Page 3317 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 19 August 2009
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(b) the sections of the Gaming Machine Act 2004 that identify influential persons and prohibits clubs that operate poker machines from being under the influence of outside parties;
(4) raises concerns about reports that Labor Party representatives, and members of the current Government, may have been involved in influencing the decisions of the board of the Labor Club group; and
(5) calls on all ministers of the ACT Government to make full and frank disclosures of any involvement they, their staff or their representatives may have had in influencing the decision making process of the Labor Club board.
We bring forward this motion today for a number of reasons. We said at the beginning of this week that in the Assembly we would be seeking answers from the government on the issues surrounding the matter.
There are two significant issues—somewhat separate, though linked issues—in this motion. We said that we would be seeking answers from the government in relation to the sale of the Labor club and in relation to the role of individual ministers in relation to the sale of the Labor club. We started that process yesterday in question time. I have to say that it was not very effective in terms of openness and accountability. We had a government and government ministers doing everything they could to hide behind the standing orders in order to not have to answer questions and not give a full account of their actions in relation to the sale.
There are two aspects to this, but I will just reflect on the start that we made in question time yesterday, on openness and accountability. We said that if we could not get answers we would look to push for an inquiry. So far the record is not a good one. We had ministers squirming and doing all that they could not to answer questions on this. We need to ask why that is. Why would you not come and give a full and frank account? Then we could move on. They have refused to do that. They have hidden behind the standing orders; they did their best not to answer questions. We still see a number of unresolved questions, and they will no doubt continue.
In summary, what we saw yesterday was this. We had an answer from Ms Gallagher in the end. After a bit of debate as to whether she should answer, she said that no, there had been no influence in relation to her, her representatives or her staff in relation to this sale. We got the same answer from Mr Barr. We did not get that answer from Mr Stanhope, because he did all he could to not answer that question. We are in some ways still none the wiser. What we are looking for is answers.
There are two main aspects to this motion, which I will go through now. The first is the idea of profiting from poker machines. That is essentially what is involved in the potential sale of the Labor club. We need to go back to the idea behind community-based gaming and whether or not the community’s support for community-based gaming will be undermined in any way by the idea that you can sell poker machines, you can make a massive profit and it does not have to go back into the community. That is fundamentally the first issue at stake here.
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