Dowie Sarah: Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDowie Sarah: Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading[Sitting date: 27 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:4101. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): Talofa lava. Greetings Mr Deputy Speaker and thank you for allowing me to take this call on the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3). The fact that it is No. 3 suggests something. It is a series of technical bills off the back of a parent Act the Gambling Act 2003 which was reform legislation to minimise harm in the industry of gambling.This bill I believe is an example of the MMP environment at work. It is the Government working with its coalition partners—in particular the Hon Peter Dunne who has shepherded this bill through the House and the Māori Party. But I also want to take this time to thank the Government Administration Committee. We often hear that it is a high-powered select committee that hears some very important bills. I want to thank the committee members for their collegial spirit in panel beating this bill into shape.I think it is worth noting that even though this is an amendment bill and it is technical in nature gambling—and this is certainly something I have learnt from other submitters whom we heard in Wellington and Auckland—affects all New Zealanders whether directly or indirectly at some point in their lives. That is why I think these bills should not be taken for granted. They do affect us and they are important when we are finessing this industry to minimise harm. This bill is in particular in respect of class 4 pokie machines and they are pokies that are held off site from casinos. We are trying to make the industry more transparent and of course at the end of the day a better industry.We heard from 126 submitters and as I said before we heard them in Wellington and Auckland. Most of those submitters were in support of had conditional support for or had a mixed view on the mooted draft bill. There were some submitters not in support of the bill because as we heard from our counterparts they believed that the bill did not go far enough in respect of some of the harm minimisation measures. I think that their intent is admirable and I certainly listened carefully to what they were saying but at the end of the day I believe that that went beyond the ambit of what this bill was considering. But it was certainly educational for me to hear those submissions and I take their wisdom on board.In respect of what this bill is trying to achieve in the first instanceit is trying to achieve transparency around grant decision-making. This bill introduces new requirements for publicising societies’ grants: the details as to what has been applied for what is received the purpose and what has been granted. It also provides that this information is detailed and sent through to the Department of Internal Affairs so as to achieve a balance and check on that society and so that the public can scrutinise that society and what it is providing—the funds that it is sending back to the community from where essentially they had been lost.The bill also requires any real conflicts of interest between societies that collect the money from gambling class 4 pokies and those grant recipients to be published again adding to the transparency and the accountability in the community as to how those funds have been applied. Regulations are to be developed later and they will set out the detail as to how all of this will be achieved so it may well be that general information is published in a local newspaper but then more detailed information is published online. Regardless of the mix of that the information will be readily available and hence that adds to the accountability.The second theme of this bill is to increase transparency around the operations of societies themselves. Under regulations the publishing of financial statements and the form in which they are published by societies will be mandated highlighting the efficiency of the operation itself. So again we are running with the theme of transparency and are trying to tidy up the industry and filter funds back into the community in which they were lost.The third theme I want to touch on is simplifying compliance costs in venue payments. We have heard from members opposite that they believe that a commission-based system will incentivise gambling societies to increase the number of machines or to be irresponsible hosts. They also oppose rewarding societies that perform well with longer licences at the discretion of the Department of Internal Affairs. On this side of the House we do not believe that that view has foundation. There is no evidence to suggest that moving to a commission-based system will incentivise gambling and the design of any new payment system will be detailed in regulations. As we are advised the department will run a full consultative process in respect of that and I think that that consultative process is extremely important for the purpose of giving more thought to what exactly the best cost recovery basis is to keep compliance costs down and again to keep things simple. Furthermore the grant of longer licences to societies that perform well does not equate with an abuse because those licences will be at the discretion of the regulator which will take into account the suitability of the applicant and past performance.It would not be appropriate for me to end this speech without some examples of some responsible class 4 operators that are performing well and that of course leads me back to my own electorate Invercargill and the Invercargill Licensing Trust. It is responsible for sponsoring our community in a fantastic way. It has allocated total grants of $49.57 million—Paul Foster-Bell: How much?SARAH DOWIE: —total grants of $49.57 million—during the 2008 to 2013 period which is an average of $9.92 million per year. It has delivered some really big-ticket items like our stadium ILT Stadium Southland and the velodrome which is responsible for some really fantastic projects. The stadium is integral obviously to our community. The weather is not always great. Of course I keep waxing on that our people are so positive we do not need weather to keep us positive but we can go indoors and use our stadium and enjoy that. But the trust has also delivered electronic whiteboards in schools. It has built learners’ pools for swimming and even contributed to tertiary scholarships. In saying that it has granted more than 170 scholarships to individual Invercargill students locally and abroad. Each student receives $2000 for 3 years and the total paid in 2012 and 2013 was $374000-odd. This is an example of a society working hard for the community. It can be done well and I believe that these measures in this bill will uplift the industry make it more transparent and minimise harm as the 2003 Act set out to do. So with that I commend this bill to the House.