Roche Denise: Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoche Denise: Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) — Third Reading[Sitting date: 15 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7316. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENISE ROCHE (Green): I rise to take a call for the Greens on the third reading of the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3). Unfortunately we will not be supporting this bill. In the first reading of this bill when it came to the House we did support this bill to the Government Administration Committee. We supported it to the select committee because without a doubt there are some good things within the bill itself. However since then there has been no movement from the Government to try to reduce some of the issues or mitigate some of the issues that we raised and that submitters raised as well during the select committee process around how this bill and the provisions in it could actually contribute to problem gambling and problem gambling incidences. So for that reason it is impossible for the Greens to support this bill in its final reading.At the Government Administration Committee we had compelling evidence and compelling submissions from people who were talking about the potential for some of the changes in this bill to create more gambling harm than there currently is. Despite that evidence and despite arguing for changes to the bill during the deliberations in the select committee and despite me putting up Supplementary Order Papers that would remove that particular provision in the bill—despite all that we come to the House for the third reading and it is a bill that we cannot support.We agree with many of the parts of this bill that others have already spoken about. For example we agree with the aim to increase transparency around grant-making. That is great. We agree with reducing potential conflicts of interest. We think that is also reasonable. We also agree with improving transparency surrounding management companies that provide societies with services—things like grant-making and grant applications. We agree with that. We agree that we should be ensuring that there are efficiencies around the appeal process and that it is not undermined. These are all parts of the aims of this bill and we agree with all that. We even agree to some extent with the aim that was stipulated in this bill of simplifying compliance and reducing costs for societies and venue operators in some areas.But this is where the deal-breaker is. Previous speakers—and I refer to my previous speeches—have referred to the fact that this bill amends the Gambling Act of 2003. If we look at what that principal Act is designed to do and I have spoken about this before its intentions its aims include preventing and minimising harm from gambling including problem gambling and also facilitating responsible gambling. But we believe that with this bill with the removal of the prohibition of commission payments to be paid to venue operators that cuts right across the aims of the original and principal 2003 Act.What we have had in the Act since 2003 for all this time actually has been that the compensation for venue operators should be based on actual and reasonable costs. That is fair enough. My understanding is that the reason for this is that class 4 gambling in pubs should not be the sole reason for pubs to be open. They are a venue in themselves. They are an entertainment in themselves. The costs that are associated with hosting gambling machines on their premises should be reasonably minimal. I agree that it is fairly complicated—the whole situation of how you assess what is “actual and reasonable costs”. However the Department of Internal Affairs and the gambling compliance unit have been working for years with the industry with venue operators and with gambling societies themselves to attempt to try to simplify and educate the venue operators on ensuring that they are getting paid the right amount for actual and reasonable costs.If we remove the prohibition on commission-based payments for venue operators we are changing the focus to potentially a position where it could change the focus for venue operators so that they are more profit-driven around the money that is lost on gambling machines on their premises. There would be an incentive and I think others have talked about this for venue operators to not intervene to not undertake their host responsibility for gamblers who may be experiencing limited control over their gambling at those machines. It makes sense I guess. If there is an incentive for the venue operators because they are going to get more money as a result of the profits from the machines then they will want people to keep gambling regardless of the state they are in. That cuts right across the Gambling Act of 2003 and the requirements in there for venue operators to be really good hosts—to be able to identify problem gamblers on their site and to intervene and do something about it.We already know that many venue operators have got a very poor record around their host responsibility. We know this and it was talked about a lot during the select committee process. We know this because a year or so ago—a year ago—the Department of Internal Affairs gambling compliance unit undertook a mystery shopper experiment. They visited 102 venues and tested the host responsibility programmes at each of these venues. Essentially what they did was they had a person play the machines in these venues and that person would start to exhibit the classic symptoms the classic traits of a person who is experiencing problems with their gambling. That was things like the person saying “I really should go home but I need to win some money back.” or that person would bang the machine in frustration. So there were 102 venues tested which is a decent sample. Only one venue passed the test of host responsibility.There are other provisions in this bill that say we should be rewarding good behaviour by extending licences for venue operators and societies as well. But actually the evidence that we have seen is that the behaviour has not been terribly good so far. Why? I have never got an answer to this. Why would you relax the rules when you have not seen the good behaviour so far? Surely we should be regulating so that people lift their standard of behaviour to where we want it to be before we offer rewards.This is a lost opportunity and we are deeply regretful about this. This is a lost opportunity for this Government to have actually put in place some mechanisms in the legislation that would deal to the harmful products that gambling machines are. We have heard previous speakers say that is actually only 0.7 percent of 1 percent of the population who have problems with their gambling. Well that is actually true of the general population but the percentage is much much higher if those people are regular gamblers. We have lost an opportunity to put in some decent legislation to prevent problem-gambling harm. We could have introduced pre-commitment cards and player tracking. We have not done that. What we have done is ensure that more gamblers are harmed.