Mitchell Clayton: Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMitchell Clayton: Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) — First Reading[Sitting date: 06 November 2014. Volume:701;Page:718. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First):I rise to speak for New Zealand First and to oppose these amendments in the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3). We are not here to promote gambling or to say that we are advocates for gambling but it is important to know that we are looking for a common-sense pragmatic approach to gambling throughout this country.It is interesting today to hear some of the comments that keep being brought up with regard to gambling and harm minimisation. It is interesting to note that nobody is actually talking specifically about those statistics that show it is less than 0.03 percent of people who gamble who make up those problem gamblers. The very interesting part that I find difficult to swallow is that we do not have a mechanism to find out what sort of harm minimisation we need to implement because we do not know what sorts of people have problems with certain aspects of gambling. We have 14 percent of the country spending money on racing with regard to gambling. We have the New Zealand Lotteries Commission with a turnover of $947 million. We have gaming machine income at around the $800 million mark and casinos which account for only 26 percent of the total machines at $520 million. We do not have a mechanism to actually identify what specifically people have difficulties and gambling problems with directly or indirectly.We have had a proud history for many many years of being a society that has allowed people to gamble whether it be a friendly game of poker or back in World War I playing two-up in the trenches with their diggers and mates. I am concerned with the devils that are in the detail of this bill. When I read the bill it does not sound particularly harmful until I actually delve into it in its entirety. This legislation is I think at best quite vague and it is going to enable our Department of Internal Affairs audit people to actually get a big stick with which to beat this industry over the head—an industry that is already under large amounts of pressure with the amount of legislation that is against it.I also think that this industry does far more good than it does harm and it needs a little bit more of a common-sense approach with regard to the legislation that it brings. Currently class 4 gambling brings in around $300 million to our communities from Invercargill right through to Kaitāia. Those people who are somehow involved with sports clubs community groups churches schools and arts culture and heritage groups have all had the pleasure of actually facilitating the money that comes out of class 4 gambling to build their community. The difficulty we are going to have is that if we tighten up the legislation even more we will see vast droppings in the number of machines and the turnovers coming down.Iain Lees-Galloway: Vast droppings?CLAYTON MITCHELL: Thank you—those droppings will have a negative impact specifically on those people who are looking for help and support in the community.Iain Lees-Galloway: Are they elephant droppings?CLAYTON MITCHELL: They will be much like elephant droppings—big droppings.The issue I have is that we now have councils making a lot of inroads into decision making on sinking-lid policies with regard to gambling and they do not realise the negative impact that this legislation is going to have on communities throughout the country because those communities rely heavily on that support specifically from class 4 gambling. In comparison Skycity Casino put only $3 million back into the community with its grants. I am still struggling to find specifically where that money went to as opposed to the near $300 million that class 4 gambling has brought in.Some of the issues that I have concerns about in relation to this class 4 gambling legislation reading through some of it is that it says here in the purpose and overview of the bill: “The Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) makes a small number of important improvements …” which I would suggest would have a large negative impact on class 4 gambling societies and venues as well as the recipients of those grants. The bill’s policy objectives are to make five basic changes: “increase transparency of grant-making from the proceeds of Class 4 gambling; reduce potential conflicts of interest situations between Class 4 gambling operators (societies) venues and grant recipients; improve transparency surrounding management companies that provide societies with services (for example contract negotiation with venues administrative and financial management or grant application processing); simplify compliance and reduce costs for societies and venue owners in some areas; and ensure the efficiency of the appeals process is not undermined.”To talk to a couple of those provisions it states in new section 4 that a gambling society key person cannot be a key person in relation to a class 4 venue licence held or applied for. They cannot be a society key person a trustee a director an officer a chief executive or a person who exercises significant influence in management of a gambling society which under the proposed changes in the bill extends to management services providers. Also under the bill’s proposed changes it extends to a person who has the ability directly or indirectly to exert a significant degree of influence over the management or operation of the venue operator or who may reasonably be perceived to have that ability. That could extend to relatives. The concern relates to amended section 4(2)(ivb) which states this. This is specifically the kind of subjectivity I am speaking about which is in my view going to give the Department of Internal Affairs the stick with which to hit those people over the head.I think one of the changes we need to make with regard to section 110 is to rename the bill and call it the “Six Degrees of Separation Amendment Bill”. It actually covers just about every person likely to apply for any grant throughout this country. It states that no proceeds committee members can have direct or indirect interests in any successful application by a grant recipient. Interest is defined as deriving a financial benefit or having a financial interest in the recipient; being a relative of the recipient; being a member or other of the recipient where the recipient is a club; being a relative of a member or officer of the recipient or having been the recipient’s lawyer or another professional capacity; being or having been employed by or being indebted to—which I underline—the recipient; being involved in the business or financial dealing of the recipient; or being otherwise connected or otherwise involved with the recipient in a way that can reasonably be perceived as having influence in the decision to make the grant to recipient. This I call to rename it the “Six Degrees of Separation Bill” because this just about covers everybody in the country. Everybody knows somebody. It could be a second cousin twice removed who is connected in some way by family or a sporting connection. I do not think this provision should be allowed to be put in.I have had a lot of involvement with the gambling industry specifically with class 4 gambling through my business in hospitality. We are a large employer of people in the business and despite what people think we are not making the money out of those gaming machines that people think. In fact I get a site rental of about $100 per machine. We all know the stories and have seen the headlines that make the newspapers—specifically in the early 2000s when there were episodes of people taking full advantage taking money and popping it away for their best use and benefit. However this practice has largely decreased.With regard to the decreasing of the number of machines that are throughout our country at the moment we have come from 27000-odd machines in 2003 to 16800 in July of this year. That is a 30 percent drop in the number of gaming machines which is obviously a drop in revenue which is a drop in what we can afford to put into our communities.We are opposing this bill. I think it needs to be very very seriously thought out. The select committee needs to be looking at the devils in the detail because there are so many. I believe this will be the nail in the coffin for an industry that is already under siege. Thank you.