Dyson Ruth: Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee[Sitting date: 09 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6455. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I am really pleased to be speaking in the Committee stage of the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) but I have to say that I am also disappointed that this is not a bill that we can wholeheartedly support. We are going to put our vote in favour of it in the end but we have got a major reservation about a key part that is in Part 1. I think that that is disappointing. With regard to public health issues such as gambling and there are many others that this Parliament debates I always think that it is good to have as broad support as possible and I think the Minister of Internal Affairs has himself been inclined to that view on occasions. So I would like him to take the opportunity of the Committee stage—because it is the only chance that he will have—to tell us why he had such reluctance to move to an agreed different approach rather than take the commission-based approach which is what Labour is opposed to in this part.This part is really the guts of the bill if you like. It covers clauses 4 to 16. We have got four Supplementary Order Papers on the Table I understand. One is from Clayton Mitchell from New Zealand First—in amongst some rather disparaging comments that I am sure he will regret making in the Chamber by the end of the evening—and not on the basis of his contribution tonight but on the basis of the content of the Supplementary Order Paper we will be voting against it. There are two Supplementary Order Papers in the Minister’s name both of which seem sensible amendments and we will be supporting them. And there is one that Denise Roche has recently tabled which we will also be supporting.I would like the Minister to take a call and just give us a straightforward explanation. Every single one of those submitters who did refer to commission-based payment agreed that we should look at a different model that was less onerous less time-consuming and more efficient and effective and that either retained or enhanced the level of transparency that the current system has. If everyone agreed with the problems and said we would work together on the solutions but that we opposed the proposed solution in the bill which is the withdrawal of the commission-based exemption—you know currently you cannot have a commission-based payment. This bill takes away that prohibition. It does not say that we are going to have one but of course it leaves the door wide open to having that happen.So I want the Minister to just explain why he was right and the rest of the world that was involved in this discussion was wrong. Everyone put their hands up and said “We will work together to find an alternative that meets the concerns that have been identified.” because everybody agreed with the concerns. We want something that is transparent that is not time-consuming that is not onerous and that makes sense for everyone who is involved in the industry but people do not want to move to this commission-based payment. So I want to understand what drove the Minister in the face of that opposition to continue to leave it in the bill. Or perhaps you know ever-hopeful that I am that the Minister will use the common sense that he is renowned for I am ever-hopeful that he might say “Well I didn’t even know that.” and now the Minister might table a late Supplementary Order Paper just to say: “Let’s in regulation make this a payment system that meets the concerns of the submitters.”As I said at the beginning Labour would have really liked to support this bill 100 percent because on issues that address public health concerns such as those that gambling causes it is best to have a consistent approach and an approach that is supported by the majority of Parliament. But in this case I am not sure where the Greens are going on their final vote. I know that New Zealand First has got some different concerns from what we have in that regard but this issue is one that was certainly I think quite fundamental.Commission-based payment has been acknowledged as not being the best method of payment since gambling legislation was introduced in New Zealand in 2003 and that is because it can drive the incentive to increase gambling. It does not do it deliberately; it does not necessarily do it in every case but unlike all other types of payment a commission-based payment system does have the opportunity and the incentive to incentivise increased gambling and that seems to me to be the last thing that anyone in this Parliament would want. We will have the debate about how much we regulate and how much we introduce harm reductions—you know they are all legitimate debates—but I do not know of a single member of Parliament who would say that incentivising increased gambling because of the payment system dictated in legislation is a good idea. That is why I cannot understand why we have still got it in this legislation and I really want the Minister to explain it.I want to talk about one other concern that Labour has with this bill and that is not what is in it; it is what is not in it. We have a lot of gambling legislation so it is certainly not the last opportunity. I hope the Minister has got another bill coming to Parliament soon.Hon Peter Dunne: At least.Hon RUTH DYSON: At least one. We might have a few in this term of Parliament. It is something that needs to be worked on on an ongoing basis not because anything is faulty in the legislation that is before us now although it is but that is not the reason that we need to continually revise gambling legislation. The reason is that technology changes. People’s habits change. We now have a situation in regard to online betting that none of us would have envisaged when the original legislation was introduced in 2003. The world is a different place and if we want to maintain the contribution going to community organisations and the harm reduction protection of problem gamblers then we need to continually revise the legislative framework. That is the other area on which this bill misses out.This was an opportunity for some serious measures to be introduced in terms of gambling harm minimisation and again this was a very strong point of contribution from a large number of submitters. The submitters we talked to and heard from were very moving. A number of them were people who told their life stories to the committee about the harm that they had caused to themselves and to their families because of their addiction to gambling and that takes a lot of courage. It takes a lot of incentive to want to do good actually—to tell their stories in that way. People came to the committee and said “This bill should have more about harm minimisation in it. Here is what happened to me because I wasn’t protected against myself.” basically. So this is a missed opportunity. I think we do those courageous people who fronted up to the committee a disservice by not having a serious contribution to harm minimisation in this bill.I know that the Committee stage is not generally the time to be talking about a lot of what happened in the select committee but because the bill was introduced and considered so long ago I had almost forgotten how much alteration the committee made. I just want to commend all the members of the Government Administration Committee. If you flick through the track-changed bill that we have before us now you will see page after page after page of unanimously agreed alterations and I think that was a result of the serious work done by all the committee members. We listened not just to the officials but also to the submitters and I think the officials worked really hard to answer our questions and to make sure that despite our reservations about some parts of the bill we were truly satisfied with the level of advice we got. You know that is pretty well always the case I guess but not 100 percent.I think in this quite complex bill short though it is we should commend the officials for the work they have done. I am sure they are looking forward to staying here until 10 o’clock as we debate this bill tonight. It is one of the few joys and opportunities that public servants have when they have worked on a bill—that they get to sit in Parliament until 10 o’clock alongside us.I have not yet seen the Minister in the chair Peter Dunne move in a way that indicates that he is going to take a call but I certainly would strenuously encourage him to do that. I think that this Committee deserves an explanation from the man holding the pen and he is the Minister in the chair at the moment. Why did we leave that door open to commission-based payments when so many people said that this could incentivise harm and we had an opportunity to get an agreed better system?