Collins Judith: Gambling Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Collins Judith: Gambling Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:611;Page:8470] 
JUDITH COLLINS (NZ National—Clevedon) 
: 
 Part 2 is a massive part. It is the sort of thing that if this were our bill we would have had in about four different parts so that we could have all had a proper discussion and debate on it and it could have been voted for correctly in terms of the various issues it deals with. 
I want to look at a measure in Supplementary Order Paper 132 which the Minister has put in. It is about having no more casinos and no increase in casino gambling opportunities. I find it ridiculous that a law will be put in place that states there will be no more casinos in New Zealand when we have a situation where since this Minister has been in charge of this portfolio the number of pokie machines outside casinos has grown from just over 12000 to 25000 now. What is the harm that the registered casinos are producing? The total number of gaming machines in all the casinos in New Zealand is just over the 3000 mark so I do not understand what the Minister is getting at when he says that we do not want to have any more casinos but we can have more pokie machines. Worse than that—because at least with the pokie machines the money goes back into local communities—the Lotteries Commission will now compete with the casinos and with the charitable trusts that run the pokie machines. 
We are looking at a situation where the casinos are being told there cannot be any more casinos. The people of Rotorua who have a serious tourism industry are being told they cannot have a casino but they can have lots and lots of pokie machines that are not in a casino and better than that they can get the tourists on to the online gaming that the Lotteries Commission will run. It seems to me that there is clearly no commitment to the responsible gambling that this bill is supposed to be all about. Another issue is that we are to have no increase in the gambling opportunities in casinos. Why is that? Is it because that panders to a politically correct sort of notion that casinos are evil places? Well they are not; that is another nonsense. 
Yet section 8C inserted by clause 8 on Supplementary Order Paper 132 states that when looking at the increase in gambling opportunities the Gambling Commission will be able to say to the casino operators that they do not really have to have table games any more in casinos which is one of the requirements of casinos in this country because they can have pokie machines instead. Will we be looking to see the casinos in this country simply become great big pokie machine venues? That will take away any concept of a real casino. We will end up with the leagues club situation that they have in Sydney. We are looking at a situation here whereby casinos which do provide a tourist opportunity and an employment opportunity particularly in the table games area will now be given the option of cutting back on the table games and instead increasing the number of the far more addictive pokie machines. That just seems absolute nonsense to me. There has clearly been some sort of trade-off with the casinos. They are to be stopped from having any more gaming opportunities but they are just allowed to choose the most cost-effective way for them. That will be the one that will earn them the most money but it will not increase the employment that we need in that area. That is one concern. 
When we look at Rotorua for instance we see this Government will not allow any more casinos yet it will allow all sorts of other gambling opportunities. The Rotorua people put in their application for a casino just after the moratorium started in 1997. It was a matter of a day or so after that as I recall. So those people have a tremendous opportunity. In the United States one of the most profitable casinos is owned by the local Native American people of Connecticut. In the Foxwoods Resort they have one of the most successful casinos in the United States. They also happen to be the wealthiest tribe of Native American people in the United States. This Government is depriving the people of New Zealand of a similar opportunity. It will not allow people to get up and make their own income.