McClay Todd: Gambling Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
McClay Todd: Gambling Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
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TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
: 
 I rise to speak on the second reading of the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 2). As I have done research today as I have listened to others participating in this debate and certainly since I was elected a member of Parliament for Rotorua with a great majority of 5065 only 6 short months ago it has become clear to me that this is a very important issue. One thing often comes up in Rotorua—and others have given us a name or a nickname about Rotorua which I prefer not to use here today. Gambling can and does damage homes communities and of course individuals. 
The bill before us today will do a number of things. It amends the Gambling Act and will tighten the regulations around the monitoring of gaming. The intention of the bill is to reduce harm on people who have difficulty with gaming. It will mean that organisations and people who receive grants from gaming societies need to be accountable for how that money is spent. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: The size of my majority! 
TODD McCLAY 
: Was that the former member for Otaki asking about the size of majorities? How about we have a little competition before I go on? Could all the members opposite put their hands up if they won their seat. In fact the only hand I did not see go up there was that of the former member for Otaki Darren Hughes. 
A month ago I was driving through that electorate and I had my daughter who is 4 years of age in the back of my car. All of a sudden as we went through the beautiful town of Levin my daughter started whimpering and crying. I pulled over and asked what was wrong. As I looked to the left there was a very large obscene photograph of the former member of Parliament for Otaki Darren Hughes. The grin on that member’s face at the time was almost obscene. It looked to me very clearly like it was a photograph used in an application for the Milky Bar Kid auditions. The only thing that happened on 9 November was the horse was gone. The member must have had to ride his big white horse out of that town. 
Coming directly back to the bill I say that it is my intention to support it. I believe that the challenge is to balance the private and social costs of gaming machines whilst respecting the right of the majority to gain enjoyment from gambling. We must recognise that there are social benefits for the community that come from funding derived from gaming machines and also that for some gambling becomes an addiction and that families can be harmed by this gambling problem. The bill will make a number of amendments to gaming policy with a view to tightening up on how the gaming industry is operated and addressing activities targeted at those who are deemed to exhibit problem-gambling behaviour. 
Gaming machines in New Zealand are legal. But when one reads the newspapers this is not always obvious. They play a role in our society and members of this House have previously decided that the enjoyment that can be gained from these leisure activities is acceptable. In my home of Rotorua around $20 million is spent in gaming machines each year. From this significant funds are reinvested in the community. In Rotorua a number of charitable trusts do very good charitable work and the funds they spend come from gaming. I say to members that without these funds very many community groups and some very important social and community projects would not get off the ground. This House will need to look very closely in the future at where this money is collected from and then at where it is spent. I would like to see all the funds that are collected from gaming in Rotorua—especially in the small community of Kawerau—spent only in those communities. More than $4 million is spent each year by these trusts in Rotorua. We need to recognise the important work that some of those funds already do. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Put up a member’s bill then. Put your money where your substantial mouth is! 
TODD McCLAY 
: That is a great idea but I already have a member’s bill in the ballot and we can have only one at a time. We will get that one out we will fix Easter trading for Rotorua and I will call on the members opposite to support that. Then we will come back to that issue very happily. 
In Kawerau the Lion Foundation committed a substantial amount of money last year to build and upgrade a number of youth facilities including a BMX track. Without this foundation and the funds it collected from gaming in Kawerau and elsewhere this BMX track would not have been possible. The track is used by the world-renowned BMX cyclist Sarah Walker of Kawerau who went to the Olympics last year and has just achieved fourth place in the world championships in Europe. The track is used by the community and the young people of Kawerau and as I said without the funds collected from gaming it would not have been possible. 
We need to also recognise that in Rotorua and from the many contacts I have had the venues that have gaming machines by and large are responsible. They do not gain great financial reward from having the machines there but they do have them to provide enjoyment for their clients and in doing so to provide funds for the wider community. 
Having spoken about some of the positive things that funds from gaming can achieve I think it is also important to recognise that there needs to be a balance and that great harm can be caused from gaming. 
The Rotorua District Council has recently put out a report on the impacts of gaming in Rotorua and I will quote from that for a moment if I may. The council said: “Rotorua is a high-risk area for problem gambling. It has a relatively youthful population profile as well as an increasing number of elderly an above-average unemployment rate … and it serves as the hub for many satellite areas.” According to the council’s social impact assessment in February 2007 there are between 500 and 1150 problem gamblers in the district depending upon how problem gambling is defined. The report estimates that gaming-machine gamblers in Rotorua lose between $17 million and $22 million a year and this loss is not borne evenly across the community. The majority of the loss is borne by the minority of gamblers. 
If we look further at gambling and problem gambling in New Zealand we have heard from others that just over $2 billion a year is waged in New Zealand on gambling. In 2007 the figure was just over $2 billion and $950 million of that was lost on pokie machines outside of casinos. Statistics also show that 3 percent of the adult population are considered to be problem gamblers. There are 1537 gambling venues but in total there are almost 20000 pokie machines in New Zealand outside of casinos. 
The member of Parliament who spoke earlier Te Ururoa Flavell mentioned that Maori and Pacific Island people have a greater incidence of problem gambling in our community. But when we look at those who seek help for problem gambling from the services that are available in the community we see that in fact only 28 percent of Maori people seek help. This figure compares with 48 percent of Europeans and about 7 percent each for Asians and Pacific Islanders. If we look at where the problems have been caused throughout all those groups we see that 68 percent of those who have problems with gambling gamble on non-casino pokie machines. 
I will talk for a moment specifically about some of the things in the bill that I think will help us greatly in making sure that this industry is regulated properly and will allow us to do much more to help those who have issues and difficulties with gambling. The bill will do a number of things—in particular address problem gambling. It will create the requirement to bank gaming-machine profits directly into gaming-machine societies’ bank accounts. This means that the revenues will be used for their intended purpose as described in the Act which reduces the chances of misappropriation or misuse of those funds. There will also be a requirement that community grant recipients use grants only for specific authorised purposes for which the grant was made. The justification for requesting a grant therefore cannot be changed. This means also I believe that there will be less chance of the misuse of funds and that the profits from gaming will benefit the community directly. 
A number of other important measures in the bill set out circumstances in which gaming-machine societies may apply gaming-machine proceeds to authorised purposes. We have heard a lot about that from other speakers in the debate tonight. There will be a duty on gambling venues to assist potential problem gamblers with ongoing gambling problems and where ongoing gambling problems are suspected. Essentially it will not suffice for a venue to approach a person on one occasion to provide information about problem gambling and then do nothing further should the behaviour continue. The bill will also enhance the harm prevention and minimisation regulating powers.