Roche Denise: Crimes (Match-fixing) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoche Denise: Crimes (Match-fixing) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 27 November 2014. Volume:702;Page:947. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENISE ROCHE (Green):I rise to take a short call—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is a 5-minute call.DENISE ROCHE: —yes thank you Mr Deputy Speaker—for the second reading of the Crimes (Match-fixing) Amendment Bill. I was not on the select committee that heard the submissions on this bill. However I do note that the Law and Order Committee received the bill after its first reading on around 30 July and then submissions closed on 22 October which is quite a generous amount of time to call for submissions. I note that we have just had a bill referred to a select committee that has only a 48-hour period for submissions. I am sure that there is a lot more public interest in that bill than there is in this one because—as I have seen in the report from the select committee—there were only four submissions on this bill which indicates I guess that there is quite widespread agreement with the whole thrust of what this bill does.So what does this bill do? Well according to the report from the select committee under this bill anyone who obtained a benefit or caused a loss by engaging in match fixing would commit an offence and be liable to a maximum penalty of 7 years’ imprisonment and we think that is fair. We think that is reasonable. I note also that match fixing applies not just to sports games but also to horse racing. We believe that yes that should be a crime because we are a sporting nation and we uphold the fact that sports should be fair. We believe as a nation in fair play. We are all about fairness or at least we should be. Why should international crime syndicates make millions by rorting the system?I think we should look at what this bill does—who benefits from it. I guess we as a nation benefit from it because we get to keep our reputation and our reputation has taken some beating recently. We are passing bills that sort of degrade our employment rights. We are passing bills that do nothing to lift child poverty. We are doing those sorts of things which do damage our reputation so it is nice to be doing something that does actually support and benefit our reputation.But the other beneficiaries of this bill really are the TAB and the betting organisations. I guess we have to acknowledge that sports betting is the latest gateway drug if you like to problem gambling. The Australian experience—and I have been to a conference on this—is that the TABs over there are targeting younger males. They are doing that by encouraging them to bet on sports to bet on their teams and it is a show of solidarity and support for their teams if they bet on their teams while the game is happening. So we have changed that whole thing about being a supporter of a team from being: “We support you. We’ll talk about the stats of the match.” and now it has become talking about the odds. This has become more and more of a problem and is becoming more and more of a problem because what is happening is that young men are being targeted. They are using their mobile phones to bet immediately on the outcome of a game and this is where the TABs over there are raking in the money because it becomes highly addictive. What the people in the problem-gambling sector say is that the closer to the result that you place the bet then that is where you start to get problem behaviour occurring. It is that whole instant gratification thing.We believe in fair play—we truly do—and we think that we should be having some fairness towards those who actually suffer from the betting sector. I note that although there are a lot of people in this country who gamble—about four out of five people have a flutter—and it is only a small proportion of those people around about 10 percent who are at risk of having problems with their gambling behaviour it is an issue that contributes an enormous amount of money that sloshes around and so it is a honeypot for all sorts of different crimes. That is why we are supporting this bill.