Street Maryan: Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeStreet Maryan: Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 07 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12504. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour):I rise to speak to this Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill in the name of Te Ururoa Flavell. I commend Te Ururoa for his original intention on this bill. Without a doubt it was a heartfelt intention. He has seen at close hand just what kind of damage gambling does to families particularly those in areas of greater deprivation whose only hope it seems particularly with this Government’s employment policies—or lack of them—of bettering their lives is to play the pokies. I commend Te Ururoa for bringing the bill before the House but I am sad to see it in the state that it now is. As my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway just said the whole thing has been so emasculated that it is a wonder that Te Ururoa Flavell has not chosen to withdraw the bill rather than have something be presented that is at high risk of causing greater harm than less harm. That is contrary to what I know Mr Flavell’s intentions were in the first instance.I want to speak to three Supplementary Order Papers in particular and they are all Supplementary Order Papers that I am going to oppose. I want to demonstrate that we on this side of the Chamber clearly are able to make up our own minds about these issues because gambling has always been a conscience issue—it just is not today not with this Government. So we are seeing people who would normally vote otherwise such as Jonathan Young or Sam Lotu-Iiga having to vote in ways that I think probably are contrary to their consciences and they have to explain that to their electorates. That is a tragedy really because these men are compromising principles they hold dear. They may not be the same principles as mine but I think they are principles that these men hold dear and therefore they have a separate and independent opinion on this issue which they are not allowed to express on this occasion.I want to say in response to a point that Sam Lotu-Iiga raised earlier when he said that the regulations allow flexibility for the law that I am not sure whether he understands that that is actually a mistake for legislation. If legislation provides for regulations that may be used to thwart or subvert the original intention of the primary legislation that is not good lawmaking. For that member to say “Here is a very flexiblelaw.” or “The regulations allow it to be flexible.” I am sorry but he is going to run foul of the Regulations Review Committee if regulations are promulgated that undermine the primary purpose of the legislation. Flexible law Mr Lotu-Iiga is not what we do here. We try to get the law right so that it cannot be subverted by a process that does not get parliamentary scrutiny later on.I just want to say in respect of Supplementary Order Paper 292 in the name of Trevor Mallard that I absolutely support it because that would ensure that “no class 4 venue licence may be transferred to an area that has higher deprivation than the old venue.” That goes to the point I made earlier about areas of deprivation and the false hope that these ghastly machines give people. I would also like to support Supplementary Order Paper 293 in the name of Iain Lees-Galloway because it is moderate it is a thoughtful amendment and so is Supplementary Order Paper 294 in the name of Ruth Dyson. But then it came to Supplementary Order Paper 295 in the name of Rajen Prasad. I drew the line because we were seeing these amendments then scale back the amount that a corporate society must apply of net proceeds from “class 4 gambling to societies or for purposes located in the same territorial authority district.” or an adjacent one.