. If anything jeopardised our link with Tabcorp, obviously we would be very concerned. It is our understanding - and maybe you can show that we are wrong - that the actual link, even if we changed the amount that we paid to the punter, is not based upon this legislation. We could go to 90 per cent without any problems under current legislation. The effect of this legislation, as we understand, has to do only with the amount of money that the RDF gets out of what is left.
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