Mallard Trevor: Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMallard Trevor: Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 07 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12492. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):I appreciate the Committee taking what I think is a logical approach to dealing with these amendments as a group rather than trying to work our way through them one at a time in an order when that could take weeks and weeks. I would like to run through in the order they come up in the bill the amendments I am proposing to the Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill.The first one is to do with when venues are transferred. What we know—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Sorry.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: It is all right. He is on his way back.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): You cannot leave here.Te Ururoa Flavell: Thank you. Sorry about that.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Thank you Mr Chairman. I assume we are going to have some flexibility over time on this anyway. The first point is that when venues are transferred what the practice appears to be is that the transfer occurs from areas that are relatively wealthy to areas that have high foot traffic and areas with a tendency to gambling. What tends to happen is that transfers occur only to areas where people think there is going to be more gambling. What my first amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 291 does is reduce that to no more than 75 percent when there is a transfer. So there has got to be a drop in the number of machines as that transfer occurs in order to try to offset the increased take that is likely to happen as a result of transfer because of course people would not transfer the machines if they did not think they were going to get more money.The next one—and I know this will be especially of interest to metropolitan members—is that when pokie machines are transferred they may not be transferred to an area that has a higher deprivation level. So what we are saying in Supplementary Order Paper 292 is that you can move your pokie machines from poorer areas to rich areas but the practice of focusing pokie machines into poorer areas especially when you have a cap that is taking them down is to stop.Supplementary Order Paper 296 is relatively simple. What it says is that over a decade an increasing proportion moving from 40 to 50 percent of the takings should be distributed. So what we are saying is that as a minimum the amount that goes back out to the community of the profits that are made should move first of all to 40 percent in the financial year after next and then go through to a figure of 50 percent. Frankly that is one that I have done relatively carefully with quite a lot of consultation. It is a bit soft but it is a test for members and it happens at only 1 percent a year.The next one I would like to refer to is Supplementary Order Paper 298 which makes the pre-commitment arrangements mandatory. The objective there is that people decide before they start gambling how much they can afford to lose. They make that decision and that is the amount they are allowed to lose. They cannot keep on coming back for more and more. There will be tracking arrangements in order to ensure that. I might just say Mr Chairman without bringing you into the debate that I understand that some of the arrangements are in the Waikato. Some very good technology has been developed in the Waikato as far as player tracking is concerned with biometric recognition for people.Supplementary Order Paper 299 deals with the matter of trustees’ and directors’ remuneration and sets $100000 for an individual trustee or a director. They are not people who are employed. This is not setting someone’s wages but effectively the fees—“honorarium” is the wrong word at this sort of level—or the amount that can be paid out to trustees or directors.Te Ururoa Flavell: Singularly?Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Sorry?Te Ururoa Flavell: Singularly?Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Each as an individual. The reason for this is that the Commerce Committee has heard evidence and it has come back by way of questions that some people are getting $200000—$200000 taken from the poorest people in New Zealand—not to work on this stuff but just to sit on the board. That is something that is just outrageous.Moving through there is a much tighter requirement to account for proceeds and payments and a requirement to have an integrated public health approach. There is a requirement for territorial local authorities to have a sinking-lid policy. We are not saying what it should be we are not saying it should go at a particular level in this particular amendment but we are saying just that they have one—that they debate the issue and that they make a movement even if it is something that is very minor.Supplementary Order Paper 303 is one that I think is important. It is to put into the gambling legislation an objective of reducing the number of gaming machines in New Zealand to 10000 by the year 2025. It is a medium to longer term objective to drop out about 35 percent of the current number of gaming machines. I am not going to pretend that that is going to result in a massive drop-off in the money going through the pokies because these machines keep on getting more and more attractive and flasher and they take bigger coins and they do all that sort of thing. But what this would do is reduce the number of those machines.The last one which has actually had a little more publicity is Supplementary Order Paper 326 which would result in what I am describing as a “pokies pause”. Currently this House in its wisdom decided that in order to deal with liquor abuse we would close outlets from 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. because it was felt that that would help break the problems of addiction and it would stop some of the harm. My view is that if it is good enough for liquor outlets to have a break from 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. then it is good enough for venues that have pokie machines to have a break for the same period. The idea of people staying all night night after night in places like this—frankly the New Zealanders who are doing that are often the poorest people the people who are desperate the people who can least afford it. As a result of that we have people losing their homes. Getting them out for 4 hours hopefully getting them home hopefully getting them to a point where they can have a sleep and they can consider these matters is something that I think is a very worthy thing to do. If we do it for booze then there is even more of a reason for doing it for gaming.