Page 976 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 15 March 2005
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associated entity and will, by virtue of that, have a significant impact on the operation and good governance of clubs.
That is an unintended consequence of the act and this bill will reinstate the practice adopted by many clubs and therefore help maintain stability within a licensee’s organisational structure by ensuring the original objectives continue through the nomination of a majority of directors by an approved associated entity. This amendment will also ensure that persons with appropriate skills or expertise are nominated or elected as directors. What this says, effectively, is that, where a club has been formed for, say, the purposes of promoting a football team or local set of football teams, it will not be taken over by the guys at the back bar or the fishermen’s club because they happen to attend an annual general meeting.
A minor amendment has also been identified in the form of the club’s licence. It will require that the gaming machine licence show the class of gaming machine rather than the kind. This simple measure will avoid the duplication of information already contained in the schedule to the licence being replicated in the detail of the actual licence that must be displayed by the licensee.
Finally, the bill proposes an amendment to the disqualifying grounds for attendants and technicians as well as to the grounds for the commission taking disciplinary action against a licensee. The proposed amendment will include that the grounds for taking disciplinary action against a gaming machine attendant, technician or licensee should also refer to a contravention of the criminal code 2002 as well as the existing reference to contravention of the Gaming Machine Act 2004 in relation to the conduct of gaming machine operations.
These provisions were included in previous gaming machine legislation but were relocated to the criminal code as part of the global development of the ACT criminal code and the consolidation of similar offences. This proposal will allow the commission to take disciplinary action or to take action against an attendant or technician, where appropriate, where unlawful activity such as fraud or theft has been involved in gaming machine operations. I commend the Gaming Machine Amendment Bill 2005 to the Assembly.
Debate (on motion by Mr Smyth) adjourned to the next sitting.
Cemeteries and Crematoria Amendment Bill 2005
Mr Hargraves, by leave, presented the bill, its explanatory statement and a Human Rights Act compatibility statement.
Title read by Clerk.
MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella—Minister for Disability, Housing and Community Services, Minister for Urban Services and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (10.37): I move:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
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