Young Jonathan: Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeYoung Jonathan: Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 04 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13260. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): I want to just pay tribute to the previous speaker the honourable member Te Ururoa Flavell and the hard work that he has done in this Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill. We know that this bill came through the Commerce Committee with a number of alterations and thank him for his willingness to work very pragmatically. You will no doubt hear from the other side of the House that their view is that the bill was gutted but we believe that we have made some very positive and pragmatic alterations to it that actually give some real teeth to some of the issues—for example the harm minimisation technologies.The original bill said that harm minimisation devices only may be introduced through societies’ licence conditions. The Commerce Committee recommended a regulation-making power instead. Regulations enable us to introduce new technologies on a mandatory basis nationwide rather than through each individual licence. So we see that it was a very positive move to put the change into the bill.We know that there was a tremendous amount of interest up and down this country. As the previous speaker said there were over 33000 submissions. Not all of those were for or against. There was quite a divided opinion out there regarding the measures. So it was important to actually look very constructively I think at what was proposed look at what people out there in the community were saying look at what harms there arethat need to be reduced and look at the benefit to the community groups that the proceeds of gambling contribute to.So we came through all of this with a number of measures. One of the measures was of course in this area of harm minimisation technologies. There are a number of trials around the world that we looked at and received information about particularly around pre-commitment schemes. Essentially pre-commitment schemes are where players are typically issued with smart cards and smart-card readers are installed in gaming machines. Players can set limits on the amount of time or money that they can spend on gaming machines before they commence gambling. Typically a player will be locked out of all machines that are part of the pre-commitment scheme for a designated period of time. It could be for the rest of the day.We note thatSkycity has committed to issue facial recognition technology to identify problem gamblers and that is another technology that I think we look on with interest in regard to problem gambling. Professor Abbott from the Auckland University of Technology made the comment that this is the first introduction of this technology in the world and so we do look with keenness at its effect. With these changes to the bill we will now have regulations that enable a new technology to be rolled out on a mandatory basis if the Government sees fit to do that.So we also know that in New Zealand gaming-machine expenditure in the country’s 1367 pubs and clubs is dropping. In fact in the first 3 months of 2013 compared with the last 3 months of 2012 it has dropped by 10 percent. That is a significant drop. The number of licence holders fell from 359 to 353 the number of venues declined from 1403 to 1367 and the number of gaming machines decreased from just over 18000 to nearly 17500. So what we see is that there is a downward trend of gambling venues and opportunities and machines in the country. I understand from reading the Ministry of Health figures that the harm or the people who are affected by gambling has also decreased. It is good to see that. None of us wants to see anybody harmed in these ways.A number of pre-commitment trials have been run in Australia and we look to its example. These trials have generally involved a small number of venues introducing a voluntary pre-commitment scheme. We know that though the Department of Internal Affairs has not undertaken work to assess the cost of introducing pre-commitment technology in New Zealand it has keenly watched this. The cost of converting a machine to a pre-commitment scheme or a smart-card system is around about $1600 to $1700 per machine so there is obviously a significant cost in this. There may be ways in which if this technology proves to be effective it could be adopted in New Zealand.One of the areas that the previous speaker spoke on was that the original bill was seeking to have 80 percent of gaming proceeds distributed to the local area where they were raised. This was again another area where we have sought to bring in some regulation-making power instead. Essentially that is because we believe that the same outcome can be achieved through regulation and that creates more flexibility and enables us to consider issues such as national or regional groups that receive funding from gaming societies. These are groups such as St John Ambulance or other groups such as the groups that man the beaches in summertime perhaps at a beach where there is not a facility or there are not any gaming proceeds that have been earned.I think that the previous speaker was right in mentioning that there are some areas that are low decile that have a larger presence of gaming machines. In fact the Department of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Health indicated back in 2012 that 55 percent of gaming proceeds come from those areas in the lowest two deciles. That is of concern and that is why we believe that it was important to create a mechanism by which pokies can be moved out of these low-decile areas to for example centralbusiness districts and places like that where they would not be so effective as in those low-decile areas.I believe that this is a substantial bill that the member has presented. We have worked through it as a select committee. Congratulations to him. I believe that he has got some real gains. I believe that there are some very pragmatic measures that will begin to roll out once this becomes law and we do expect to see a further reduction in harm from gambling. Thank you.