Page 5982 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 8 December 2010
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“Yes, there are problem gamblers.” I did not deny that there were not significant numbers of problem gamblers. You should listen very closely to what I say. I acknowledged there was a change in the index. I acknowledged there was a change in the numbers. I acknowledged that it is still a problem. So I do not see why you would even make a statement like that somehow to assuage how you feel by projecting it onto me.
The problem here, Mr Assistant Speaker, is that, yet again, the Greens cover for the government. The Greens—the government’s personal patsies in this place—are not holding the government to account as they promised. Again, in the last financial year the government received $33 million from poker machines and funded two programs. I think each cost about $180,000, so $360,000. That is less money than the club sector voluntarily put into problem gaming through assisting Lifeline. They do it now, voluntarily. They do more than the government.
The largest single profit group from gaming is the government. The second, of course, is the ACT Labor Party. The combined profit—and I have asked the clubs to give me a much firmer figure than the $2 million to $4 million that they have come up with as yet—from the club sector over the last year was somewhere between $2 million and $4 million. The government got—what?—eight times that and yet contributes less to dealing with problem gaming in this city.
Ms Hunter sits there now and will not hold the government to account. I cannot for the life of me understand why the Greens, who raised this issue, have not said to the government, “It’s about time you did a fair share, sport.” Because they are not doing their fair share. Instead, we target just the clubs and just the poker machines. No-one is saying that they do not contribute to the problem, but let us be fair about this. The Greens, the party of equity and equality and all of those good words they rattle off—words that are wearing thin with a lot of the community—are exposed here today because they will not hold their coalition partners to account. They talk about being the third force, the balance of power. They are the damp squibs when it comes to holding the government to account.
Mr Barr spoke about conflict of interest: “How dare you put people who run gaming venues or gambling venues on an advisory board? They will have a conflict of interest.” Let us look at the Labor Party’s conflict of interest in being the regulator, the legislator and the recipient of profits from poker machines. That is the conflict of interest. Of course, Mr Barr’s policy announcement this morning—“Yes, we’re taking these out of the pool”—would appear to suggest that he is taking them back from somebody. He is not taking anything back from anyone. He is just not going to issue the remaining poker machine licences under the cap. That is brave. Jeez, that is real leadership! It has not taken one active poker machine out of play in the ACT by what he has done, not one. That is just sophistry at best. If you want to talk about conflict of interest, go and look in the mirror.
Let us go back to the ANU report and see what has happened in the last nine years. On electronic gaming machines, the ANU report found that there has been a significant change in the extent of gambling between 2001 and 2009. The proportion of adults in the ACT playing gaming machines fell from 38 per cent in 2001 to
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