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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 7 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 2454 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

Mr Stefaniak's government put $1 million into that. That was because at the time they said that there were complex social issues and there was a negative impact.

I was speaking to Mr Humphries on the weekend and he was saying how interesting it is for him at the moment in the Senate because he is on a committee that is looking at poverty and disadvantage. He said to me, "It is really interesting, Ms Tucker, how serious an issue gambling is in the whole question of poverty and disadvantage and it is really important that we keep doing research to understand the negative impacts of it."

We all agreed on that in this place. I remember Mr Stefaniak supporting it and saying how important it was to have the Gambling and Racing Commission undertake this social research. The act that we all supported does charge the commission with that responsibility. I will read it out to remind members. It says that he commission must perform its functions in the way that best promotes public interest and in particular, as far as practicable, promotes consumer protection and reduces the risks and costs to the community and to the individuals concerned of problem gambling.

Mr Quinlan does not seem to understand where my amendment comes from. He is concerned about the clause relating to premises which speaks about a continuous period of at least a year immediately before an application. That is already in the act; I did not make it up. That applies now to the other licensed premises. The point that we are making with this amendment to the legislation is that the legislation is inconsistent in that it gives this power to the commission on hotels and taverns but not on clubs. I did not ever hear anyone complain about that or try to omit it.

Mr Stefaniak is wanting to increase access to gambling and poker machines by giving them to more venues in the private for profit sector. Apparently, if that were to get up, he would be comfortable with the gambling commission applying this social test, which I am really glad to see. At least the Liberal Party is prepared to give the commission the power to apply this adverse social impact test to taverns and hotels but, strangely, not to clubs. Ms Dundas pointed out their inconsistency there, but he neglected to respond to that.

Claims were made that it is a very subjective discussion that we are having. As I have already said, I thought it was well recognised in this Assembly, federally and in every other parliament of Australia and in many parliaments round the world that social research needs to occur. That is not a subjective judgment, unlike the evidence that has been put here today by the Liberal and Labor parties of a person who already runs a pool and has poker machines on the premises saying that it is fine. That is the social research we have been provided with so far.

What we are asking for and what the gambling commission is charged with doing is for the commission to come up with, not just subjective judgments like that, but social research forming an estimation of the potential harm from gambling, which, I repeat, is recognised by both Labor and Liberal across Australia. It is indeed a very disappointing response that I have had to that. I am not arguing that we are saying, through the Assembly, that there should be absolutely no poker machines at the pool.

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