Cunliffe David: Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCunliffe David: Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee[Sitting date: 09 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6463. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): It is a pleasure to take a brief call in this Committee stage debate on the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) a bill that the Labour Opposition supports with reservation. The reason that we support it is that we commend the objective of increasing the transparency around the proceeds the conditions and the regulated persons who are and who are not able to undertake the management and regulation of a class 4 gaming establishment which includes pubs and clubs. The background to that is of course that clubs such as RSAs cosmopolitan clubs and many others are integral parts of our community and we do not seek to totally ban legitimate gaming from those venues where it is the wish of the community to retain them.Having said that we have some significant reservations about the bill’s failure to prohibit—in fact its willingness to provide for—commission payments to venue operators. I turn the attention of the Committee to clause 6 which amends section 30 on page 6 of Part 1 of the bill. It states: “the only commission that is paid to or received by a person conducting the gambling is a commission payment to a venue operator that complies with regulations made under section 371(1)(dd);” which sets out a bunch of regulations.What is interesting is that it is a weakness in the current law that although there are no commission payments allowable there are cost payments available for venue costs in gaming premises. There is some history which I am sure the Department of Internal Affairs officials would attest to about operators bulking up those venue costs as a way of shall we say maximising the operator margins and minimising the payout. It is a matter that officials have worked hard to police across the sector as one issue.Embedded in that is the potential issue of conflict of interest in the way in which recommendations for disbursements are made particularly by some of the large gaming trusts which rely quite heavily on the recommendations of individual proprietors of pubs and clubs. The story goes something like: “We’ll get a grant for your rugby league club”—or other club; fill in the blank—“to have some new uniforms or sport equipment if you wink wink nudge nudge continue to get your wholesale supplies from my outlet for the next 3 years.” That is why there must be an arm’s length relationship between the proprietor and the decision-making body of the community grant disbursement as part of the increased transparency provided for in Part 1 of this bill.The ability to make commission payments rather than increasing the transparency of that system actually decreases it. Clause 6 is a clause that we remain concerned about and will track in the implementation of the bill because it allows more discretion for the venue operator to build into those commission payments what might otherwise be considered to be margin and that in turn conflagrates with the conflict of interest issue that I referred to earlier.Some of the more useful parts of Part 1 include some more transparency about prohibited relationships between operators immediate family and family members and other transparency measures which we support. We try to take a balanced approach to this legislation and again I would note that we would not seek to prohibit well-managed gaming from community venues.In making a short contribution on Part 1 I do wish to draw attention to the—perhaps we would call it—irony of this bill which is seeking to improve transparency and the lack of transparency in the process around the largest single provider of gaming venues the Skycity convention centre; and to the importance of ensuring that there is good process around the way in which any future consents for gaming machines gaming licenses the term of such licences and the conditions under which such licences are operating are consistent with Part 1 of this bill.