Donald Rod: Gambling Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Donald Rod: Gambling Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:625;Page:19851] 
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I am delighted to support this Gambling Amendment Bill on behalf of the Green Party and I am even delighted that the bill is being dealt with under urgency. We opposed the urgency motion but this piece of legislation is one that does need to be dealt with promptly. 
I cannot help but comment on the crocodile tears of the previous speaker who is from ACT because my recollection is that ACT was the only party to block this amendment being made by way of a Statutes Amendment Bill. If ACT members had not been so bloody-minded last year this legislative change could have already gone through. [ 
Interruption 
] Did New Zealand First also block that? 
Dail Jones 
: You did too. 
ROD DONALD 
: I do not think we did. 
Dail Jones 
: You did. You said so on the first reading. 
ROD DONALD 
: I doubt it because the matter should have been dealt with. I will check the  
Hansard 
. It should have been dealt with by way of a Statutes Amendment Bill and that is certainly what I lobbied the Government to do because there was a glaring mistake. The Act got it wrong in the first place. How can the principal gambling legislation give racing clubs and chartered clubs an exemption for key persons but not extend that provision to licensing trusts? That is exactly what this bill sets out to fix. 
It is good that it is being done promptly because of all those organisations licensing trusts actually have the most robust election processes. They are far more robust than chartered clubs or racing clubs because licensing clubs have to conduct their elections under the Local Electoral Act every 3 years. There is a proper process they have to follow. It is a very open process and every resident and those on the ratepayer roll in the territory of the licensing trust get to vote for the representatives on that trust. It would have become a ridiculous farce for the licensing trusts to have to set up parallel organisations to handle the distribution of profits from the trusts’ gaming activities. It is far better that one organisation addresses both the operation of the trusts and the distribution of the profits. I believe there are sufficient safeguards in the legislation to make sure there is not a transfer of money from one part of a trust’s operation to another in order to subsidise internally those operations so I do not see any difficulty with the same people running the operation and distributing the profits. 
What I do see is the enormous benefit of those profits actually going back to the community and the licensing trusts during their lobbying activities made the very good point that they have returned the highest percentage of gaming monies to the community in New Zealand. For example in the 2003-04 year the Invercargill trust returned 57 percent compared with most other organisations returning under 40 percent. On behalf of the Green Party I say we would much rather that the profits from activities such as gambling and liquor sales went to the community than lined the pockets of the shareholders of casinos or big booze companies. 
Having said that I would like to conclude with a personal note which is that I have real difficulty with the invasive nature of gambling in our society. There are far too many pokie machines around the country. I make a personal point of not going on the premises of any casino for any purpose whatsoever because I believe that casinos are a scourge on society no matter what money is funnelled back through various trusts and charities. But if pokie machines are going to exist it is far better that they are under the control of a community trust or licensing trust where there is some sense of obligation to take account of the wider concerns of the local community rather than their being under the control of those totally motivated by profit.