Collins Judith: Gambling Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Collins Judith: Gambling Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:611;Page:8454] 
JUDITH COLLINS (NZ National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I would like to congratulate the Minister on acknowledging that the name of this bill should have been changed and on acknowledging that when people are looking for a Gambling Bill they are unlikely to find it—or to expect to find it—under the letter “R”. So well done to the Minister on that point! That said however we come now to why it is no longer called the “Responsible Gambling Bill” in reality. It is because it is not really all that responsible any more. That is one of the problems that we in the National Party have with this particular bill. Certainly when the name “Responsible Gambling Bill” was first mooted some years ago and brought to the attention of those in the gambling industry—or gaming industry as they prefer to be called—people like myself looked at this name and asked how anyone could possibly call it a “Responsible Gambling Bill” and said what a whitewash sort of wimpy sort of liberal rubbish name it was. Of course it was—and good on the Minister for acknowledging it! 
I question whether it should be called the “Irresponsible Gambling Bill” on the basis that some of its provisions are irresponsible. I will refer to those later on but seeing that we are looking at the title I will give members a little rundown on it. Internet gambling and gambling on pokie machines are the two most addictive forms of gambling. That is a proven fact. Every international study has shown it. With this bill we are being asked not only to allow both these forms of gaming in New Zealand by the Lotteries Commission but—worse than that—the Lotteries Commission will now be able to compete with private enterprise in this area. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Talk to the title. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I keep coming back to this title. It should be called the “Irresponsible Gambling Bill” because the Lotteries Commission will be able to do this without any proper regulation of how it operates. That is one of the reasons it should perhaps be called the “Irresponsible Gambling Bill”. 
I want to come back to the title. One of the problems the Minister had when he was introducing the title was that he kept calling it the “Gaming Bill”. He has trouble saying the “Gambling Bill” so perhaps we should just call it the “Gaming Bill”. I do not know why it had to be called the “Gambling Bill” when the Minister does not want to call it that and when most of the people in the industry do not refer to the industry as the “gambling industry” any more but call it the “gaming industry”. That is how the industry is referred to overseas and how it is referred to here. I understand that the reason for calling this bill the “Gambling Bill” is that the word “gambling” has a more negative connotation than the word “gaming” and that part of the purpose of originally calling it the “Responsible Gambling Bill” was to constantly put in those negative connotations. 
In his last speech the Minister referred to how a lot of people in this country are able to go into the gaming industry in a responsible way and of course most people can do that but some cannot. Our primary concern is to look to those who have problems with gambling and also to look at why the Government is promoting gambling when that is contrary to what it should be doing. The Government should be there to regulate gambling to take the taxes out of it and to make sure that those taxes are properly used and that there are fair gains. One of the primary provisions of this bill is to make the Government one of the main promoters and sellers of gambling products which makes it a somewhat irresponsible gambling bill. 
We have reservations over the name of this bill. In some ways we think it is good because we can now look for it under “G”—or possibly even “I” for “irresponsible”—rather than “R” but at the end of the day it is just another indication that the Minister has given up worrying about being responsible with the gambling industry and with gambling legislation. This bill will be all about taxing the industry out of existence and about the Government competing with people in private enterprise—with casinos and with people in the community who have pokie machines where the money goes back to the community and does a good job.