Dunne Peter: Gambling Amendment Bill (No 2) — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDunne Peter: Gambling Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee[Sitting date: 28 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:331. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PETER DUNNE (Minister of Internal Affairs):The member who has just preceded me the Hon Ruth Dyson sets a pretty stern challenge at this hour of the evening but I will attempt to respond. To my way of thinking the fact that we have before the Committee tonight a bill that has been 7 years getting to this point is unsatisfactory frankly for a variety of reasons. That is water under the bridge but I will just highlight the dilemma she poses.As this bill goes through—and we already have Supplementary Order Paper 454 which I have tabled amending some of its provisions because they need to be amended—I have a second bill titled the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) awaiting its first reading and that process will continue. I am of the view that what we are seeing—and it is my personal view only—is a fundamental change in the nature of the gaming industry in New Zealand. I actually put the words “in New Zealand” in deliberately almost parenthetically because I think the challenge for the future will not be in terms of how we regulate our domestic environment. So many of our gaming opportunities will be offshore through the internet or through a whole range of other technologies and they will be extremely difficult to control and to regulate. So to some extent in passing legislation of this type and amending it and trying to keep it fit for purpose we are fighting a little bit against history because the big challenge is going to be the nature of the games that lie ahead.I recall being in this portfolio in the mid-1990s and also being the Minister of Revenue at that stage when internet gambling was first taking off. I remember being approached quite properly by two very large international internet gaming providers wanting access to New Zealand domain names because we were seen as reputable. The deal for New Zealand would be the name and we would negotiate a form of tax payment. That never got beyond the drawing board for a variety of reasons. But even then I think it was an early warning sign of the nature of the way in which this industry was going to develop and has in fact mushroomed over the period of the last 20 years.So the challenge I think is a twofold one. One is to try to regulate the terrestrial gaming environment within New Zealand as best we can and have legislation that is going to be fit for purpose in that respect. The second and more difficult one is to be at the same time keeping an eye on broader developments. Already we see challenges. You hear from time to time when a major sporting event occurs the debate for instance between the TAB and Centrebet over the odds that they offer. You see on occasion the debate around the extension—and I do not want to reopen it—of the number of gaming machines at Skycity last year and about the relevance of that in the context where people can actually go online in the privacy of their own home and gamble.Hon Ruth Dyson: We thought it was relevant.Hon PETER DUNNE: So the point I am trying to make and I think the member would agree with me is that this is very much—whatever we do and however frequently we amend the law—a holding operation in respect of an environment that is changing rapidly. If anyone had said to anyone in this House 10 years ago that their lives would be governed by one of these—a smartphone—and that we would do all sorts of amazing things from one of these I think we would have thought that was pie in the sky. Just apropos of that I read this morning in a newspaper that we are about to see all home appliances—jugs and teapots and all those sorts of things—wired in such a way that you can charge your phone while you are using them. That just shows you how these things are changing.So I cannot give the member an absolute answer to her question. I acknowledge its significance and I think our challenge is going to be that twofold one of making sure we have a proper sustainable regulatory environment for the domestic territorial gaming scene while at the same time making sure also that we do what we can to keep an eye on monitor and ensure we have best practice in respect of offshore operations—