Robertson Grant: Gambling Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
Robertson Grant: Gambling Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
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GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to join in this debate. It has been a very interesting debate in one sense because of the clear view across the House that there is significant further work to do in terms of our gambling laws. The Gambling Act 2003 was excellent legislation but it dealt with what we all know to be a very complex and troubling area. It is an area that is full of moral hazards but which is of course the source of funding for many of our sporting and cultural organisations. The balance that was attempted to be struck in the Gambling Act 2003 produced many good outcomes and we have already heard about those tonight. My colleague Darien Fenton has mentioned the moratorium on casinos. There has been a drop off in the number of class 4 gaming machines or pokie machines as they are more commonly known so we have seen some good consequences from that legislation. 
The Gambling Act itself in 2003 was also bluntly the result of a need for the then Labour minority Government to put together a majority to pass the legislation. As a result there were a number of negotiations that I in a previous life participated in. It was difficult to bring the law together and it had of course some imperfections once it was finally passed and this bill deals with some of those imperfections. But it is largely a technical bill. As other speakers have noted when the Government Administration Committee heard submissions many of those submissions sought a mandate to go much further than the bill does. As I have said it is pleasing to hear members across the House address some of those issues and I hope that this Parliament will be able to take up a number of them in one form or another. 
It is important to note that this bill will not address those deep issues of concern but that does not de-legitimise them. A number of other speakers have mentioned the impact of gambling on New Zealand society and I think it is worth setting out that context so that people can be aware of the importance of having regulation around an issue such as gambling. We know that every day in New Zealand $2.77 million is lost on pokie machines. That is not the amount of money that is bet in pokie machines; it is the amount of money that is lost every day—over $2 million. We know that disproportionately that money is being lost in low socio-economic areas. If we use the decile categories in decile 9 there is one pokie machine for every 75 people. In decile 1 there is one pokie machine for every 465 people. So problem gambling and the problems associated with pokie machines are far more evident in our low socio-economic areas. We also know that 3 percent of the adult population are problem gamblers and they account for 24 percent of the expenditure on gambling. Obviously that is the very point—they are problem gamblers because they are betting far in excess of others in society and often far in excess of the resources that they bring to the gaming machines. The problem of gambling in New Zealand is deep it is widespread and the original Gambling Act made an attempt to deal with that. 
I also want to refer to the speech made by Richard Worth at the beginning of the first reading debate. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: What did he say? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: He avoided talking about some of the conflict of interest categories in here but I want to praise the Minister who has been under a little bit of pressure lately because he made clear his commitment to working on a number of issues related to gambling in particular wanting to work to ensure that a greater percentage of money involved in the gambling sector gets to support community groups. I think all of us in the House having acknowledged that gambling is part of our society would want to see proceeds being returned to the community. What we know at the moment is that of the money from class 4 machines from pokie machines effectively 20 percent of it goes in duty and 37.5 percent of losses should go out in grants to the community but this does not necessarily benefit the community where the money was actually bet. We also know that venues and pubs can claim a maximum of 16 percent of losses for administration costs. So that leaves around 40 percent of money that could be paid out. I join the Minister in his crusade to try to ensure that more money does go to the community and I hope we can work on an issue like that across the House. 
This bill seeks to enhance the purpose of the original Gambling Act and I think it is important to set that context. The purpose of the 2003 Act is to control the growth of gambling. It is a harm-minimisation approach and that is the approach we were able to gain a consensus for in 2002-03. There were some in Parliament at that time who wanted to go further but that seemed to be the consensus we could get. The Act was also able to facilitate responsible gambling and ensure the fairness of games. It tried to limit opportunities for crime or dishonesty associated with gambling and as I mentioned earlier ensure that money from gambling benefits the community. 
This bill tries to deal with some of the imperfections and one I particularly want to talk about is the suitability of a person who holds a class 4 licence. A class 4 licence is the licence that governs most of the pokie machines that we are talking about. Although in the original Gambling Act a number of good measures were put in place to try to determine the suitability of people to hold licences this bill widens that. One thing in particular that it does is takes into account matters that a person has been involved in in the previous 7 years rather than the 10 years currently in the bill. That is an improvement that I think will allow significantly more investigation and significantly more factors to be taken into account when a decision is being made as to whether someone should be able to hold a class 4 licence. 
The powers have also been extended so that the director of a company that has been placed into receivership put into liquidation or who has been involved in events leading up to that happening will have that factor taken into account when seeking a class 4 licence. Anyone who has been prohibited or disqualified from acting as a director in a company is also put out of action in terms of holding a licence and other clauses have been inserted to ensure that anyone who has had any impropriety in terms of his or her role as a company director is also not able to hold a class 4 licence. That is a positive step forward. We are all aware of the stories in our community about the rorts that perhaps apocryphally have taken place in a number of parts of the country whereby pubs or clubs have forced sporting or community organisations to come into a pub and drink there in order to be able to receive the benefits of money that has come from pokie machines. Earlier speakers in the debate mentioned specific examples of that across the community. I think we all recognise that that is not a satisfactory situation. There has been an improvement in that and the Gambling Commission has had a role in monitoring that but I think one area that we could continue to look more into is the distribution of grants not only being in the territorial authority area in which the gambling takes place but also to ensure that those who run pubs and clubs where there are gaming machines are not acting in a way that community organisations and sporting organisation feel they have to follow. 
I want to echo one other comment that my colleague Darien Fenton raised earlier. That is the question of the placing of gaming machines in outdoor areas. This is a concern that I know the Labour members of the select committee raised when the bill was before the select committee and we hope that we can come back to this question later on during the Committee stage. A harm-minimisation approach will not be helped if people can gamble outdoors which means that they can continue to smoke and drink in that outdoor area. Part of the original intention of the Gambling Act was to try to provide a situation in which there were opportunities to break in to a pattern of gambling. We already know that in the Gambling Act—and we are now in the process of seeing this further implemented—there is the provision for the pop-up messages that appear on gaming machines to indicate to the user of the machine how long he or she has been there and how much money he or she has spent. Those kinds of harm minimisation messages are important and they are enhanced by this bill. 
There are several other useful changes and improvements brought in by this amendment bill. One of these amendments widens the number of people required to work on the question of who a problem gambler is in a particular premises. At the moment the casino operator has that obligation but it has been extended and the fine for not fulfilling that role has also been extended. 
This bill was brought in by the previous Government. We are very pleased to continue to support it. I am pleased to say that this Parliament appears interested in taking on more widely the issue of problem gambling. I look forward to working with others across the House on this bill.