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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (3 December) . . Page.. 4520 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

There has been a degree of expansion, as shown by those figures, between 1986-87 and 1996-97. We do indeed depend on gambling for about 11 per cent of our revenue. That is a lot of money. It is about $50m, for which we are depending on gambling. More than half of that comes from poker machines. We fund specific gambling support services to the tune of only about $100,000. That does give an indication of the scale of the industry. Nationally, poker machines account for well over half of the gambling revenue of $60 billion a year.

Mr Speaker, all of the help-providing agencies in Canberra are reporting large increases in the numbers of people seeking help with gambling-related problems. Lifeline told us that over 80 per cent of the clients of its gambling counselling service were having problems related to poker machines in particular and that the larger proportion were low-income earners. The Salvation Army reported a big increase in the need for emergency assistance related to problem gambling, and the impression from case histories is that there is now an increase in single mothers under financial stress experiencing problems related to gambling.

Once again, I will outline for the record that our legislation says that cash facilities should not be available in gaming rooms; that there should be labels which are clearly visible and which will give people contact numbers for assistance if they feel that their gambling is getting out of control; and also that there should not be credit extended to players by the licensee or the licensee's employees. So, I do again thank members for their support for that.

On the question of the inquiry, I understand that Mrs Carnell and Mr Whitecross are not happy with an inquiry under the Inquiries Act. I am quite open to discussion on whether that is appropriate. Obviously, it has to be an inquiry that has nothing to do with the Assembly, because it is a rather political issue; but I am quite open to looking at how else an inquiry that was independent could be carried out in the next Assembly. I would want to see a full inquiry, similar to the one that we have outlined in our motion.

The ALP's social and economic impact assessment is really not adequate. We want to go further than that. We want to look at the creation of an authority to regulate future growth and conduct in the industry; provision for ongoing funding for research, expanded education and prevention, counselling and community support services; limits on the number of gaming machine licences - although we might do that next week, with Labor's support, because they are so worried about the reckless expansion of gambling - and the number of gaming machines; and consideration of the extension of gaming machine licences to hotels and the casino. The inquiry we are proposing would cover all the issues Mr Whitecross purports to be concerned about, but would carry a lot more power and weight than the impact assessment that he has proposed.

I am pleased that there is a growing interest in the issue in the Assembly and that we seem to be coming to something vaguely like consensus in some of the areas of concern at least. So, I hope that in the next Assembly we will be able to progress this work and that next week we will be able to put in a moratorium.

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