Brownlee Gerry: Responsible Gambling Bill — Second Reading 
Brownlee Gerry: Responsible Gambling Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:610;Page:7867] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (NZ National—Ilam) 
: 
 That was an address from a sore loser. I make it very clear to this House and to anyone who wants to listen that if it had not been for the campaign of Opposition parties the Government would have proceeded with its proposal to centralise funding from pokie machines. We would have seen all sorts of Mickey Mouse projects dreamt up by Labour members of Parliament receiving a flow of funds that should rightfully be returned to the community. 
The previous speaker talked about the rorts he knew of. When he was challenged he said that he sort of heard from someone that there might be there could have been and maybe there were rorts. Would members not think that if he knew of rorts he would have used the privilege he has in Parliament to name the offenders so that everybody would know just how big that problem has been? The fact is that it has not been a problem. There are ratbags in any industry and this legislation will not stop them. Clever people will get around the electronic monitoring with a bit of clever computer higgery-jiggery. They will rort the machines and that is a fact. Unfortunately Mr Cosgrove says that that is the prime reason for putting this huge bureaucratic impost on an industry that is just about returning funding to the community. 
I want to take up the issues raised by Sue Bradford. One would swear that there was never a problem gambler in this country until we had pokie machines. That is wrong. I remember the days when this country used to close down at 10 o’clock at night. It is not that long ago. I am sure that Madam Deputy Speaker remembers those days as well. Just about every weekend a couple of rugby clubs in my local district or other sports clubs league clubs cricket clubs swimming clubs or whatever ran illegal casino nights. They were huge. People would go along slap down the cash the dice would be rolled or the wheel would be spun and there would be winners and losers. It was quite illegal but it happened. People lost money and there were problem gamblers in those places. 
Card schools in New Zealand used to be big deals. Traditionally pay day was Thursday and on Thursday night anywhere in this country one could find numerous card schools where people bet their pay packets. Some years ago I even saw a dart game played for the weekly pay packet. To suggest that somehow all that was OK because there were no pokie machines that it was all simply just a bit of fun in the past but now we have this huge increase in problem gambling simply because of pokie machines is a nonsense. I do not want to hear Mr Cosgrove saying that it is the housewives in my district—because that is what he says about the housewives in his district—who spend the housekeeping money on the pokie machines. 
I say to Mr Cosgrove that years ago—and not too many I say again—housie used to be played in the cities and towns throughout this country and thousands of dollars were invested supposedly by those who played it. I can remember people sitting at our rugby club’s housie games with five or six cards in front of them. They would pay $3 a time and it was all over in 5 minutes. They stuck their hands up and would turn up with another $20 worth of cards. 
I say to Mr Cosgrove that that is all gone—and it has gone because of pokie machines; I accept that. But he should not come into this House trying to mount a case for there being more problem gamblers in this country now because of pokie machines. The reality is that we now have more people dependent for their livelihood on finding problem gamblers. I do not in any way suggest that if a family is affected by a problem gambler their case should not be treated with some sympathy. It can be a terrible addiction. There is no question about that. But people should be careful about where the blame for that lies. 
I make a prediction. I see in this bill that the annual amount that is taken by pokie machines and made available to problem gambling organisations goes from $5 million to $20 million—a fourfold increase. I will bet my bottom dollar that in a couple of years’ time with this $20 million taken off the sports fields and out of the cultural clubs of this country we will be able to say that problem gambling has gone up fourfold because there will be a whole raft of people out there depending on that statistic being presented. 
I am very concerned about the statements Mr Cosgrove made regarding the way in which the distribution of these funds has been handled in the past. I go down to sports grounds every Saturday and I see so many coaches out there giving of their time freely to allow the children in this country to have a good experience in a sports team or perhaps even in an individual sport. I am staggered at the number of times those sports coaches tell us that they are able to do so only because of the grants they get from the distribution from pokie machines. What Mr Cosgrove is saying is that somehow something has been wrong with the system that has allowed all this to happen. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Not with all those people—with the publicans. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: He is saying that because the local publican got to sign off a form or perhaps just hand it on somehow that fellow is a bad guy. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Some are. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I want to tell Mr Cosgrove that that is simply not the case. The hotels and other places where gambling machines are placed throughout this country particularly in rural areas end up being the anchor point in the community. That is where people go that is where they gather and that is largely where they get their community spirit from. For Mr Cosgrove to say that everything is simply going to come right with gambling in this country because we have changed the way in which the distribution is done is a nonsense. 
This bill is a bureaucratic disgrace. No one objects to electronic monitoring—that is simple. But I say to Mr Cosgrove that I can tell members the story of two ex-policemen who are employed by the Department of Internal Affairs as inspectors for these machines. They turned up at a local community down in Southland went to see the publican had a bit of a chat to him and then said: “Unfortunately we’re not going to get our flight back to Auckland unless we get to Invercargill by a particular time. So can we just say we’ve been here we’re satisfied with your operation and we have to go?”. 
This country does not need that sort of expense being imposed upon it. I want to know what community organisation missed out on funding because the Department of Internal Affairs employed two ex-detectives to drive about the countryside enjoying themselves and ride in a plane from Auckland to Invercargill and from Invercargill back to Auckland just so that the Minister would be able to say that a good audit process is in place. It is a load of rubbish. Certainly there should be electronic monitoring—that is easy—but members should not believe that there will not be those who try to get around it because there will. 
I ask another question. If this bill is so important and this has been such a cornerstone issue for the Greens United Future and Labour why have they allowed it to linger so long at a select committee and why have they allowed the numbers of pokie machines to rise from some 16000 to over 27000? That has been the effect of all the hysteria and paranoia exhibited by the Government and by Government supporters. This bill will not do anything to reduce problem gambling in this country. It will not do anything to stop people taking money they cannot afford and investing it—and I use that word somewhat ironically—in pokie machines. This bill will unfortunately make a significant difference to the local communities. They will miss out on the funding that will now go into the bureaucracy of administering the requirements of this bill and those requirements will not make a blind bit of difference to the way the industry operates.