Page 4835 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 27 November 2018
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we’ve forced the problem gamblers to jump in their cars and drive to Queanbeyan. At least we forced that change, and what a great win that is!”
I know Mr Rattenbury is aware of those figures in terms of the decline in gaming revenue in the ACT and the fact that that decline is absolutely mirrored by an increase in Queanbeyan. That is all that is going on here. Most of these clubs are run by volunteer boards who commit their private time to steering a path for their club. The time frames given to these volunteer boards under this bill, to make the most complex decisions around the various proposals for surrender of authorisations, is ludicrous. We are virtually already in December. These boards have until the end of January to meet and discuss these most complex options.
Christmas is just around the corner. The whole town is pretty much going to be on holiday. They have until the end of January to meet and discuss these very complex options, to come up with a decision that will potentially impact their club forever. If the bill itself is unfair, the time frame is also extremely unfair. Astoundingly, the clubs, through their peak body, have written to the minister for regulatory services to request an industry-wide briefing, and blow me down if he has not refused. Is the minister so petrified of the clubs sector that he does not wish to meet them publicly?
I just do not get it. The time frame for the implementation of this policy is far too short, and the incentives offered for authorisation surrender are manifestly inadequate, Madam Speaker. In the government’s proposed reforms there are five genuinely small clubs that get a really raw deal, despite what the government would have you believe. These clubs will have to hand back physical, operating machines. The government is poised, therefore, to strip these clubs of important cash-generating assets and will not be paying anything near what these machines would be worth if they were left to market forces.
Worse still, they are asking these clubs to effectively come up with a business statement about how, after taking this cash-generating asset, they are supposed to remain viable. And that is not the worst of it. The ACT Labor-Greens government will let one club in this town not give up a single operating machine. This club will just hand back numbers on pieces of paper. Not a single operating machine will leave that venue. It will be business as usual. It will be just another day for Canberra’s largest gaming venue. Which club are we talking about? Blow me down if it is not the Tradies club—the CFMEU Tradies club.
The minister could have helped these small clubs. He could have raised the threshold that currently protects clubs with under 20. He could have raised that threshold to 50, thereby protecting those genuinely small clubs as well. These clubs could then have had a choice about agreeing to the government’s terms or they could continue to use their machines to generate income.
What about the Tradies? The minister says he wants clubs to diversify, that he wants clubs to focus on their other operations. Why are we leaving an option for a mega club in this town? Why didn’t this minister enforce a maximum number of machines per club? It could be one of the few things that Mr Rattenbury and I agree on in this space. We would have gone with that. How about a maximum number of 300 machines at
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