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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (30 November) . . Page.. 3501 ..

MR OSBORNE (continuing):

that it causes. I recall during my football career seeing kids waiting outside different leagues clubs for their mums and dads who were addicted to gambling. What we are now doing is saying that we want to make it easier for people to gamble aniline at home and we are going to reduce the amount of tax paid by companies. I think this is disgraceful.

I am only very new to the debate on poker machines but I have to say that I will not be supporting anything that places them into new markets. I intend working with Ms Tucker not only today but in the future to try to ensure that we make a stand and do something important. Gambling is a rapidly increasing disease. It has a huge impact on families and their quality of life. The people who suffer the most are not the people who are addicted. The people who suffer are their families-their wives, their husbands and their kids. Although I am disappointed that we do not have the support to make a stand today, I will be supporting Ms Tucker's disallowance motion, for the reasons I have outlined.

MS TUCKER (12.21), in reply: I will respond to Mr Humphries' comment about the effect that disallowing the regulation would have on the GST. Obviously we are aware that the regulation deals with the GST but we found it too difficult to separate this component. If my motion is supported then obviously we will ask the government to reinsert this provision. Mr Humphries' regulation seeks to change certain things. If my motion is agreed to and the regulation is disallowed, Mr Humphries could easily reinsert the GST component. So that is not a major problem.

I would like to comment on the issues that have been raised in the debate today. I heard Mr Humphries again say that he was of the view that the providers with the greatest profits would be better able to deliver consumer protection. I repeat that I do not think that says he has a lot of confidence in a process that is supposed to be in place to ensure that licensed providers have absolutely high consumer protection mechanisms in place. Hundreds of pages of instructions to applicants which supposedly deal with those issues are on the commission's webpage.

We have been reassured on many occasions by this government that we are second to none in ensuring that in fact regulation is in place and that quality-assurance mechanisms, which Mr Humphries has said are second to none, will be working well. I think Mr Humphries is implying that this motion may present some problem for different regimes of gambling. The different regimes for different forms of gambling will remain. According to the Interactive Gambling Act, the interactive gambling tax by definition applies only to gambling not covered by other legislation.

Also, I think Mr Humphries was suggesting that we needed to look at the operating expenses of the companies-that they were somehow included in the profit. The profit does not include the operating expenses. The profit is basically player losses.

I think they are the main points that need to be made-I covered the rest in my initial presentation. I urge members to support my motion. It is pretty clear that I am not going to get the support that I need. I look forward to seeing a national discussion on interactive gambling, even though the ACT has not shown a willingness to address the very serious issues that I have raised today.

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