Legislative Council Thursday 10 November 2016

GAMING CONTROL AMENDMENT (COMMUNITY INTEREST) BILL 2016 (No. 65)

[12.40 p.m.]  Ms FORREST (Murchison) - Mr President, I will make a brief contribution and I will speak further in the Committee stage.  

To give members the heads up, the amendment has to be redrafted slightly to properly reflect my request to have retrospective nature removed from this bill.

I have an abhorrence of poker machines.  I have never used one and I never intend to.  I feel sad for families who are negatively impacted by poker machines.  We see them everywhere.  It is a shame we have them in Tasmania at all, but we are not here to debate that.  We already have 3550 in place.  We are talking about 20 in a new application and another 110.  It is not very many, compared to the 3550 in place. That is not the focus of this legislation either, but it gives context to this debate.

I support the implementation of the community interest test.  We should have had it from the start.  I am not sure about the process in renewal of licences.  Maybe the Leader can indicate the process around licence renewal for poker machines.  Do they come up for renewal, and how often do they come up?  The time we should be imposing our community test is before they are renewed.

Mr Valentine - There is an amendment being drafted.

Ms FORREST - Okay.  That is the process you put in place.  It is well established before that process is undertaken.  The community wants to have a say in this.  The community has seen the harm and the damage that is done.  I prefer them not to be there.  I do not go to places where they have them, generally, unless it is the only place you can go if you are away somewhere.  They used to have them over the road at Customs House, but not any more.  They took them out and it changed the place.

Ms Rattray - They only had six.

Ms FORREST - I do not know how many they had.  It is a blight on our society, but the government relies heavily on the revenue.  

I put my hand up for the committee and I missed out, but that is fine.  I am sure the members on the committee will do a fine job.  It is not going to be an easy job, I accept that.  It is a very complicated area and they will receive some complex submissions, to look at the whole picture, which is a good thing.  I hope they are receiving adequate support, to make sure they can work their way through it all.  It will be complex information to understand.

The committee needs to look at things like returns to the house, the super profits being creamed off the top by the business owners, and by the government through their taxes.  The taxing arrangements should be looked at and the settings on the machines themselves.  If anyone has not watched Ka-Ching! Pokie Nation, watch it and see how they are set up to rip people off.  There are no two ways about it, they are set up to rip people off.  They are set up to lull people into that feeling - they have near misses often enough to make them think to hang in there.  The music, the lights, everything is so thoroughly researched to ensure people become addicted.  This is young people, old people, older people, it is anyone.  Poker machines are not the only scourge on our society, online gambling is also as bad.  It does such harm, but it is part of our culture, in many ways, in Australia.  We have to work with what we have.  They are the overarching comments.  

In terms of the overall intent of the legislation that reflects the Government's policy, I support the introduction of a community interest test.  The issue is how and when it is done.  

As the member for Huon said, businesses have gone out in good faith, purchased the property, spent a significant amount of money on it, they have applied for a range of licences and one of them is a gaming licence.  Whether or not they should have 20 gaming machines out there, I probably will not go there.  I am sure I will not.  I do not go to Glenorchy very often but if it has poker machines I am not interested in being in a place like that, unless there is no other option.  There are plenty of other options for me if I want to have a meal somewhere, so I will not go there, but other people will.  Some will go because there are poker machines there and some will not go there for that very reason.  People make their own choices.  Those who are addicted find it very hard to stay away.

The process we now have is a business invested in a property last year.  The Government made a policy announcement in March saying they were going to introduce the public interest test.  The planning and development of this property was well underway at this time.  They had put in the application for the gaming licence, so they had done the keno, liquor licence and other licences required.  I have not looked at the Glenorchy City Council planning documents to see what was suggested at the time.  The approvals they needed for planning were received, as Glenorchy City Council can as their job is the planning approval, not the gaming licence - that is the liquor licensing board's process.  

We now have two applications on foot.  One of the arguments made in the second reading speech was that - it did say only one - because there are only two, it is okay to apply it retrospectively.  No, you could use the same argument to say it should not apply retrospectively.  As the member for Huon said, you have a business that has gone out in good faith and got on with things and now we are adding an extra barrier to jump over.  If this legislation goes through as it is, the proponents can continue on their way.  They can proceed with the gaming licence application, it will not stop that.  They may well get their gaming licence and they can get their gaming machines in the building and have them ready to go but they cannot turn them on.  They will have to wait until this other process is determined and put in place.  To determine this other process it is going to take some time.

There will need to be a period of public consultation on what the public interest test should look like and what will be required.  Sometimes consultation periods are quite short, sometimes longer.  In a discussion I had with Treasury yesterday, I was assured it would be a couple of months of consultation.  I said, 'You've got Christmas in the middle of this.  That's not a good time to go out for consultation on something as important as this'.  It will probably take at least two, maybe three months, if they are going to be fair to give people the opportunity to make contributions.  Particularly as it is the busiest time of the year for people involved in hospitality and other industries that may have a concern about another competing business.

The Liquor Gaming Commission will have to report back to the Treasurer to say, 'This is what we believe it should look like'.  The Treasurer will then need to ensure regulations are drawn to reflect that and then the regulations will be made and gazetted.  Then there is the disallowance process if we get some concerns this is not adequate.  There is the risk of a disallowance motion being put on the Notice Paper and being held up again.  This is all for someone who has invested in good faith in the business and has applied through the proper process for a licence - and there are only two at the moment.

The amendment I am seeking means for any current, live application to be treated the same way as every other of the 3550 licence holders now.  We are not giving them a free pass, as has been suggested by some.  It is allowing them to follow the same process as every other business that has any one of those 3550 machines now in place.  That is a fair process.  It is then incumbent on the Government.  If this amendment is supported, it will have to go back downstairs next week.  Assuming it was supported next week in the lower House then it is incumbent on the Government to get it out to the Governor pretty promptly so that it can receive royal assent.  Then anyone after that is subject to the provisions of the bill, which would be a community interest test.  

As the member for Rumney said, there are only 120 or 130 machines, or 150, in total that are still left to be allocated until the caps are reached.  One does question whether now is the right time to put it in and why wouldn't we just do it on renewal of licences or if there is a significant policy change, or something comes out of the Gaming Committee that may suggest we are doing it wrong the way we are doing it now.

The question is:  do we need the legislation in the first place at the moment?  It was a good question the member for Rumney posed and I tend to have some sympathy with that view.  The least worst option is that we absolutely accept we should have the community interest test because of the harms already mentioned - the member for Windermere talked about those - but remove the retrospective nature because policy is policy and legislation is legislation.  Are we suddenly going to ask all the dentists in Tasmania to start treating people's teeth with fluoride because at the Liberal Party conference the Liberal Party passed a policy resolution to get rid of fluoride out of drinking water?  Get rid of five cent pieces?

 Dr Goodwin - That is not correct.  I do not think that got up.  

Ms FORREST - Maybe the media misreported that.  

Dr Goodwin - It was proposed but I do not think that motion was successful.

Ms FORREST - One that was supported was getting rid of the Hare-Clark system.  

Mrs Hiscutt - They can propose whatever they like.

Ms FORREST - I know, but it is a policy position of the party, and we are talking about policy.  Policy is one thing -

Dr Goodwin - Ultimately it is a decision of the Parliamentary Liberal Party; there is a process.

Ms FORREST - Policy is one thing and legislation is another.  If we changed all of our practice on a policy - in Tasmania we have this thing called the pesky upper House that sometimes changes things and sometimes rejects things. 

Ms Rattray - Have we been referred to as that?

Ms FORREST - No, I am referring to us as that.  I am talking about myself, nobody else.  It is no reflection on the member for Apsley at all.  The member for Mersey is a different kettle of fish.  You cannot presume by putting out a policy statement that it will pass.  People talk about mandates.  This was not taken to the election so you cannot even claim the mandate argument here.  It was something introduced, as governments have the power and the right to do:  to introduce policy and then do their best to get it supported by the parliament where legislation is required to do it.

I do not have an objection to a community interest test.  It is an interesting time to be introducing it when you have a lot of work being done on the whole area of gaming, and I am sure it is something that will be raised with that committee.  You have the catch-all of 'any other matter incidental thereto' and, as the member for Apsley pointed out, the terms of reference of the committee.  It is pretty much there anyway.  This House put it there and the lower House agreed. 

Ms Rattray - It was supported in the other place.

Ms FORREST - That is right.  There is clearly a desire to have this looked at.  Maybe this is jumping the gun; one could suggest it is for political purpose at the moment, I do not know what it is.  As the member for Huon rightly said, a business has gone out in good faith and if it is one or two businesses that would be negatively impacted, you could use the very same argument for not negatively impacting them because there are only one or two.

I possibly support this into the Committee stage but I will be proceeding with the amendment to remove that retrospective nature.