Page 3480 - Week 11 - Thursday, 15 November 2007
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My staff checked the figures given against figures obtained by the ACT Electoral Commission and found that there was significant under-reporting of donations. I wrote to the commission several months ago requesting that they remedy this, and updated information has recently been forthcoming.
Whilst I am glad that the ACT Gambling and Racing Commission took the trouble to fix this error when it was pointed out to them, it is unacceptable that this information should have been wrongly reported. Without accurate information about the dollar value of clubs’ support for the two major political parties we cannot accurately assess the motives of these parties when they lend their support to the clubs.
That issue aside, I think we need to reopen the debate on poker machines and their effects and re-examine whether the current community contribution system directs money where it is needed in the community. I believe that it does not and that we should be looking at a scheme along the lines of that proposed by the Gaming and Racing Commission in 2002. By putting just two per cent of the required contributions into some kind of community fund or trust we could ensure that the organisations which really need this money can have access to it, rather than having to rely on the year-by-year whims of these clubs. Of course, five per cent would be better, but two per cent would be very good. I hope that by re-opening the debate on this issue we may find some lasting solutions o this important social problem. I look forward very much to hearing the contributions of other members on this topic.
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) (4.12): I am pleased to be joining this debate today because it gives me the opportunity again to signify to the Canberra community, indeed to every member of a club in the ACT, this government’s strong support for the enormously important role which clubs play in the life of Canberra and the territory, indeed the region. I am pleased to have this opportunity to say that this government supports deeply and implicitly the club industry and the role that they play within our community.
It might have been refreshing for Dr Foskey in her remarks to acknowledge that, as I understand it, the biggest single contributor to the campaign of Kerrie Tucker, the Greens candidate for the senate in the ACT, is a club. What humbug and hypocrisy!
Dr Foskey: No, it is not. It is a union.
MR STANHOPE: Where did the union get their money, Dr Foskey? The union got their money from the tradies. They got their money from the Tradies Club. The biggest single contributor to the federal Greens candidate for the senate in the ACT is a Canberra club—the Tradies Club. Today Dr Foskey, leader of the Greens in the ACT, failed to mention that little titbit of information. The humbug and the hypocrisy of the Greens on these issues are quite remarkable!
Dr Foskey: On a point of order, I certainly would have mentioned it, if that had been the case. Of course, that was of great concern and it has been checked out.
MR SPEAKER: Order! That is not a point of order.
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