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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (24 May) . . Page.. 1726 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

(c) the key findings of the Productivity Commission's Final Report on their Inquiry into Australia's Gambling Industries (December 1999); and

(d) the Federal Government's call for national cooperation via the Ministerial Council on Gambling, to consider the impacts of online gambling before more licenses are granted;

(2) calls on the Gambling and Racing Commission to thoroughly investigate and report to the Assembly on:

(a) the issues of social and economic impact of online gambling;

(b) the adequacy of ACT legislation on all forms of online gambling, with particular reference to the costs of regulation, access to gaming sites, and the type of promotional activities undertaken both on and off the internet;

(c) the adequacy of the commission's powers and resources to undertake complete and thorough probity checks on applicants including the commission's power to require disclosure of information from applicants; to investigate and guide advertising standards; to conduct education campaigns and capacity to monitor patterns of use, trends, and problem gambling; and

(d) progress towards a code of practice for the gambling industry;

(3) directs the Minister not to grant any further interactive gambling licenses and not to grant any further authorisations to conduct interactive games, until the commission's report has been received and debated by the Assembly, and the findings have been addressed.

The introduction of Internet gambling is an issue for the Australian community to consider carefully. I have moved this motion tonight because increased gambling in our community is of great concern to many people. Even though it appears there is little interest in this place in understanding any of the issues, apart from the potential revenue gains, I believe it is important that the comments of members are on the record on this matter.

This government has obviously decided to issue interactive licences regardless of whether the Assembly agrees or not. Mr Humphries knew I had a motion on the notice paper but decided to go for it anyway. Yesterday at question time I asked what stage the licences were up to, has all the necessary work been done, and are these providers actually now licensed and able to provide the service. We have had several briefings from members of the commission and in one of the briefings the different stages were explained. I would have to say that the commission has been very helpful and I appreciated their willingness to explain what was happening with the regulation and legislation.

I asked this question because I have a sense of the different stages and the legislation makes it clear that the minister has some discretion. It appears from the answer that I got from Mr Humphries that in fact conditional licences are being given out. They are not actually live, active, or whatever the word is that is used-they are not ready to start operating right now. It looks as if it is the case that Mr Humphries rushed to grant this conditional licence in order to pre-empt debate in this Assembly and moves by the federal government.

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