Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Thursday, 24 June 2004) . . Page.. 2665 ..

vexed problem that has been with us for 18 years. That is a feature of, and is regurgitated in, this legislation. We sorted it out over the last year and brought it in earlier because there was a real need.

I am pleased to see some of the recommendations of the commission enacted as well. There is a restriction on notes in machines. When I first started playing poker machines, you put in your 5c or even 2c—the 2c machine at Batemans Bay was a beauty; I won some money on that once. Now people can put in a lot of notes, and it is sensible to say you cannot put more than $20 in. I understand that is the case in other states. There are a few sensible restrictions.

I believe people should be responsible for their own acts, but I also think we need to take into account that there are some people who are so desperate that it is in the interests of everyone, including themselves and their families, that some assistance be offered and some sensible precautions taken. That is quite a sensible precaution.

We are going to have to face the issue of caps at some stage. It is certainly unrealistic to expect the cap to be decreased. There seem to be some reasonable provisions in there, and there are probably a few amendments in relation to increasing the cap at some stage. Work has to be done in accordance with this bill before that can occur. It is a very important check, which should and will happen.

There is also the issue of automatic tellers, which might be in one of the amendments. A lot of people use them for convenience, and it has not been shown to me that it is a problem in itself. Whilst it might be a problem for some people, there are a lot of people, especially the elderly, who feel a lot safer using one there than—harking back to our previous debate about police numbers—being mugged near an automatic teller on a cold, wintry Canberra night in some not terribly well-lit place in a public area.

In relation to some of the amendments, we were a bit concerned to see—and I am pleased Ms Dundas has it as part of her amendments—that there is no section in the government’s bill dealing with the taxes the industry pays. It is not so much a case of taxes rising every year—they do rise occasionally and change occasionally. But it is important for it to be there upfront rather than in regulation. If the government changes the taxes at some stage, a simple amendment can be made. A new bill can be brought in to do that. On balance, that is a far better way of doing it than what the government is proposing. We are happy to see Ms Dundas do that, and I can flag now that we will be supporting that.

I have some amendments, and I have already partly talked to the one on the dollar-for-dollar club contributions in relation to donations to political parties. I have three other amendments, which I will speak to when we come to them. Overall, the opposition is happy to support this bill. It will give some certainty to the industry, which we see as terribly important. I will deal with the other issues in the detail stage.

MS TUCKER (4.25): This long awaited bill is the result of the Gambling and Racing Commission’s review of gaming machine laws in the ACT. The Greens will be supporting this bill. Although it does not go far enough in some areas, it is clearly an improvement on the current system. It is a large bill and I will not attempt to go through

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .