Tremain Chris: Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTremain Chris: Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 10 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:11912. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CHRIS TREMAIN (Minister of Internal Affairs):It gives me great pleasure to speak on Te UruroaFlavell’s Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill this evening and to counter some of the hyperbole from Opposition members who have decided to vote against this very worthy bill.I want to just quote Darien Fenton because Ms Fenton used some statistics that were very pertinent to this debate. Ms Fenton said that poorer communities in New Zealand have present in them one pokie machine to 75 people compared with wealthier communities in this country which she quoted have a proportion of one pokie machine to 465 people. She went on to say that poorer communities have six times the exposure to pokie machines than that of wealthier communities.At the very heart of Te UruroaFlavell’s bill which is before the House tonight it allows communities the voluntary choice to actually change that to take venues from those poorer communities and to put them in different locations. The Opposition the Greens and Labour is saying that it is opposed to allowing the movement of pokie venues from poor communities to other communities. Shame on the Opposition! It is appalling—appalling. It is voluntary for councils to be able do this and we are providing the opportunity.Here is the situation: if you are a pokie venue with 18 machines in a poor community guess what? Even with a sinking-lid policy in your community you cannot move even if the community wants you to go. Why? Because if you move you lose your business. You cannot go anywhere. So what do they do? They put their roots down and they stay there.Le’aufa’amulia Asenati Lole-Taylor: What a lot of nonsense.Hon CHRIS TREMAIN: She says it is a lot of nonsense. That is the fact. These are the statistics that the Opposition members quoted and they want to vote against it. Why? The Opposition was looking for a reason to vote against this very good bill. That is the fact.Another key point in Te UruroaFlavell’s bill is a regulation-making power to allow the distribution of funds into communities. That allows us to go out and sensibly ask communities how much of the funds that are being distributed in communities are to be distributed on a national basis—not just to take an arbitrary 80:20 rule. There are organisations out there in New Zealand—rescue helicopter trusts St John Ambulance—who benefit from national contributions. For us to just arbitrarily go out there and deliver 80:20 is not sensible. So we have made a commitment: a regulation-making power that will allow us to distribute those funds throughout New Zealand and to go out and actually consult on a sensible basis. It is my commitment to the House that we will do that.Hon Member: We don’t believe you.Hon CHRIS TREMAIN: We will do that. Well it will be interesting to watch the Opposition vote against that particular thing as well as we look to distribute funds throughout New Zealand.And the third thing that the Opposition wants to vote against tonight is harm minimisation. We have taken what is a—Dr Rajen Prasad: Where is the harm minimisation?Hon CHRIS TREMAIN: Yes they are voting against the opportunity for a Minister in this House to have a regulation-making power that simplifies the process to implement harm-minimisation technology. That is what it does. It simplifies the ability for a Minister to put sensible technology across the industry. That is really interesting—these guys want to vote against harm minimisation. That is what they are doing. The Greens and Labour are voting against harm minimisation. They are voting against taking pokie machines out of poor communities. That is what is happening. Shame on you. And they are doing it for politics. They do not like it that is a fact.I just want to back up the truck slightly. This National Government came into this period saying that we would review the policy around class 4 gambling. That is a commitment that we have undertaken. We also said that we would agree to support Te UruroaFlavell’s bill going to the select committee. We have done that. What we have done is we also set a number of key goals for reform in this sector. The first was to enhance the protections for problem gamblers. The second was to increase transparency and to address conflicts of interest because there have been rorts in this sector—no one is denying that. We have said we want to develop a way for gambling proceeds to be generally distributed in the area in which they were raised. We also want to simplify compliance for societies venues and the Department of Internal Affairs by simplifying the process making compliance by venues better and improving transparency. We also want to increase the proportion of proceeds that the community receives.So what we have tried to do is find a balanced way through this process; find a way where we could support parts of Te UruroaFlavell’s bill that actually delivered on those core objectives and at the same time we announced in conjunction with Te Ururoa Flavell through negotiation some of the other things that would deliver on those core objectives. So we have done that—we announced in conjunction with that a range of initiatives that will deliver on those things which I am really pleased to do.The other thing that we have announced just in the last 3 weeks that goes to the heart of problem gambling and looking after those people who do suffer from this addiction is a $55.3 million strategy over 3 years. This is the fourth strategy that actually goes to the heart of trying to help those families who have a problem gambler in them. Everybody in this House wants that to happen. There is $20.5 million for public health services focused on prevention and education awareness there is $6.6 million in that strategy for research and evaluation and there is $25.3 million for front-line intervention. That is a significant strategy to help those people who are most at risk of harm. My plea actually to people out there who have a member of their family who is addicted to problem gambling is to actually use these services—to refer that member of the family to those services.In those goals that I set out—increasing the proportion of proceeds the community receives; simplifying compliance for societies venues and for the Department of Internal Affairs; for developing a way for gambling proceeds to be generally distributed in the area they were raised; to enhance protections for problem gamblers; to increase transparency; and to address conflicts of interest—we have found a way through working with Te Ururoa Flavell to achieve three of those key goals.I just want to highlight those excellent initiatives in the bill because I do not believe for a minute that the bill in those three areas has been watered down. I think in fact we have enhanced the bill and we are delivering opportunities in those three areas particularly in harm-minimisation technology which I talked about before. The regulation-making power actually makes it easier for us to implement harm-minimising technology across the sector—not licence by licence. Labour and the Greens are voting against that.We have also implemented a way for venues to be transferred out of poor areas. Ms Fenton talked about the statistics and the extra numbers of venues that are in poor areas. They in the Opposition are now going to vote against an opportunity to move venues out of poor areas. Shame on you! Shame on you! We have also got a sensible method of looking seriously at how we can distribute funds back into those communities where they were raised. A regulation-making power and a discussion document will allow us to do that and to land that in a position where I think the majority of funds will end up back in those communities.So I think there are some great opportunities Te Ururoa from this bill in conjunction with the other initiatives that I have also announced at the same time that more funding will be aimed at going back to the community. For every 1 percent that we can lift the funds back into communities we put another $8.5 million back into communities.Hon Members: How much?Hon CHRIS TREMAIN: Another $8.5 million. No doubt the Opposition will vote against that. These are sports clubs these are all sorts of organisations who benefit from this and we will be able to help move that on.We are also looking to lower compliance increase the transparency and improve the conflict of interest provisions. This all helps. I am proud to be here tonight supporting Te Ururoa Flavell and working together in partnership to improve class 4 gambling. Thank you.