Collins Judith: Gambling Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Collins Judith: Gambling Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:611;Page:8491] 
JUDITH COLLINS (NZ National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I will just continue on from the previous speaker—the chairperson of the Government Administration Committee. The Casino Control Authority is being abolished under this bill and the authority accepted that—in fact its submissions to the committee were quite supportive of the concept. However the authority was extremely concerned to make sure that the Gambling Commission be something more than a puppet of the Department of Internal Affairs and/or the Minister. 
One of the issues we have is that the Gambling Commission is specifically prevented under this bill from having staff. Under the Supplementary Order Paper—obviously as a result of the work done by the United Future party—there is a bit of a saving grace whereby staff of the Department of Internal Affairs who will now work for the Gambling Commission will be housed in a different place. I do not think that housing them in a different place will make very much difference. They will still be Department of Internal Affairs staff and they will still be working under the Chief Executive of the Department of Internal Affairs. They will in fact be captured. One of the roles of the Gambling Commission is to look at appeals and concerns about licences—in other words to review the work of the Department of Internal Affairs and its gaming inspectors in relation to casinos and pokie machines. So we have a regulator captured by its department and very much we believe subject to political interference. That is a serious concern because gambling in this country needs to be kept under the control of an independent body. 
One of the other concerns I am aware of is that the chief gaming inspector in New Zealand has now left his job. He had been told he had to move from Auckland to Wellington. In other words the people involved in the regulation of casinos will move away from where the casinos are located to Wellington where there are no casinos. That makes no sense at all. What we have here is more bureaucracy and less independence resulting in less faith by the gambling industry in the gambling authority. 
Another issue I want to raise is the Lotteries Commission. Under this bill the commission is getting a tremendous amount of whatever it wants. One of the things I would say to the Minister is that the Lotteries Commission is only about making money out of gambling and collecting taxes so why is it in a Government commission? It is doing something that would be far better given over to the private sector. The Lotteries Commission is being given interactive gambling so that it can compete with the pokie machines and the casino operators who have put a tremendous amount of effort into buildings staff and all that sort of infrastructure. They are being told that a Government body which is politically appointed will be going around competing with them. 
That is not good enough. The role of Government in this industry should be regulation and the collection of taxes. It has no right being in the business of competing with the private sector. That is absolutely wrong. The people of this country have accepted lotteries only on the basis that they are a once-a-week sort of thing and that people can have a flutter for $5 or whatever. They will not be very impressed with having the Government supporting and promoting gambling for its own ends. That is as wrong as if this Government turned round and said: “Let’s now have the Lotteries Commission supporting and promoting tobacco sales or alcohol.” It is exactly the same thing and it is wrong. 
I am very disappointed that United Future was not able to do a better deal with the Government on this issue. It should have stuck it out because the Government had nowhere to go—it had already kicked the Greens out of bed. It would have been much better for United Future and for the country if that party had shown a bit more mettle and stuck with it. 
Peter Brown 
: Did it show any mettle? 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: There are some improvements so it did show a little bit. I have made it very plain tonight that we do not say that everything in this bill is bad. In fact some very good changes have been brought about and we are quite happy to support those. But the problem is the limited amount of speaking time we get on a bill that comprises only four parts whereas it should have been 14.