Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Kia ora tātou katoa. I move, That the Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. It is my intention that the Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill be considered by the Commerce Committee in time.

Umpteen pieces of research tell us that problem gambling can have devastating consequences on individuals and whānau. Those consequences can be demonstrated in relationship breakdowns, financial ruin, psychological distress, criminal offending, imprisonment, and suicide. So you could say that it severely compromises the potential of whānau. The Māori Party takes this issue really seriously, so when we had the opportunity to enter into a relationship agreement with the National Government we made social hazards part of our negotiations. So we are really thrilled that National agreed to support this bill’s referral to the select committee, and we hope that it will do so through subsequent phases.

Actually, I am looking forward to wholesale support across the House for this bill. The inquiries and the support provided by members of the House across the parties indicate that there are matters to be addressed with pokies, and having the bill go to the select committee will no doubt allow that discussion to be opened up. Sure, there might be some things that need some tweaking, but let us have the submissions and let us have the debate.

I am clear that it is not likely that we will get rid of pokie machines altogether. People do, however, recognise that something needs to be done about pokies to address the harm caused by those machines. But it seems to be counterbalanced by those who run the “Who is going to pay for the sports club uniforms?” argument or, perhaps, the “Who will sponsor the kapahaka competition?” argument. People are concerned that they may not get the money stream, and I understand that. But we are trying to focus on the harm, and that is why we have termed the bill the Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill.

This bill proposes a law change that would enable local authorities in consultation with their communities to reduce the number of pokie machines in their districts. The purpose of the bill is to provide local communities with more power to determine where pokie machines may be sited and how the proceeds can be distributed. The venues for electronic gambling machines tend to be overly represented in lower-income communities and town centres. Māori and Pasifika populations are effectively being disproportionately targeted and even severely harmed by them. This bill seeks to overcome these inequities of harm in the location and excessive numbers of pokie machines by enabling local authorities in consultation with their communities to reduce the number of pokie machines in, or even eliminate them from, those suburbs and towns where they are particularly concentrated or are doing particular harm.

It also changes the responsibility for distributing pokie funds and provides an informed and democratically accountable distribution method. In doing so, we hope to end the inefficiencies, lack of transparency, risks of unethical behaviour, and failure to appreciate and respond to the greatest needs of particular geographical and ethnic communities in the distribution of the community benefit funds from pokies. To take money out of the Kawerau community, for example, and distribute it in Hamilton, or Christchurch, is wrong, and we want to address that. The bill also proposes to give gamblers more ability to limit and control their own gambling behaviour through player tracking devices and pre-commit cards.

I suppose the background to a lot of this discussion for us as the Māori Party is that tangata whenua have no history of traditional concepts of gambling. Indeed, there is no word for it in the Māori language. David Grant has described the introduction of gambling by the new settlers as “cultural baggage”, baggage that has been disproportionately associated with Māori. So here we are today recognising that Māori are two to three times more at risk of problem and pathological gambling than non-Māori, and that Māori youth are six times as likely as non-Māori to develop gambling problems. So instead of leading to self-determination, gambling creates more and more reliance on gaming machines being the road out of the poverty trap that many find themselves in. But that, unfortunately, is a dream. I mean, even those in the gambling industry openly say the machines are there to take your money. One might win now and again, and it is the belief that it will happen again and again that feeds the addiction.

If we take into account the ripple effect of each individual problem gambler having a direct impact on at least five people, we are looking at close to 250,000 people adversely affected by Māori problem-gambling. The Māori Party has consistently described the harm associated with gambling in the terms of Dr Lorna Dyall, who has described it as a social hazard. Dr Dyall compared the intervention of games such as Risk or Powerball as on a par with the introduction of any biological or chemical hazards that are likely to place people at risk or in danger of loss or injury. She describes these games of chance as social hazards that require the same extent of licensing, management, monitoring, and ongoing research to assess the full social, economic, and cultural impacts. So the Māori Party has made changes with regard to the work on the tobacco reform. We are looking at alcohol overuse, particularly amongst Māori communities, and tonight we want to focus on gambling harm.

This bill proposes to do so in five ways. Firstly, this bill responds to the public sentiment and evidence that there are already too many pokies and venues in some locations and districts by adding public sentiment and evidence of harm to the major criteria to be applied in developing a territorial authority’s gambling venue policy. It empowers local authorities, after consulting the community and affected operators, to eliminate or reduce the number of pokie machines and venues in particular suburbs or towns where public sentiment or evidence of harm justifies this.

Secondly, it cuts out racing and racing stake money as an authorised “charitable” purpose that is inconsistent with the community benefit tenor of the rest of the principal Act. Special consideration for this industry alone should not continue when community and iwi organisations are so desperately short of funding.

Thirdly, it requires the distribution of proceeds to be carried out primarily for the benefit of community, sporting, and social service organisations operating within, and for the benefit of, the geographic community in which the venue is located. It specifically requires all pokie-machine trusts, corporate societies, and other distributors of the proceeds of gambling machines to return at least 80 percent of these funds generated by gamblers’ losses on local pokie machines back into the charitable organisations that are meeting the priority needs in the same local authority area as the venue, and within the same local authority ward, local board subdivision, or community board area where such subdivisions exist.

Fourthly, this bill also phases out the pokie trusts, or corporate societies, as the distributors of community benefit money from pokie machines. Within a year’s time it passes over responsibility for those distributions to special committees of local authorities with a majority of representation from community organisations. They are sort of modelled on the Creative New Zealand creative communities fund committees and the former Hillary Commission local committees. I might say that this section has been a major discussion point in some submissions to me from some trusts that believe that they are doing things by the book, if you like, but even they admit that not everything is as it should be. So I look forward to the ideas from the industry.

Fifthly, gamblers who are having problems with their behaviour when using pokie machines frequently have their problems exacerbated by losing track of the amount of losses or the passage of time. Gamblers could more often be able to manage their gambling if pokie-machine venue operators were obliged to keep track of each gambler’s overall losses and time spent gambling through using common technological devices like player tracking systems. If, in addition, gamblers were equipped with pre-commit cards in which gamblers pre-set, away from the gambling venue, limits on the amount of losses and time spent gambling on pokie machines, then they could restore control over their own behaviour and greatly reduce the problems they could face from pokie gambling. This bill proposes making such player tracking devices and pre-commit cards a required condition of a pokie-machine venue operator’s licence as issued by the Secretary for Internal Affairs.

Finally, there is no dispute over the fact that gambling is extremely destructive to individuals, whānau, and communities in the way in which it impacts on the quality of life of whānau and inhibits their capacity to—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. His time has expired.

The National Party will be supporting this Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill at its first reading and referral to the select committee. It does so for two reasons. Firstly, the support for the referral of this bill to the select committee is part of the National Party’s confidence and supply agreement with the Māori Party, and I think this reflects very well the sorts of cooperative relationships that can not only be agreed on but also honoured in good coalition Governments. I contrast that with some of the agreements not met in the latter stages of the Labour Government, including that with the United Future party. I think had the Hon Peter Dunne been here, he would be nodding sagely at the recollection of an agreement made with him—in successive Parliaments—by the Labour Government over issues in respect of support for medical insurance. Not only was it not honoured by that Government but also by the time David Cunliffe became the Minister of Health, he was not even aware of it. So I am very pleased to say that within 4 months of the agreement being reached, this bill can have its first reading and be referred to the Commerce Committee where it will get, I think, a very fair hearing. Indeed, I am quite confident that the committee will get plenty of submissions on the issue.

The second reason the National Party will be supporting this bill at its first reading is that we share the very grave concerns that the Māori Party has and that the member introducing the bill, Te Ururoa Flavell, has about the effects that problem gambling has on society. The goal that this bill has is harm minimisation, and I applaud those efforts. It is a continuation of the very active work that the Māori Party has been doing in respect of harm minimisation for its people. As the member mentioned, I think the very best example of that over the last 3 years has been the excellent efforts by the Associate Minister of Health the Hon Tariana Turia to increase the excise on tobacco and to further denormalise tobacco in our lives. The statistics, particularly around young Māori, are extremely encouraging. I do hope that regardless of the future of this bill, and that with the support of the Māori Party, the Government can continue to reduce harm and the problems that gambling can cause for our society.

I want to focus on a couple of issues in respect of the bill, and, in particular, the focus that it has on racing, and, in particular, racing stake money. The member Mr Flavell quite rightly points out that there is some pokie money that does go to support the racing industry. I think he used the words “special consideration” for that industry, and I am not quite sure I would concur that the racing industry necessarily has special consideration. I have certainly received plenty of submissions in advance of the first reading of this bill from people who are involved in the industry in one way or another. I know that the Minister for Racing, the Hon Nathan Guy, has some concerns not only about what this bill could do to the racing industry and the estimated $6 million to $8 million a year that is provided for stakes but also about infrastructure development on courses right up and down the country. I think I would make two comments about that.

Firstly, the popular perception of the racing industry is of something that is extremely glamorous—the Ellerslies, the Addingtons, and the Wellington Cup day at Trentham, where we get on our glad rags, our hats, our fascinators, and out we go. The perception of the racing industry is that it is an elitist sport, the sport of kings, as they call it. But I think the reality is something different. From a very young age my annual summer holidays in Central Otago were always punctuated by a trip to, usually, the trots at the Ōmākau races, about 40 kilometres east of Alexandra. It is a fantastic day out that I have continued with my own children, not only there but also at the Cromwell races. I can tell you that there is not a fascinator to be seen anywhere on that racecourse. It is a terrific community day, and one where, I guess, the racing is almost incidental to the social connection that is so very important to those communities. These events have, over the last 20 years or so, gone through something of a significant slump in terms of their support by numbers and the amount of financial support that is provided to them. Racing is by no means at that grassroots level an industry that meets the reality—it does not meet the perception—of the Ellerslies and the Trenthams.

The second thing I would say about that is up until about 20 years ago, indeed racing was probably the only sport one could bet on, and the TAB was there—those smoky High Street agencies—for the sole purpose of betting on horses. Of course, we know that that is quite different from the current-day reality, where there are a number of sports, a plethora of sports, that one could bet on: rugby, rugby league, tennis, cricket, and so on. So if one separates the betting aspect of racing from the community and sporting aspect of racing, one could argue, and indeed many have, that race day is a sport like going to the Forsyth Barr Stadium in Dunedin or the Westpac Stadium here in Wellington, and that one could also bet on the outcome of the event. I think that is analogous—much more analogous these days than it was in times past.

So I would question the description of the so-called special consideration of the racing industry. I am quite sure that because the racing industry is such a large employer in many parts of the country—some 50,000 people earn a part-time or full-time income from the racing industry—we will hear many submissions from those involved in it, and in other sporting codes for that matter. I am sure the Government will look forward to the submissions to, and the deliberation by, the committee on those issues.

But I do want to emphasise that gambling is a very important issue. Some aspects of the bill, I think, are probably already able to be done, but I think that is going to be for the Commerce Committee’s examination of the bill in terms of what provisions already exist for local communities to have more say over where those proceeds are spent, which organisations can benefit from them, and also the number of machines that are in local communities. I am no expert on this, but I do think there are some provisions that already enable that. Although we are by no means anywhere near looking at the outcome of, say, Skycity’s proposal, the Prime Minister did mention in answer to an oral question yesterday that notwithstanding that, the number of pokie machines in Auckland has reduced, I think he said, from about 5,100 to 4,200—a nearly 20 percent reduction. So it is already going down; it is going down under the existing provisions that exist.

That said, I think there are many very worthy elements to this bill. I look forward to following the submission and deliberation process with interest. I am very pleased to say that National will support this bill at the first reading.

Can I acknowledge the member who has just resumed his seat, Michael Woodhouse, and say that I think that he canvassed the wide spectrum of tensions within this bill, the Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill, in a very considered way, and I think that is the sort of debate that is going to happen at the Commerce Committee. I do not think there is a single person in this House who does not share the concern of the member who has introduced the bill in relation to the impact of problem gambling that we have in New Zealand. We have seen some moves in our Parliament to try to reduce that social harm, and this is a further one in that direction.

I am a little surprised that the National Party did agree to the legislation, which is clearly only going as far as the select committee with the support of the National Party. It does, for me, indicate a bit of a conflict, when National is going to be supporting Te Ururoa Flavell’s member’s bill’s referral to the select committee. We will hear from the problem-gambling groups around the country that are trying to deal with the huge distress and dysfunction caused by people who have problem gambling. The devastation that it causes to families is something that all New Zealanders would seek to avoid. But, at the same time, the National Party is going to be whipped—whipped; not even a conscience vote—into supporting the dodgy deal that gives Skycity a further 500 pokie machines, as if they are not related. I think there is a small amount of tension there, and I think the rest of the country will find it very puzzling to try to reconcile those two conflicting points of view.

The other puzzle that I have is that when you look at the Order Paper that we have got before us today, there is at No. 49 the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 2). That was reported back from the Government Administration Committee, according to the parliamentary records, on 12 May 2009—

💬 Sue Moroney: 2009?

It was 2009, and now it is 2012. It is nearly the third anniversary. It is just weeks away from the third anniversary of the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 2) being reported back to Parliament. It is in the name of the Hon Chris Tremain. Why is it not up on the Order Paper? If there is such a major concern about the social hazard, as was described by the member whose name is on this legislation, why is the Government not doing something about it? We have a bill, it has been to select committee, it is back before the House, and we could be progressing it. I am sure it would get a huge amount of support. Perhaps that would be too blindingly obvious in the face of the dodgy deal with Skycity, as opposed to supporting a member’s bill through to the select committee.

I think the other point that Michael Woodhouse raised in his contribution was the issue of the racing industry and racing stake money, and he clearly had the briefing very well rehearsed, because that is the same briefing that has been given around the country, and it is the right and proper process for the industry to do that. I do not actually think that the only issue to be considered—but I do think it is one to be considered—is the differences in the various racing organisations around the country, because that is a big issue to be considered, and the racing industry has made that point. But the concern that is addressed in the bill is the fact that racing and racing stake money are regarded as having a charitable purpose, and I think that disconnect between them being recognised as having a charitable purpose and the clear outcome of racing is the point that the member is making in his bill, but no doubt we will have that. I think we will have a lot of tension around that.

It does, for me, raise a much more important issue, and it is a further tension that is outlined in the bill, and I think it is one that this Parliament has to come to terms with sooner or later. The member himself mentioned it. He asked why we should be giving money to racing and pokie money to racing stake money when we have got community and iwi organisations who are desperately short of funding. The bigger question, from my point of view, is how do we fund social-good activity in our community, how do we resource that activity, without being dependent on pokie machines? That is the nub of the question. Let us not divide our communities, particularly between racing and other activities, because it gets us off the primary purpose of the debate, which is about what we want in our society, what we want in our communities, and how we ensure that the organisations we entrust to perform or support those activities are able to do so without resorting to gambling money. We as a society have moved to a high level of dependency and we must have the strength to break that dependency if we are going to move, at the same time, away from the harm that problem gambling causes to our communities. They are connected actions, and I would urge the member who introduced the bill to try to expand the debate at the select committee so that we do not end up just with racing versus the rest.

It gives me pleasure to rise and speak on this bill, the Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill. Can I say to the mover of this bill, Mr Flavell, that this is a very good piece of legislation. I want to commend him for the hard work he has put into drawing it up, and for the diligence he has shown, over more than a year since it came out of the ballot, in working this through, and getting it on the Table for us here today to consider. Can I say to the last speaker that that was one of the worst speeches I have heard in this House. Mr Prasad, can I say to you that—

💬 Michael Woodhouse: It was Ruth Dyson, wasn’t it?

It was Mrs Dyson? Oh, they sounded the same from where I was sitting. Can I say, though, as we come to what is a very important piece of legislation, that I know Mr Flavell has worked very hard in our community. I say “our community” because we are elected members of Parliament from an area of the Bay of Plenty where our electorates overlap—his, Waiariki, and mine, Rotorua. Over the last couple of years as elected MPs, the only two elected constituent MPs in that part of the Bay of Plenty, I know that he has worked very hard in terms of consulting with his community, as I have.

Gambling can do great harm in our communities—in fact, in New Zealand. At the same time there are people who gamble for enjoyment and for whom it does no harm at all. I believe that Mr Flavell’s piece of legislation focuses on creating rules for people in a local environment and giving local authorities some tools, some powers, to decide for themselves to a greater degree what types of rules they would like, what sorts of controls they would like, in the area of their competence.

I would say to him that last year I consulted fairly widely by writing to people, and through advertising and asking constituents from the Rotorua electorate—from Kawerau, from Murupara, from the Te Puke area—to tell me what they thought about this. The vast majority of people who responded to the survey, and there were some thousands, were in favour of greater control around the pokie machines that are used. So I support him in his endeavours and in his legislation.

Mr Flavell raised the issue of Kawerau, a great little town that he and I share as members of Parliament. Can I say that Kawerau, as with many small parts of New Zealand, faces some challenges, but it is a community of people who care about themselves and others. But in Kawerau there are a number of pokie machines. [Interruption] I got a lot more support in Kawerau than you did, Mr Prasad, but there would be a reason for that, and that is because you have yet to win an election. Good luck in the future; I think you cannot.

But anyway, let me continue. What I would say about Kawerau is that I have had ongoing discussions with the mayor there, who said that they are not necessarily against pokie machines. They do believe they can do some harm, but the Mayor of Kawerau and his councillors would like greater control themselves. More than that, he said there are significant amounts of money that go through the machines in Kawerau, and there is some money that stays in the community.

A little while ago some of the proceeds were used to fix up and rebuild the BMX track, because one of New Zealand’s best BMX riders, Sarah Walker, comes from Kawerau. It is a great thing and an excellent thing for the community. Actually, that would not have been done without the funding that comes back from some of these pokie trusts. But the Mayor of Kawerau, Mr Campbell, has said to me that he believes that if pokies are to stay there, more of that money should be spent in that community. I agree with him on that, and this piece of legislation at least starts a debate around what should happen there.

Can I say that Rotorua, although it is a fantastic place to visit—and there is not a single member of this House who would disagree with me—has another name. It is occasionally called “Roto-Vegas”, because some years ago it was said that there were lot of pokie machines there. Actually, if you have visited Vegas in America, you will know that gambling is a small part of it. It is because you can have so much fun there. And that is what is great about Rotorua—so much fun. But we do have pokie machines there and there is an ongoing wide debate about this. I want to make one—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member, but the time has come for me to leave the Chair.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.