Collins Judith: Responsible Gambling Bill — Second Reading 
Collins Judith: Responsible Gambling Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:610;Page:7852] 
JUDITH COLLINS (NZ National—Clevedon) 
: 
 It seems that the Minister is a little bit upset with me. That probably has to do with the fact that he is no longer in charge of the Responsible Gambling Bill. Although he is here today in the House to talk to us about the bill the fact is that it has gone way past him. Other Ministers in Cabinet are dealing with this bill. It has gone to people like Trevor Mallard and even further up than that. That is because this “Minister in charge of Internal Affairs Leaky Buildings and Agent Orange” is so completely out of his depth that he has to stand here today and make out as though he is in charge. 
 This bill was actually delayed by an awfully long time—by 4 years. Part of that delay was caused by the fact that Labour was trying to cook up a deal. At first the deal was with the Greens and I would like to thank Sue Bradford for putting out a press release and letting people know what the Greens wanted in relation to their deal. I see that she is nodding in acknowledgment. She has a brand new press release out today which I have in front of me. So she let us know what Labour was doing with the Greens and we were able to let sports clubs charities schools and arts groups know exactly what was being planned. So if there has been a delay this year—and there has—it has been because of the great work of the National Party in Opposition letting people know what was being cooked up. 
What happened? First Sue Bradford let the cat out of the bag. Once we had told the people Labour then had to go cap in hand around Parliament around all the parties to try to get someone to do a deal with. I understand that Labour is still doing its deal with United Future and that one day this bill might get through to the Committee stage. Of course it has to because the moratorium on the establishment of new casinos finishes very soon—in fact in just a couple of months. As the Government has come out and said it does not want any more licensed casinos because of the evils of gambling we have to get this bill passed or else the Minister will be going. 
Jim Peters 
: Is that right? 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: That is absolutely right. One of the issues with problem gambling—and we can all be concerned about problem gambling—is that it is not restricted to pokie machines or to casinos. If this Government had any thought at all for problem gambling then in the last 4 years it would not have allowed the number of gaming machines out in the community outside of casinos to grow from 12000 to 25000. That is a disgrace from a Government that came into power back in 1999 bleating on about the evils of casinos. All the licensed casinos in this country have fewer than 4000 machines in total but this Minister has sat there doing nothing. He has allowed another 13000 machines to be installed out there in the community while he sits here telling this Parliament that he thinks about problem gambling. Well if that is what he knows about problem gambling he does not know a lot. Problem gambling does not affect just people who use gaming machines. It affects people in the racing industry and people in the sharebroking industry. Certainly I have noted the Greens’ comments—and I agree with them—that the Hon Michael Cullen is always wanting to gamble our superannuation funds in offshore interests. If that is not gambling what is? 
The two biggest problem gamblers that this country has ever seen apart from the Hon Michael Cullen are the lawyers Renshaw and Edwards who between them gambled away a total of $33 million on speculative deals and on horses as well. It was all paid back by the lawyers of this country. They gambled $33 million and not a pokie machine in sight yet who is being punished? It is pokie-machine operators charities sports clubs and schools. This Government in the last 12 months has increased the gaming levy that it has got from the machines. The hospitality industry tells me that it has had a huge increase from $30 million to $90 million. That is a $60 million increase. What has the Government done with it? There is all this talk in the bill about problem-gambling levies but what has the Government been doing with the $60 million? Under this bill problem gambling is now a disease—and that is a nonsense. No gambler any longer has any personal responsibility because under this bill gambling is always someone else’s fault. It is probably to do with genetics or a disease. 
When I first went into the Casino Control Authority as its chairman I was very anti-gambling. I really cannot understand anyone who wants to gamble at all because I think it is a complete waste of time. But having said that I also learnt that between 2 and 6 percent of people who gamble are problem gamblers and even the 6 percent of gamblers talked about are being talked about by the people who get all their money from casinos and gaming machines because they are paid from them and provide services based on them. So they have an interest to find a large percentage of profit. The numbers of problem gamblers are in an extreme minority. I personally find it a disgrace that a Government that likes to rave on and on about problem gambling and its evils is quite happy to have its members go around supporting prostitution and its evils as if somehow or other the sin of gambling is more depraved than the sin of prostitution. Personally I find that view a disgrace. It shows that the Government is really about money. It is about wanting to grab money from pokie-machine operators charities schools sports clubs and art centres because this Government does not trust people to be able to arrange their own affairs. It does not trust people to be able to organise their own funding—it does not trust its people. The fact is that most people can get along very well without the Government and they enjoy doing so. That is why so many of the submissions to the select committee were about leaving the money locally—leaving it where it is—and letting people make their own arrangements. 
I am pleased to be able to say that before I came into Parliament and since the time I first brought up the issue of frauds and pokie machines in the  
National Business Review— 
a matter that has previously been brought into this House again by the Green member my friend Sue Bradford—I said that the Department of Internal Affairs had to get on to the matter and start using its powers to get rid of the fraud and the rorts in the gaming-machine industry. Thankfully that problem did not affect all the machine operators or even anything other than a tiny minority but those people ruined a lot of the business of pokie machines. The Department of Internal Affairs thankfully got its act together and got itself a very competent compliance director Keith Manch—I must say that I was on the panel that appointed him—who got tough on the problem and started to do the job that the department had unfortunately not done for years and years. It is really great to see the industry cleaned up able to come out with its codes of conduct and very satisfied that the work is being done.  
One of the final points I would like to make today is about the Gaming Commission which is a great idea and it should definitely be approved. The problem is that it has no teeth and no staff and it will absolutely be a puppet of the Department of Internal Affairs. That is wrong because there needs to be a distance between the department and the commission. Without that distance the department with its taxing abilities its ability to take away licences and its ability to control everything that is going on will become an empire that will kill the gaming industry in this country—to the extent that it will impose all sorts of costs. That is not a good thing.  
I have a final point about this moratorium. The moratorium on casinos will not stop problem gambling and such moratoriums never have. But what it does do is give Sky City in Auckland a monopoly. That company must be laughing all the way to the bank as must be its shareholders. It means that there will be no competition in Auckland. In many ways the Sky City operation is a great operation but it does not deserve to be a monopoly.