Naylor Jono: Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNaylor Jono: Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading[Sitting date: 04 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4368. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JONO NAYLOR (National): This is a really important piece of legislation. It is really important that we have this conversation in New Zealand about how our gambling venues are managed because as so many of the speakers on both sides of the House have already indicated today how we deal with this is a really important thing for New Zealand society. There are definitely problem-gambling issues. There are also definitely issues surrounding the distribution of money that has been raised through gambling and it is really important that we try to do the best that we can to get this right.The majority of the amendments in this bill deal with gaming machines and pokies which are generally in bars pubs and clubs. I just do not know how these things work. I kind of know how they work but I do not think I have ever put a single coin in one of those machines in my life and probably never will. That is probably something that is a good thing. I guess I grew up in a family where that was never part of our culture. It might have been my Presbyterian minister father but that is how it was.I think the tenor of what we have heard today has been almost indicating that we want to sort of wipe gaming machines out. I guess even though it is not my thing—I do not think as I say I will ever be into putting money into slot machines—if we were going to go around and start banning everything that I was not into we would probably have a pretty boring society for some of the others. So I am not going to inflict that on people. I believe that we do need to have things in place that allow people to make choices for their own lives. That said we do need to have some pretty good guidelines around how these machines operate in our country.This form of gambling through these class 4 machines generates a significant amount of money. New Zealanders spend about $700 million through these machines in these venues across the country each year. What we want to do in passing this legislation is ensure that as much of the proportion of that $700 million as possible goes back into the local communities from which it came. I think we just heard a very compelling proposition there in terms of the way that those statistics look currently around Auckland from the member opposite Jenny Salesa when she talked about what happens in terms of the amount of the money that is generated from this in Manukau East compared with the money that goes back into that community. I think that is a very compelling argument as to why we need this legislation to ensure that that happens.As we have heard already this afternoon a significant amount of that $700 million is already going to the 40 percent levy that comes back into the Government coffers which we would argue will benefit New Zealanders because it is money that is going to get invested back into New Zealand. Actually ultimately less than half of the money that comes through these machines will go back into local communities. Over time it is something that I have heard a fair amount about from people. There is a bit of cynicism about some of the gaming trusts and a bit of cynicism about where the money goes to. You get accusations at times of: “It just goes to their mates.” or otherwise. Certainly over the years members of the public both in this role and in the role I had previously have I guess talked to me about their concerns in that regard.So it is important that we have these new proposals that are coming through in this legislation to make things more transparent so that the public can have confidence that the money is going where it needs to go. I am very supportive of that and I think it is critical that we do that. I think we have got to make sure that we limit in those processes the opportunities for crime and dishonesty associated with gambling. We need to make sure that we are following through on what the purposes if you like of gambling are. We have had Denise Roche talk about a number of those purposes already in the House this afternoon. I just want to reiterate that again one of those purposes is that money raised from gambling will be invested back into communities so therefore it is supposed to be operated in a not-for-profit way. Sorry I say “gambling” but I mean that which occurs outside casinos. For the public to know that the proceeds are going to go back into the community is vitally important.To tackle this we are going to restore the ability of the Department of Internal Affairs to cancel or suspend class 4 licences as a penalty. I guess that is the stick part of the approach. It is important that we have significant penalties so that when operators of these class 4 machines are in breach of the way they are supposed to be operated when they are not being as transparent as they should with the way they are dispensing the money and when it is not going back into the communities where it should be going back into we have appropriate measures in place so that the Department of Internal Affairs can take significant action and hold these people to account.But with any type of proposal it is clearly important that we do not just have a stick and that there is also a carrot involved. So there are provisions contained within this bill that will ultimately for those operators who operate well give the opportunity to have a 3-year licence rather than the 18 months that it is currently. I have heard from other members this afternoon their concern over the mystery shopper - type arrangement. There does not seem to be a really good record within the industry of their being very good operators. I think what we need to do is incentivise those people to be better. I am certainly not suggesting that everybody is doing this as well as they could. In fact let us face it: if all the operators out there were operating in the way that we really hope that they would we would not be putting this amendment bill through the House. So we are taking those steps. We are ensuring that by putting these things in place we are going to do that.I think there has been some great work done by the Government Administration Committee. I am not a member of the committee but I understand that some good work has been done. It heard the 126 submissions and as has also been alluded to this afternoon these came from a really wide variety of people. I was encouraged to hear that the vast majority of the submitters liked the direction that this was moving in. I understand that not everybody is going to get everything they want from an amendment bill. We have got many submitters who are coming from quite different angles quite different ways of looking at this but I think that having such broad support for the direction of this bill suggests that we are making some good progress.I want to commend the committee too for some of the suggestions that it has made to bring back. I guess it is a great endorsement of the parliamentary process that when bills are brought forward they do not always just follow exactly the same form from the start to the finish. It is really important of course that we have the select committees where we get cross-party involvement everybody gets involved and hopefully we produce even better legislation perhaps than what the Minister brought in in the first place. So the strengthening of the description of the key person role within this is I think a really good initiative that has come from the select committee. Again it helps to improve the accountability helps to improve the transparency and ensures that we are actually achieving exactly what it is that we are wanting to achieve in this space.I guess I just want to wrap up now by saying that what is really important here is that the public have confidence in the system that is in operation that they do not become cynical about the way these funds are being distributed in our community and that in fact they can be confident about this. Let us face it: I personally think it would be really great if so many of our community organisations were not so dependent on money that was derived from this source but the reality is that they are at the moment. While that is occurring we need to ensure that those communities that are contributing to this source of funding are the ones that are benefiting from it. So from that perspective I happily stand here to commend this bill to the House and look forward to the Committee stage when I am sure there will be some more robust debate and perhaps some more fine-tweaking of this document.