Page 2635 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 25 September 2007
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This is what we have here in the ACT. We have a compromised government, Mr Speaker. We have a government which takes hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the community by virtue of contributions coming from licensed clubs whose sole aim is to be set up and established for the funding of the Labor Party. This government is compromised because it comes into office and it runs its election campaigns on the backs of those 19 to 30-year-old unqualified young men who have gambling problems, the people that Jon Stanhope, Mick Gentleman and Andrew Barr and the rest of them are supposed to be out there representing. They come into government on the backs of these people, they come into government on the backs of their misery, and there is no will in this government to address the problems of problem gambling.
That is evidenced by the fact that, slowly and quietly over the years, this government has squeezed the chair of gambling studies until there is nothing left and set up something else—or is attempting to set up something else—in its place which is not interested in and does not have a brief for gambling studies. We have a problem. Poker machines have a big impact, both positive and negative in the ACT, and this government is not interested in the negative impact.
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Business and Economic Development, Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Minister for the Environment, Water and Climate Change, Minister for the Arts) (3.44): Mr Speaker, the licensed club movement in the ACT has played a profound and indelible role in the development of Canberra and the Canberra community—a role, it has to be said, that the Liberal Party is quite willing to put at risk. Indeed, the stance taken by the Liberal Party in recent days has been nothing more or less than a direct attack on the morality and the value of licensed clubs in Canberra—an attack, I think it can be said, on the social fabric of the community.
The clubs were among the first organisations to draw like-minded people together to pursue common interests and they have played a crucial role in establishing the infrastructure of our town. The reach of their involvement in our world is impressive. They are the foundation of much of our sporting life. Football, cricket, golf, tennis and bowls would not be what they are in Canberra without clubs. Add to these the social and community benefits generated by our ethnic and social clubs. Imagine Canberra without our clubs. Roughly half of all Canberrans belong to one or more clubs. Ask them what they believe clubs contribute to their lives and to Canberra.
Canberra’s licensed clubs are also responsible for providing a great deal of important social infrastructure: meeting venues, sporting and other recreational facilities, parking and children’s playgrounds. Historically licensed clubs have been part of the Canberra community from the earliest days. The first club, the Canberra Bowling Club, was established in 1926. After 80 years it is still operating and has been joined by another 64 licensed community clubs.
Clubs are, first and foremost, meeting places. To a very large extent, the industry’s development distinguishes the ACT from other jurisdictions. Canberra is not a pub town. It never has been. It has been, to some extent, a club town. Of course, the Liberal Party’s continued advocacy of the introduction of poker machines to clubs,
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