Dyson Ruth: Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 10 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:11897. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills):I am very pleased to take a call at this stage of the Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill. I begin my just commending the member who has just resumed his seat Jonathan Young. I attended not as a regular member of the Commerce Committee but for the purposes of this bill for most of the deliberation and I thought that his competency in chairing was very very commendable. We had some pretty heated debates we had some pretty upset submitters—and I will get back to them—but I thought that the manner in which they were received and the order that was maintained on the committee was the way that other committees should operate in this House. I want to just note that to begin with.I also want to commend the member who introduced the bill Te Ururoa Flavell. I agree with Jonathan Young that Te UruroaFlavell’s motivation in bringing this bill about was absolutely exemplary actually. He understands—and many in this House now understand better because of the process of the bill—the harm that is done in our society which is caused not by the fact that people have a gambling problem but by the ability of people who have a gambling problem to access machines that take advantage of that addiction and the problem those people have.So the responsibility that we have as a Parliament is to support those people so that they have less opportunity to spend their family budget in a way that if they did not have that problem they would not do and to support them to spend their money responsibly. Our role is not to interfere in every person’s life to make them live a life of blamelessness in total; it is to support people who have addictions that do harm and to ensure that the opportunities for those addictions to be abused by profit motives are reduced or eradicated. I think that was the intention behind this gambling harm reduction legislation.I really regret what the committee did with this bill in the end. I regret the deal that was done and I do not think that it is a good deal. I understand the dilemma that Te Ururoa Flavell—I am assuming I do; it is bit presumptuous but I would like to assume that I understand the dilemma that the member faced. He is really in a no-win situation unless he takes up an offer from the Government because it was clear that National was not going to support the progress of this legislation.So the member can either stand on his high horse and say: “No if I’m not getting what I wanted or at least if I am not going a long way towards that I am going to withdraw my bill.” That is actually what I would have done given the deal that was reached in the end. Or he can choose to go down a different path and say: “Well I think I am making some progress and that is better than nothing.” I do not think this is progress and I really regret that because I think this was an opportunity for us—though not to go to the lengths that the original bill proposed. I would have voted for it but a lot of people were disturbed by it and I do not think that it had been worked through quite hard enough despite the best efforts of the committee.I think this bill ends up doing the opposite of what was intended. I think this bill could do more harm than was intended and certainly people who are experts in this area and who deal with the social consequences of problem gambling say that this bill should not progress. The Problem Gambling Foundation is the obvious organisation but we also have the Salvation Army an organisation that must be one of the most highly respected in terms of the work it does in the hardest area in our communities insupporting people and we have Auckland University’s school of population health. Those three organisations have taken a big step and gone public in opposition to this bill.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.Hon RUTH DYSON: I am very happy to pick up the conversation that I started just before the dinner break when I was talking about the fact that I believe that the member whose name is attached to this bill Te Ururoa Flavell introduced it with the very best intentions and that his aim was to introduce and have passed legislation that would genuinely reduce the harm that is done in our communities through gambling. It is my view and the view of other experts in this area that because of the deal that had to be done between the Minister of Local Government Chris Tremain and the member Te Ururoa Flavell and because of the instructions the Commerce Committee got to alter the bill this bill actually does not just not reduce harm but actually has the potential to cause more harm in the community. It is with deep regret that I will therefore be voting against it.I have looked through the media response to the bill as was reported back from the select committee.AndréeFroude of the Problem Gambling Foundation had this to say: “The bill is not going to live up to its name. It was put forward as a harm minimisation bill effectively that’s all been stripped away.” This is one of the groups that supported the introduction of this legislation most strongly. The Associate Professor at the school of population health from Auckland University went so far as to say that he wanted the bill scrapped because of the changes that were put forward at the select committee.The director of the social policy research and parliamentary affairs unit from the Salvation Army Major Campbell Roberts has been a regular contributor to important debates of social justice and social policy in this Parliament over many years. He said that the proposed changes did nothing for problem gamblers those at risk or communities wishing to minimise the impact of gambling: “For those of us who deal with the problems created by pokie machines every day this bill on balance will make matters worse.” That is from Campbell Roberts of the Salvation Army.I really think that it is the responsibility of this Parliament not to listen to the rhetoric not to listen to the slogans but to listen to the people who deal with the impact of problem gambling in our homes in our families and in our communities. Those three experts whom I quoted who have had very close involvement with the bill right from its introduction said to vote against it; scrap it.Te Ururoa Flavell: Is there any explanation why?Hon RUTH DYSON: There is more in the media and perhaps at later stages of the bill I will be able to provide the member with more information in that regard. I do not have it right here but I am happy to pick up that challenge; it is a good one actually.I just want to make a couple of brief comments in relation to the comments that were made in earlier contributions about the large number of submitters who submitted on this bill and the overwhelming number of submitters who were opposed to the bill. It is my view that the bill was misrepresented to those organisations. They were told by the pokie trusts that the passing of Te UruroaFlavell’s bill would mean that their organisation—be it the local rugby club bowling club yacht club or whatever—would get no money in future.I do not believe that that was the intention of the bill and I do not believe at all that had the bill been passed as it was introduced that would have happened. It was not the intention of the legislation to deprive any of those community organisations of any funding. I resent the fact that our great community and voluntary organisations have been misled about the intention and the outcome of the bill. The intention actually wasto stop the slicing of the profits from the pokies to the trusts which stopped the profits going back into the community. The intention was to make sure that where the money was taken from it was put back. So where there were large numbers of pokies in the lowest-income areas and all that money was coming out of those communities through the pokie machines the intention was that the money went back into those communities into those voluntary organisations into those sports clubs and into those social service organisations that do so much good.I regret not being able to vote for this legislation. I would have loved to have had a bill I could have supported. I resent the fact that I believe that our great community and voluntary organisations were misled by the trusts in an effort to get them to oppose the legislation. I do not think that they have had that rectified in the interim since then.I hope that at some time in the future this Parliament has the ability through the force of numbers to take a more courageous step than what is going to be obvious in this legislation. And I hope that in fact perhaps in the debate tomorrow we can further our opposition to the proliferation of gambling given the shonky deal that this Parliament will be voting on tomorrow when we look at the Skycity convention centre being traded off for a huge increase in pokie machines. The very day after Te Ururoa Flavell tries to reduce the harm of problem gambling in our society—unsuccessfully I believe but I know the intention was genuine—we will be voting on that shonky Skycity deal.