Page 1629 - Week 05 - Thursday, 5 May 2016
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The other thing is this. Can you believe the government in this regard? Clauses 7 and 8 of the MOU are very definite in what they say. Clause 8 comes under the heading of the section called “Contribution to the community”. It says:
The ACT government will continue to support the community based gaming model.
I look forward to the Chief Minister standing up and saying that today. Clause 7 talks about gaming reform and about making sure that we do no more harm than machines perhaps have already done. In clause 7 it says that the government agrees to the introduction of a scheme that allows the transfer of pokies between clubs. It says:
This scheme must be transparent, fair and open to all clubs in the ACT, consider social impacts and not increase the incidence of problem gambling or the concentration of EGMs—
electronic gaming machines—
in particular locations …
What do casinos do? They, in this case, want a concentration of some 500 machines. We know from the results in Sydney that they increase the incidence of problem gambling. Why would we go there? Why would we even consider this?
Aquis purchased the club knowing that they had no poker machines, that they had never had poker machines. It is about time we took that into account and say, “Enough is enough. Finish this farce. Say no to poker machines in the casino.”
We have had some argument this week about the clubs. It is worth knowing that, rather than buying more facilities, most large clubs—any clubs, I suspect—would be very wary of taking on new investments. Over recent years, we have seen, as I have said, the Southern Cross Club take over Wests rugby, which went into administration. The Labor club took over the Weston Creek bowlo. The Labor club took over the Canberra RSL. The Raiders took over Royals at Weston. Raiders Belconnen was formerly the west Belconnen leagues club. But we have seen some of the clubs getting rid of assets. Vikings Group sold off the capital golf club. Ainslie Group has plans to get rid of the Canberra City Bowling Club, which was taken over in an effort to assist the community but in fact has been a financial drain on the club. None of the big corporations are picking up these locations. Why? Because they know that it does not meet their profit model.
It has been only greenfield sites, so no open sites in the past 10 years. Calwell club, I think, was 2004, and Raiders Gungahlin was 1999. Clubs were closed or rebranded since 2006: the tennis association was bought by Eastlake, then closed; Southern Cross Club Kaleen, formerly Wests rugby, closed; the Canberra Club and Canberra Services Club merged and now operate out of the old RUC site; Braddon Club has closed permanently; Tuggeranong Valley Leagues Club has closed; Kaleen Sports Club is now part of the Eastlake group; Southern Cross Club Turner is now the RUC; Yamba club has closed permanently; Magpies City Club has closed permanently; the Serbian Club has closed permanently.
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