Page 3597 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 27 October 2015
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profitability, legislation and regulations, taxation and charges, land development and sales, problem gambling, diversification and mergers, new business models, poker machines and gambling technologies, and water and resource management. I will make a couple of comments about a few of those points in my following remarks.
We heard that there are 49 licensed clubs in the ACT and that in recent years the number of clubs in the ACT has been in decline. The committee heard and certainly agreed on the need to assist vulnerable problem gamblers. We noted the suite of measures that are currently implemented by the clubs, through the ACT government, to address problem gambling and we noted the research that has been undertaken and will continue to be undertaken. There are quite a number of recommendations in the committee report relating to the need for ongoing research.
It is important to address the social, emotional and financial impact of problem gambling. It affects families and the wider community, not just the individuals themselves. And I know in some of my previous work I also heard about the potential impact of financial stress and, indeed, homelessness arising from problem gambling.
The committee also heard about the growing use and potential misuse of online gambling. But it is important to note the balancing side of that, the ongoing and important contribution that community clubs make to the ACT community and that problem gamblers are only a very small part of those people who visit clubs.
Many sporting groups and community organisations that I talk to every day talk about the valuable support they receive from community clubs and, indeed, many of them say it would be very difficult for them to continue to operate without that support from clubs. These groups range from the ACT Deafness Resource Centre, Better Hearing Australia, the Tuggeranong Hawks Football Club, Tuggeranong Netball Association, Tuggeranong Valley Junior Rugby Union Club, the Billiards and Snooker Association, the Tuggeranong Dog Training Club, Pegasus Riding for the Disabled, Karinya House, Technical Aid to the Disabled ACT, Marymead, the ACT Eden Monaro Cancer Support Group, ACT Rescue and Foster, Arthritis ACT, Volunteering ACT, Bosom Buddies ACT, Royal Lifesaving Association and the Cerebral Palsy Alliance, to name just a few. There was quite an extensive list of organisations that receive support from community clubs.
Much of the evidence we received from the clubs was about the need for certainty, the ongoing regulatory environment and enabling ways to secure the long-term viability of the club sector. To that end the committee made 45 recommendations. They are wide ranging and recognise the additional ways that we can provide certainty for clubs while addressing community concerns about problem gambling because of the range and depth of those recommendations.
In terms of the contribution of clubs, in 2007 an Allen Consulting Group study found that clubs in the ACT employed 2,177 people. Increasingly they included chefs. Seventy-nine per cent of all goods and services purchased by clubs were sourced from services within the ACT. In 2013-14 clubs made community contributions of $12.7 million which was 13.27 per cent of net gaming machine revenue. Gaming machines in the ACT provided $170 million in gross gaming revenue in 2013-14. We also heard
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