Page 1628 - Week 05 - Thursday, 5 May 2016
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That is the difference. Casinos do not do that. Casinos’ number one objective is to maximise the profit for the owner. And you have to say that when they do that the way they do that carves a swathe through local communities. We know that from the Sydney experiment. We know that in Sydney the casino catchment area impacts about a 10-kilometre radius. In Canberra, if you had a 10-kilometre radius from the current casino, that is as far as Palmerston in the north to the bottom suburbs of Woden in the south. It gets out to the mid-range in Belconnen and includes Molonglo and parts of Weston Creek. What is clear is that people will travel to a casino in that way. Indeed, the casinos will often provide shuttle services. Star city gives a $10 shuttle bus service for up to 24 kilometres away. Twenty-four kilometres away: a shuttle would go from Amaroo to Banks without too much difficulty.
When Star city opened in Sydney, 47 per cent of the clubs in the area shut within that 10-kilometre radius. Forty-eight clubs, 47 per cent of the clubs that were there, shut. And we know from all the studies on problem gaming that, when comparing casinos and clubs, people will travel further to go to a casino and they play for longer. An electronic gaming machine in the ACT averages $33,000 a year. In a casino, it is $110,000 a year. They travel further, they play longer and they lose three times the amount of money.
Forty per cent of people play poker machines at a casino. That is double the number of people who play at a club. All venues associated with casinos are those that are most associated with harm to moderate to high-risk gamers. For instance, there are issues with crime. Crown casino has a violent assault every three days and Star city casino has more violent assaults than Sydney’s most violent night club. And, of course, we know that casino profits flow offshore. That is what you are at risk of.
What we have to have here is an affirmation of our belief as an Assembly that we believe in protecting the community. The best way to protect the community is through the community club gaming model. Why? Because it provides employment; it provides investment; it provides opportunity for training; it provides safe venues for people to go to; it provides most of Canberra’s live music scene; it provides support to community groups, including sporting, ethnic, religious, women’s, children’s, military and veterans groups; and it does so on a not-for-profit basis and it does so in our community. That is what we must do. We must ensure that we take into account the benefits of having the community club gaming model against the effects of having a casino.
It is well known that there is an MOU between the ACT government and ClubsACT. Indeed, Ms Burch features in it. Ms Burch says:
The Government recognises the benefits that the club industry provides to the ACT community and economy, and we will continue to support it. Take clubs out of the equation, and we lose a lot as a community.
Casino went into Sydney and 48 per cent of the clubs went broke. “Take the clubs out of the community and we lose a lot as a community.” Why are we putting that at risk?
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