Mitchell Mark: Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMitchell Mark: Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading[Sitting date: 04 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4357. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): I just want to acknowledge the previous speaker the Hon Ruth Dyson. I think it is probably fortunate that she stopped there. You were starting to blush a bit Mr Deputy Speaker.Hon Annette King: See if you can make him blush.MARK MITCHELL: Ha ha!Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Do not bring me into it.MARK MITCHELL: It is a pleasure to take a call on this Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3). I do want to acknowledge Ruth as the chair of our Government Administration Committee which received this bill. She did do a very good job as did the deputy chair Sarah Dowie and the other committee members. One thing that I do actually agree with is the fact that we are probably going to have to continue as a House of Representatives coming back to revisit make changes and tweak this legislation as time goes on just because of the sheer nature of what we are actually dealing with and that is pokie machines which I acknowledge can inflict some harm on people when they develop gambling addictions and issues around the addictive nature of things like pokie machines.I just wanted to address some of the issues that we did deal with in the committee on this bill. The reduction of red tape—this part of it was actually very important to me because I have had some experience overseas with NGOs and organisations that are tasked with delivering aid. If you bear with me just for a moment there is a little bit of relevance that comes back to the bill and that is in terms of the money that is available. We should always be focused on making sure that it is dispersed and it gets to the people the organisations and the charities that actually are going to benefit from it and that it does not actually get tied down in a whole lot of admin expense. Normally the rationale and the excuses that are given around high admin expenses of course always relate and come back to heavy compliance and red tape - type issues. So I think this was actually a really important part of the bill.Getting back to what I saw overseas often there are some very very good and very efficient NGOs that are responsible in the way that they treat donor funds and they make sure that as much of that donor funding actually finds its way on to the mission field or into the area or the project that they are focused on. But there are others unfortunately that can run with anything up to about 70 or 80 percent of that money being absorbed in admin and back-office services which to me is a complete and utter disgrace and a total waste of that money. I think that if people actually understood or knew that they were donating to an organisation like that they would probably review those decisions.So there is a reduction in red tape. A new regulation-making power will specify venue operators’ payments and the prohibition on commission will be lifted for payments to venue operators. That was a very very good clause that we were able to get into and deal with on the committee.There were a couple of other things that we spent a fair bit of time on. I just want to highlight the fact that I was disappointed that I missed the submissions that were heard in Auckland but I was certainly here for the submissions that we heard here in Wellington. One of the things we spoke about was getting a better definition around the term “key person” which I think was really important because we were at risk of actually trapping people who in actual fact were not key persons. We recommended amending clause 4(2) by extending the exception provisions relating to a key person in the new section 4(1). In the bill as introduced licensing trust board members and trustees of community trusts would be captured by the new definition of “key person”. This was unintentional and the amendment we proposed did remedy it. What we proposed was that we also amend paragraph (b)(ivb) of the definition of “key person” in section 4(1) by removing the words “or who may reasonably be perceived to have that ability.” We believe that a reasonable perception provision is unnecessary as only those who could in fact exert undue influence on a key person needed to be captured. I think that was a very important change that we made and recommended through the committee process.One thing that I found really interesting and fascinating comes back to the point that Ruth made earlier which is that we are going to continue to have to review and make changes in terms of the technology that is changing around the use of gambling machines. One of the submitters made what I thought was a pretty compelling submission around the advancement and the development of facial recognition technology which is at a point now where developers are approaching very quickly to a place where they will actually be able to attach—the real issue around it is probably cost—a facial recognition system on to an existing pokie machine. That means that someone who has been identified as being at risk with their gambling can go through a facial recognition process and then be flagged as someone who is actually at risk. I really like that. With the current system—and it works—you are relying on the employees working on the premises to monitor it and a system like this is going to relieve some of the stress and potential tension that can be created between someone with a gambling problem and the staff who are trying to manage and monitor it.So we are going to keep watching that. That is going to keep being developed and I am sure they will come up with some cheaper options and I think that it is probably not too far in the future that we will see this type of facial recognition system being implemented. And that means of course that we will have to come back here and pass legislation in all likelihood to be able to use that technology.The pokies are important. I know that we discuss them a lot in this House. I know there are strong feelings about it. I can tell you now that I am very proud to be the patron of the Ōrewa Surf Lifesaving Club in my electorate of Ōrewa and the funds that we receive through pokies are actually quite important. They get used to buy things like for example new defibrillators and new equipment that can be used by our young surf lifesavers on the beach to save lives. So I do want to highlight the fact that these funds are actually quite important not just for organisations like surf clubs but for lots and lots of organisations and groups such as sporting organisations in our communities.Finally I would just like to say that I personally felt that it was a very good process by which the committee was able to identify and make some good recommendations that will make it an even better bill. Of course I also want to recognise and commend the Minister Peter Dunne for bringing the bill to the House. Thank you.