Wall Louisa: Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWall Louisa: Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) — Third Reading[Sitting date: 15 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7324. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou katoa. It is my pleasure to speak on the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) in this its third reading. I would firstly like to acknowledge my colleagues who sat on the Government Administration Committee Adrian Rurawhe and the Hon Ruth Dyson and other members on that committee who seem to have progressed through the passage of this legislation in a really constructive manner. So I want to acknowledge the select committee. I also want to acknowledge members of the public who took the opportunity to make submissions on this piece of legislation. It is a piece of legislation that actually is incredibly emotional because some of the consequences to families and communities from gambling are not very nice.With my colleague Su’a William Sio in the House I also want to acknowledge that for Manukau we have led the way in terms of responding to the consequences of gambling through sinking-lid policies that our council implemented in 2004. We know and have known that in South Auckland since pokie machines arrived here in 1991 actually the consequences on some of our communities specifically were felt disproportionately.What I would like to share actually is an average spend in terms of some of our ethnic communities. This is quite startling. On average per annum a Pasifika person spends $13468 on gambling a Pākehā New Zealander spends $1761 and a Māori New Zealander spends $2829. So as a representative of Manurewa as a representative of South Auckland I just want to acknowledge the detrimental impact of gambling on our Pasifika community. I also want to acknowledge the work that our Pasifika communities are undertaking to combat some of those consequences. It has been quite interesting for me to read through some of the information related to the impact of gambling because our Pasifika refuges have actually highlighted that it is one of the main reasons that women are entering refuges—because they are coming from homes where the stress associated with gambling is forcing them to have to flee those homes and seek help.Our position on this legislation is that we support it and we support it because at the end of the day gambling has been around since 2300 BC. It actually originated—from what I have been able to read—from China. In fact it involved dice and cards but fundamentally people have engaged in gambling pursuits because they find it fun—it is entertaining. I guess as a society what we are always having to balance is the entertainment of gambling versus the disease and addiction that gambling actually is. Whether we like it or not there are some people who gamble who actually end up having a disease that is incredibly hard to control.In New Zealand gambling is a $2 billion - plus industry. There are four types of gambling that we have in New Zealand: racing lotteries gambling machines—which are these class 4 gambling or pokie machines that this bill is trying to address—and casinos. What I want to say about the context of our class 4 sector is that it is not-for-profit. A lot of money that is reinvested back into the community from trusts like the Trillian Trust—I will use an example from my community—actually comes through pokie revenue.So I also want to acknowledge that what this bill is hoping to do is to ensure that the gambling moneys that come out of specific communities are reinvested back into those specific communities. I guess the basic principle is that people are going to gamble—we cannot stop them—and if they are going to gamble we want to make sure that money that is taken out of that community is reinvested back into those specific communities. We think there is an opportunity through this piece of legislation for that to occur and that is one of the reasons that we are supporting it.I would like to highlight however and in consultation with my colleague Adrian Rurawhe that there was a proposition that there should be a pre-commitment system whereby players can set their own limits on duration frequency and losses from gambling so that people can take some responsibility for trying to moderate how they engage in this issue. I think that the reasons people gamble actually can be quite complicated because they are to do with how people get behaviourally conditioned. There is an emotional response to gambling and so some people gamble to escape their lives. They gamble because it is an opportunity for them to make themselves feel better about their circumstances. So gambling is associated with I guess depression with mental health and with a whole lot of other issues. I think my colleague Kevin Hague really highlighted that in his contribution—that that is the biggest challenge.So what we know in New Zealand is that of the problem gamblers 80 percent of them are actually problem gamblers because they use pokie machines. So it is incredibly relevant that we do focus also on harm minimisation and the options and opportunities that this piece of legislation also balances—balancing the right of individuals and communities to have access to this entertainment but also acknowledging that through access there actually are consequences and it is society’s responsibility to provide those individuals with the help that they need if they are addicts. Because it is a disease—gambling is a disease; it is a medical condition. I think that people fail to recognise that. They just think that people choose to be gamblers but if it is a disease actually you do not choose it.So some of the information that I have managed to find out is that in terms of the addiction research—and any research into gambling is framed around addition—that 50 percent of gambling addiction is predisposed and the other 50 percent is people who have poor coping skills. If you have got poor coping skills—if you do not feel good about yourself—and then you gamble to make yourself feel better what it really means underlying all of this is that we as a society have to help people who have that disposition because they have a disease.So I do not think that this bill has adequately addressed the issue of gambling as a disease. But in saying that I think our balance in terms of deciding to support this legislation was that the changes that this legislation is going to enable do contribute to ensuring that communities are not adversely affected as much as they have been in the past through the lack of specific reinvestment back into those communities from the moneys that have been taken out. I think that there is more to do in this area and I know that my colleague Adrian Rurawhe is particularly interested in it.I think that we can do more as a society to help gamblers who have a disease and who are addicted to gambling. I think that we have got some particular challenges in this space. Essentially there is advertising—the Government is also a contributor to gambling because we have a Lotteries Commission that promotes gambling through the purchasing of Lotto tickets. So we do have an environment that encourages gambling as a norm. So because we do that as I said earlier I think it is also incumbent on us to make sure that anybody who needs help has access to that help. Kia ora.