Barker Rick: Gambling Amendment Bill (No 2) — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBarker Rick: Gambling Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading[Sitting date: 22 August 2007. Volume:641;Page:11400. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RICK BARKER (Minister of Internal Affairs): I moveThat the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be referred to the Government Administration Committee. This bill amends the Gambling Act 2003. The Gambling Act is large and complex and as is common with new legislation of this nature a number of issues were identified as requiring improvement during its implementation. The Gambling Amendment Bill (No 2) contains many technical amendments and some minor policy enhancements to clarify the law and remove any uncertainties. On balance I think that the Gambling Act is working pretty well so there is no intention of making any significant policy changes. The Act is relatively new and needs to be given a chance to work.This bill is designed to address the technical changes that need to be made in order to assist the department and the gambling sector to engage with more clarity. Work on the bigger issues identified in the reports into allegations about the Christchurch Casino is under way. It would be premature at this stage to address those issues through what is largely a technical bill. We are focused on finding solutions to the issues raised in these reports—issues that the Department of Internal Affairs has been aware of for some time. Once we have developed a more comprehensive understanding of the issues I will invite officials from across the Government to come together and map out appropriate solutions. This process will allow both the Government and the sector to build a solid platform on which to help reduce the opportunities for problem gambling and criminality in the sector.I will now summarise some of the minor policy enhancements in the bill. One of the Gambling Act’s objectives is to ensure the fairness and integrity of games. To further assist with the achievement of this object the bill introduces minimum disclosure requirements for non-cash prizes. The Act already contains a prize disclosure regime but it is only partially achieved and in a fragmented way. Introducing a statutory requirement for accurate disclosure of non-cash prizes would both provide more certainty and remove any inconsistencies between requirements for different types of gambling.The bill contains a number of measures intended to assist its community funding objectives. These include clauses requiring venues that host gaming machines to bank community profits directly into the society’s dedicated account. This amendment responds to the practice whereby some venues have been banking society money intotheir own accounts for a few days and occasionally have not been able to account for it when it is time to bank the money into the society’s bank account.Also included are explicit obligations on community grant recipients to use grants from gaming machine proceeds appropriately including it being an offence for non-compliance. This measure reduces the risk of a grant recipient misappropriating gaming machine proceeds. The conflict of interest safeguards are extended to apply to all persons who make decisions on gaming machine grants. Currently they apply only to those key roles in the management of the society. The bill specifies in more detail the circumstances in which a gaming machine society such as a club can apply gaming machine proceeds for its own purposes as opposed to when it can make grants to community groups. At present the Gambling Act does not provide sufficient clarity on this point.The bill provides added flexibility for clubs wishing to merge to address financial viability issues. The Act currently allows two or more clubs to apply for ministerial approval to operate up to 30 gaming machines at the venue on which they merge. However they may merge into an existing 18-machine venue only if the number of the 18-machine venues is limited. So the bill will allow clubs to apply for ministerial approval to operate additional machines at any venue even if that venue would not otherwise be an 18-machine venue. Access to this facility would still be subject to territorial authority consent.A number of measures are intended to assist with the achievement of the Act’s harm prevention and minimisation objectives. One clause reflects the recent experience with the Dunedin Casino—the suspension case. This clause clarifies that gaming machines and casino operators have an ongoing duty to take all reasonable steps to assist a person they have identified as a potential problem gambler. Essentially this means that it will not be enough for an operator to just approach a person on one occasion provide information to that person about problem gambling and do nothing further if the person’s gambling behaviour continues to be of concern. The bill also provides that the gambling venue staff do not have to issue a venue exclusion order to persons who approach them and identify themselves as being problem gamblers if those persons do not provide a reasonable means of identification such as a recent photo.Another clause requires casinos and gambling machine operators to keep records of problem gambler exclusion orders that they have issued and to provide a report on those records to the Secretary for Internal Affairs if requested to do so. The bill modifies the Act’s harm prevention and minimisation regulation-making powers to include regulating the means of payment to participate in gaming prescribing content and training standards for problem gambling awareness training—currently only very general requirements can be prescribed—and restricting or prohibiting eftpos and other means of accessing money for gambling at the venue. Currently only ATMs can be regulated but the harm potential of say a mobile eftpos device might be similar.Another clause is designed to make it easier to conduct research on gambling in real-life gambling environments. The clause authorises the Secretary for Internal Affairs to temporarily approve gambling equipment for operation in a gambling venue for the purpose of testing whether the equipment’s introduction will facilitate the attainment of the Gambling Act’s objectives.A number of clauses in the bill are designed to assist the Gambling Commission with the performance of its functions. One clause enhances the Gambling Commission’s protection from liability along similar lines to the immunities provided to statutory entities out of the Crown Entities Act 2004. Another clause provides the commission with the flexibility to determine when it sits as a division and to decide whether division includes the Chief Gambling Commissioner.Finally the bill ensures that the Gambling Act binds the Crown. The Act was introduced prior to the requirement that all policy decisions on proposed legislation seek a decision on whether to bind the Crown. The general principle is that the Act should bind the Crown unless the application of an Act to the Crown would impair the efficient running of the Government. There are no such factors at work here. The introduction of this bill is designed to address the technical changes that need to be made in order to assist the department and the gambling sector to engage with more clarity.Work on bigger-picture issues identified in the reports into allegations at Christchurch Casino is under way and I would say to the House that it is premature to address those through what is largely a technical bill. Officials are currently working on having a better understanding of the issues identified but once this work is complete we will be in a position to address that.This bill is important as it introduces a number of initiatives that are designed to ensure that the Gambling Act continues to work as originally intended. The bill provides the opportunity to implement these measures without leading to a premature review of such fundamental approaches taken by the Act. I commend the bill to the House.