Tisch Lindsay: Responsible Gambling Bill — Second Reading 
Tisch Lindsay: Responsible Gambling Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:610;Page:7871] 
LINDSAY TISCH (NZ National—Piako) 
: 
 Here we are 3 years later and we have a bit of a Bible here. The bill has 333 pages containing 333 clauses and six schedules making it great bedtime reading. 
Dianne Yates 
: Nine long years and you didn’t do anything. 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: I did sit in the Government Administration Committee and hear all the submissions; I was a party to that. But for all the good intentions that came forward National will not be supporting this bill. Everybody likes to have a flutter and I certainly like to have a flutter but this bill does not go anywhere. 
The bill is a contradiction in the sense that on the one hand it wants to limit gambling yet on the other hand it states to some organisations like the racing industry that they can have pokie machines and that the TAB can have pokie machines. It also states that in situations where there are some clubs that could join together for the sake of their long-term viability with the Minister’s discretion the number of machines could go out to 30. I am not opposed to the racing industry having its own pokie machines; I support that. I am not opposed to the TAB having machines. I took very close notice of what the Hon Damien O’Connor said when he talked about the racing industry because he said that he wanted to do what is best for the racing industry. But there is a view out there that because racing clubs will be able to have pokie machines they will not be able to source funds and money from other charities or groups that have machines. That is a major concern because not every racing club will go and put its own machines in. A club may meet only once a year so the economics of going out there and putting a machine in would be a nonsense. 
I will turn to harness racing because I want to quote from what the Minister said at Alexander Park on 18 July. If the situation should change his words will come back to haunt him. This is what the Minister said: “There are no certainties over the final content of the gambling bill until it has passed through all stages.” That is fine. He went on to say: “There are still ongoing discussions on a number of issues but I am optimistic that racing will get a fair deal.” The only deal that the racing industry is interested in in terms of pokie machines is one whereby it is able to retain the money from pokie machines for racing stakes and the industry is not limited in any way in going out and sourcing money. 
Hon George Hawkins 
: Go and be happy. 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: The Minister should go back and watch some of those television programmes. It is important that racing clubs are able to source funds from other traditional areas. 
I have no problem in terms of the issues where there have been some discrepancies—and the discrepancies came through loudly and clearly. I applaud the measures where the Department of Internal Affairs has come in and looked to put in place some accountability transparency and monitoring measures. It was interesting to read the article in the  
Dominion Post  
on 31 July entitled “Clubs lose licences in pokies crackdown”. I have no difficulty with that if there are abuses of the system; that is the point that needs to be made. The Department of Internal Affairs needs to have the resources to go out there and monitor those things. We do not need to have an Act of Parliament to change the present legislation in order to do that policing. We should give the Department of Internal Affairs the resources it needs to make the policing of the law work. I have here an article from  
Gambit 
 in July that states: “Action taken against 34 gaming machine societies and sites plus 236 formal warnings.” That is great. If organisations societies and trusts are breaking the law they need to be held to account. I have no difficulty with that and National has no difficulty with that. 
What we object to is that this legislation which is supposedly to control gambling at the end of the day will not work. Our position is very clear indeed. We want transparency and some accountability but we think that this bill is a complete overreaction. We have seen such overreactions over the last 3 years. There is a premise that when one legislates one will fix problems but it does not work like that because one cannot legislate for human behaviour. It does not matter what sort of conditions one puts in place one cannot legislate for human behaviour. 
I want to bring forward some of the issues that we will debate at length during the Committee stage because they are very very important. The first one relates to bank note acceptors. The bill states that note acceptors will be removed. The Minister in his speech at the beginning of the second reading debate said that the Government will allow note acceptors to a maximum of $20. There is no international experience that shows that doing away with note acceptors will limit the amount of gaming that exists. Plenty of research shows that that does not work. It will not reduce gambling at all. Customers will simply change their notes for coins. There is no research or experience overseas that supports the idea that removing note acceptors will limit gambling. In addition there are e-bet cards that I would be able to use in a machine. Instead of putting a note in I could put my e-bet card in. In fact there are a few dollars left on it— 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: What’s the number? 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: It is a good number too. It might actually win—I am a betting man. So we still have the opportunity to do that. 
This bill does not stop Internet gambling. There are already over 1000 sites. I could sit in my lounge at home and log on to any gambling site on the Internet. This bill does not acknowledge that. It does absolutely nothing in terms of limiting that or trying to police it because it cannot be done. In fact in the United Kingdom the authorities tried to put controls on Internet gambling and found that after 12 months of those controls being in place they had to reverse their decisions. There is currently a new system operating in the United Kingdom. It is run by an organisation called Betfair UK. The same system is available here in New Zealand. It is known as “exchange betting”. It works by someone putting up $100 and the commission on that bet is 1 percent only which is a pretty good deal. However the experience overseas is that problem gamblers or people who have some information from insider trading are able to take up the bet. Already £75 million per week goes through that betting system. 
I want to highlight one area of concern which I have tabled Supplementary Order Paper 64 on. That is the formula for problem gambling. It has been mentioned in previous debates that the problem gambling levy rose from $5.8 million to $9.8 in October last year has risen to $12 million this year and will rise to $20 million within a couple of years. There is absolutely no justification for having an increase in the problem gambling levy of that magnitude. What happens now is that the providers and the people within the industry sit down around the table say how much they need and agree to share the money out and to make things work. That system has worked extremely well. 
But under this bill the Ministry of Health will have ownership of that levy. The Ministry of Health has not progressed the issue of problem gambling in any way and that is one of the major concerns. I tabled Supplementary Order Paper 64 some time ago and it looks at how we can refine the formula and have the flexibility in it that will allow a better distribution of and better accountability for the problem gambling levy. It is very important that we ring-fence the levy and make sure that the money that is going into the problem gambling area is used for that purpose and is not abused open-endedly which I am sure this bill will allow for. 
I do have another concern which relates to the setting up of the Gambling Commission. One area it does not include is the racing industry. The commission therefore has major shortcomings.