Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill

I appreciate the Committee taking what I think is a logical approach to dealing with these amendments as a group, rather than trying to work our way through them one at a time in an order, when that could take weeks and weeks. I would like to run through, in the order they come up in the bill, the amendments I am proposing to the Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill.

The first one is to do with when venues are transferred. What we know—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Sorry.

It is all right. He is on his way back.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): You cannot leave here.

💬 Te Ururoa Flavell: Thank you. Sorry about that.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. I assume we are going to have some flexibility over time on this anyway. The first point is that when venues are transferred, what the practice appears to be is that the transfer occurs from areas that are relatively wealthy to areas that have high foot traffic and areas with a tendency to gambling. What tends to happen is that transfers occur only to areas where people think there is going to be more gambling. What my first amendment, on Supplementary Order Paper 291, does is reduce that to no more than 75 percent when there is a transfer. So there has got to be a drop in the number of machines as that transfer occurs, in order to try to offset the increased take that is likely to happen as a result of transfer, because, of course, people would not transfer the machines if they did not think they were going to get more money.

The next one—and I know this will be especially of interest to metropolitan members—is that when pokie machines are transferred, they may not be transferred to an area that has a higher deprivation level. So what we are saying in Supplementary Order Paper 292 is that you can move your pokie machines from poorer areas to rich areas, but the practice of focusing pokie machines into poorer areas, especially when you have a cap that is taking them down, is to stop.

Supplementary Order Paper 296 is relatively simple. What it says is that, over a decade, an increasing proportion, moving from 40 to 50 percent, of the takings should be distributed. So what we are saying is that, as a minimum, the amount that goes back out to the community of the profits that are made should move first of all to 40 percent in the financial year after next, and then go through to a figure of 50 percent. Frankly, that is one that I have done relatively carefully with quite a lot of consultation. It is a bit soft, but it is a test for members and it happens at only 1 percent a year.

The next one I would like to refer to is Supplementary Order Paper 298, which makes the pre-commitment arrangements mandatory. The objective there is that people decide, before they start gambling, how much they can afford to lose. They make that decision, and that is the amount they are allowed to lose. They cannot keep on coming back for more and more. There will be tracking arrangements in order to ensure that. I might just say, Mr Chairman, without bringing you into the debate, that I understand that some of the arrangements are in the Waikato. Some very good technology has been developed in the Waikato as far as player tracking is concerned, with biometric recognition for people.

Supplementary Order Paper 299 deals with the matter of trustees’ and directors’ remuneration, and sets $100,000 for an individual trustee or a director. They are not people who are employed. This is not setting someone’s wages but, effectively, the fees—“honorarium” is the wrong word at this sort of level—or the amount that can be paid out to trustees or directors.

💬 Te Ururoa Flavell: Singularly?

Sorry?

💬 Te Ururoa Flavell: Singularly?

Each, as an individual. The reason for this is that the Commerce Committee has heard evidence and it has come back by way of questions that some people are getting $200,000—$200,000 taken from the poorest people in New Zealand—not to work on this stuff but just to sit on the board. That is something that is just outrageous.

Moving through, there is a much tighter requirement to account for proceeds and payments, and a requirement to have an integrated public health approach. There is a requirement for territorial local authorities to have a sinking-lid policy. We are not saying what it should be, we are not saying it should go at a particular level in this particular amendment, but we are saying just that they have one—that they debate the issue and that they make a movement, even if it is something that is very minor.

Supplementary Order Paper 303 is one that I think is important. It is to put into the gambling legislation an objective of reducing the number of gaming machines in New Zealand to 10,000 by the year 2025. It is a medium to longer term objective to drop out about 35 percent of the current number of gaming machines. I am not going to pretend that that is going to result in a massive drop-off in the money going through the pokies, because these machines keep on getting more and more attractive and flasher and they take bigger coins and they do all that sort of thing. But what this would do is reduce the number of those machines.

The last one, which has actually had a little more publicity, is Supplementary Order Paper 326, which would result in what I am describing as a “pokies pause”. Currently, this House, in its wisdom, decided that in order to deal with liquor abuse we would close outlets from 4 a.m. to 8 a.m., because it was felt that that would help break the problems of addiction and it would stop some of the harm. My view is that if it is good enough for liquor outlets to have a break from 4 a.m. to 8 a.m., then it is good enough for venues that have pokie machines to have a break for the same period. The idea of people staying all night, night after night, in places like this—frankly, the New Zealanders who are doing that are often the poorest people, the people who are desperate, the people who can least afford it. As a result of that, we have people losing their homes. Getting them out for 4 hours, hopefully getting them home, hopefully getting them to a point where they can have a sleep and they can consider these matters, is something that I think is a very worthy thing to do. If we do it for booze, then there is even more of a reason for doing it for gaming.

Kia ora tātou katoa. This being the first time I have a member’s bill in Parliament under my name, it is pretty special—it must be so special that I did not realise I had to stay in the chair all of the time, so I apologise to you, Mr Chair, for that. But it is a real privilege to be able to have an actual bill on the Table of the House of Parliament under my name and, in particular, under the name of the Māori Party. If I stray a little bit, hopefully you will be able to give me a hand, Mr Chair.

I do not think I want to traverse too many of the negative effects of gambling. They were well traversed in the first and second readings of the Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill so I will leave those there. Aside from the fact that some have suggested that the bill might well have been cut well back, for my part the great thing about this particular bill from its very inception was the discussion. It brought to the table all of the very many parties who have an interest all across the board, whether they be people who ask for money or whether they be controlling the money or distributing the money. The great thing is that it has allowed the debate to happen.

I want to thank the Commerce Committee, which listened to all of those many submissions. I want to also thank the Minister of Internal Affairs, who, while we talked through this bill, worked with me to look not only at my particular bill but also at the longer vision. So I pay tribute to the Hon Chris Tremain and his office for working with us to look at not just this bill, because it does not have to be seen just in this bill alone, but also subsequent bills that may well come through from the National Party and, indeed, from the Minister in the course of time—hopefully, before the end of the year.

There are a couple of points that I want to make in respect of that original bill. For starters, we wanted to cut out racing and racing stake money as an authorised charitable purpose. Our reason for that was that we should not give special consideration to this industry when community organisations are so short of funding. Aside from that, it seems such a contradiction that you put money into a machine that coughs up some benefits that supposedly go to the community and yet it ends up going as prize money to racing. It just seems such a huge contradiction, which is why we put it in in the first instance. The Government generally disagreed with that, saying that it would have too much of a negative impact on the racing industry, and others will probably support that view.

The second part of that original bill had a condition that at least 80 percent of the funds derived from class 4 gambling would be distributed to the community from which they came. It would be implemented by a condition on the mandatory licence that societies have to apply for to operate gaming machines. Again, the Government said that that would not work because societies can challenge the conditions of their licence. But the Government did say that it supported the idea of making sure funds from pokies went back to the communities of origin, and that was at the very heart of our particular bill. So we believe that the bill in its current form does, in fact, allow that to happen, although through regulation.

The third part of the bill required territorial authorities to take control of distributing proceeds from gaming. There is no longer any need for societies—I believe it was in the select committee process that we heard across the board about a number of exercises in the past where societies had been caught having rorted the system in one form or another. The Government did not necessarily agree—and the vast majority of the submitters did not necessarily agree—that local authorities take up that rein, but the Government did say that there is a need for greater transparency of the current grant system, taking away the risk of rorts and dodgy dealings. We believe it is partly covered in my bill but will also be followed up in further legislation down the line.

If I can just talk to the fourth part of the bill, it allowed for public sentiment and evidence of harm to be specific criteria when territorial authorities are developing their venue policies and for those criteria to be a reason for reducing the number of pokie machines in that area. I believe that some of Mr Mallard’s amendments sort of cover that. The Government did not agree with this, saying that this would impact unfairly on existing venues, but instead it wanted to allow venues, with permission from territorial authorities, to move their pokie machines out of harm’s way—perhaps to central business districts, but not to low-decile areas. I believe that that has been dealt with in the bill.

The final part is that the original bill wanted harm minimisation devices like pre-commit cards and player tracking to be put into all gambling machines. I was lucky enough to be invited to go and have a look—I believe it was in Hamilton—at some of these facial recognition machines and see how they worked. To me, as somebody coming into that and having a look at it, on the face of it, they actually worked—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: So to speak.

—yes—but I have since been told that there are all sorts of difficulties with technology that may well put that in question. Of course, I also heard evidence from overseas, and Australia in particular, that things like pre-commit cards and player tracking have not yet necessarily been tested in full to ensure that there are no hiccups in how those devices are used. So the Government did not agree because of the whole changing of technology over time, simply because there was not enough information. But the Minister, in working with me, did, however, support the development of regulations to support the implementation of harm minimisation technology, which I believe is very much at the heart of the bill.

So as we go through the Committee stage today, I am happy that there are a large number of amendments to the bill. The Māori Party took consideration of those. Many of them it will be supporting. Many of them it will not be. But I am pleased that across the House, from the Greens and from Labour, we have been able to have a number of amendments that will contribute to the discussion, if not to the end outcome. I think it is important that we put that on the record. So, with that, I thank members for their contributions tonight and look forward to the debate. Kia ora tātou.

I am going to speak several times tonight, I think, on different parts of this bill, the Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill. I will refrain from getting too far into detail in my first call. I just want to remind the Committee what this bill was about. I thank the member Te Ururoa Flavell for bringing this bill to the House. Its first reading was passed in May last year and it has been quite a journey, quite a ride, since then.

The bill back then was a beacon of hope. That is what I thought. It was designed to reduce the harm from gambling, to reduce the rorts that frequently occur around pokie trusts, and to get rid of some of the inequalities that happen with pokie machines being concentrated in high-deprivation areas. The Greens liked this bill because it gave councils and communities the power to cut the number of pokies, or eliminate them altogether, in their areas. It ensured that 80 percent of the distributable funds went back to the communities where the money was gambled. It did some work in attempting to phase out some of the more negative aspects of the pokie trusts by looking for a reorganisation of them, and by allowing councils or other transparently elected committees to be set up to allocate that money. It had the intention of removing racing as an authorised purpose for the distribution of funds, because it has always been very strange that since the mid-2000s there has been the ability for pokie gambling to fund another form of gambling—in particular, stakes for racehorse owners.

The bill was about to implement some problem-gambling harm reduction measures like player tracking and pre-commit cards. That would have given some control back to gamblers, some ability for them to put some controls on their behaviour. I take the point that Mr Flavell made that this has not been trialled and it was going to be the first time that it would have been trialled, which would have been a brave new step for Aotearoa New Zealand.

What happened to the bill? Well, when it came back to the House for its second reading it was gutted. If we look at it, there are pages and pages, lines and lines, where those good intentions have been destroyed, where they have been wiped out. The bill has been replaced with amendments from the Government that basically will not make much difference whatsoever to gambling-related harm.

We changed our vote at the second reading because the Salvation Army and the Problem Gambling Foundation, amongst other organisations, agreed that the bill would cause more harm than good and that the original intentions had been so warped that it would not be possible for any good to come from this bill. That is a very sad state of affairs for any member to face with their first bill’s passage through the House.

However, there are clauses, one in particular, in this bill that will do more damage. That clause is the amendment that the Government has put forward that pokies can be transferred and relocated from one venue to another, if councils decide to put that in their gambling policy. I asked specifically about this clause at the Commerce Committee, because it came out of nowhere. There were no submissions on this clause. There was no other discussion about this clause. It just suddenly appeared. My question was: if a council already has a relocation policy that means that it will be able to reduce the number of pokies in total when a transferral account occurs, will it be able to do that under this clause in this bill? The answer to my question was no, they would not.

I acknowledge Supplementary Order Paper 290 from Carol Beaumont, which actually addresses this issue. I thank her for putting that up, because it means that councils will be able to reduce the number of pokies if there is a relocation, if they decide that that is what they want in their gambling policy. I know that some councils have actually had that policy in the past, because, together with Mr Goldsmith from the National Party, I was on the gambling policy hearings of the old Auckland City Council when that policy was put into place. I will also actually pay tribute to Mr Mallard and his Supplementary Order Paper 291, which insists that there be a reduction if there is to be a relocation in pokies from one venue to another. He suggested that it should be 25 percent, and, frankly, I agree with him.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: At least.

At least 25 percent. Thank you. I absolutely agree with that, and I think any reasonable person who was attempting to reduce gambling harm would also agree with that.

The thing, though, is will this actually happen? Will pokies move from one high-deprivation area to a low-deprivation area? The justification for it in the select committee was that this would be an incentive. If they did not lose the pokies, they would automatically do it. But, actually, if you look at why pokies are prevalent in high-deprivation areas, you have to ask whether it is actually going to happen at all, because it is those high-deprivation areas—those areas, Mr Flavell, where there are a lot of Māori people living, where there are a lot of Māori people getting hooked on pokies in pubs—that make the money for the pokie industry. I remind this Committee that the figures show that 40 percent of the proceeds from pokie gambling that are distributed to communities comes from people who have no control over their gambling behaviour. I am deeply saddened that the intention of this bill, which was to address the fact that people in high-deprivation areas, particularly Māori and Pasifika people, will do nothing—nothing—to assist those people, and they will still be targeted by the industry. In fact, it could well make it worse.

There are over 18,000 pokies in pubs and clubs in New Zealand. There is around $856 million generated from pokie gambling for distribution, and that was the amount in 2011-12, and I think it was fairly similar this year, as well. That is an awful lot of money, and it is an awful lot of money when you consider that 40 percent of that came from people who could not afford it.

We will be supporting many of the Supplementary Order Papers that have been put forward today. In particular, we will be supporting the Supplementary Order Papers that are a first attempt or another attempt—basically, because this bill has not been successful—to try to bring some transparency to the pokie trusts. The clauses in this bill that were designed to ensure that pokie trusts did not rort the system, that the distribution occurred elsewhere, have failed, and I think we have to recognise that. But Mr Mallard’s Supplementary Order Papers would actually ensure that there is transparency around how pokie trusts spend the money that they get, which is a goodly percentage. The restriction that Mr Mallard has suggested in another one of his Supplementary Order Papers, which would put a restriction of $100,000 as a limit on what trustees of those pokie trusts can earn, is a great idea and another step forward to some transparency.

There are other—

This is the first time I have spoken on this bill, the Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill, so I do want to go back, if you like, to the very beginning and talk about the harm that is caused by gambling. I think that that is the right place to start when we are looking at this bill and looking at possible amendments to it, because I do hope that some members opposite may actually decide to do the right thing and actually tighten up this bill, which, as my colleague and friend Denise Roche has said, has been absolutely gutted from a bill that started out with great intentions and some very, very useful provisions. It has been absolutely gutted. Now we have an opportunity to do that, but why do we need to do that?

Well, our role here as members of Parliament is to try to deal with issues of harm in our communities, to try to put in place legislation that can help communities and can try to avoid harm. At any given time in this country, between 0.3 and 1.8 percent of adults living in the community are likely to score as problem gamblers on standard questionnaires. That is between about 10,000 and 60,000 people. The harm from their gambling can include poor parenting, family violence, other crime, and suicide, and the obvious point is that those harms affect people other than just the gambler. So what you start to get is much bigger numbers. The reasonable ballpark figure may well be that adults and children affected by problem gambling might range to up to 500,000 people in our community—500,000 people in our community.

Overwhelmingly, that damage is being done in high-deprivation neighbourhoods. It is being done among Māori and Pacific peoples—and among Māori and Pacific women, in particular—and it is pokies that are the most harmful form of gambling. The majority of people seeking help with their gambling problems do so because of non-casino pokies. So it is really important that we take seriously the opportunity that we have in looking at this bill and in looking at the suite of amendments that have been put forward.

Just in terms of money and the financial cost of this, the calculation is that something in the range of $2 billion per year is lost to gambling. That is $5.6 million per day, including $2.3 million that goes to non-casino pokies. As I have already said, those non-casino pokies are more likely to be found in the more deprived areas of New Zealand rather than in the well-off areas. In fact, the ratio of pokies to people in those poorer areas is one pokie machine to 75 people, whereas in our wealthy areas the ratio is one pokie machine to 465 people. So, quite clearly, as Denise Roche was saying, there is very, very much a targeted problem here: those who are making money from pokies are putting them where they know they will get the most money.

As I said, it is my first time speaking on this bill, and I hope to speak on it several times, but I do want to acknowledge the member in the chair, Te Ururoa Flavell. I think everybody has recognised that his original bill was very much designed to deal with the sorts of harm that I have just mentioned, and it had a range of very good provisions in it. But it has come back to this House absolutely and utterly gutted.

As I understand the bill that is now before us, there is talk of various provisions possibly being put into regulations at some point. Well, the thing is, who would trust this Government to deal with these things in this way? This is a Government—as we know, and as I am sure will be mentioned on more than one occasion tonight—that has done all sorts of deals with Skycity to actually increase the harm from gambling. But I think the people I would trust are people like the Problem Gambling Foundation and the Salvation Army. They have very clearly said that this bill as it has now come back to the House is essentially not a helpful bill and will not have an impact on gambling.

The Salvation Army has come out criticising the changes and saying that they will do nothing for problem gamblers, those at risk, or communities wishing to manage the impact of gambling. I am quoting here now from Campbell Roberts: “For those of us who deal with the problems created by pokie machines every day, this bill, on balance, will make matters worse.” So not only will it not help but it will make matters worse. That is a very strong statement to be made by an organisation like the Salvation Army, which I think every member in this House would recognise as being a very measured organisation that does not go out on a limb lightly. So there are real concerns about what has happened.

I am glad to say that there is a range of amendments being put forward on this bill, and I have one of those amendments in my name. That is a comprehensive suite. The Hon Trevor Mallard has been through a number of the amendments that are in his name.

I just want to talk specifically about one of those amendments—and, again, Denise Roche has mentioned this one—Supplementary Order Paper 291, relating to transfers of licences. That will provide that a territorial authority’s class 4 venue policy must include a relocation policy that must specify the maximum percentage of gaming machines permitted to operate at the new venue. This percentage must be no more than 100 percent of the gaming machines that were permitted to operate at the old venue immediately before the licence relating to the old venue is cancelled.

This amendment also provides that if a class 4 venue licence is to be transferred, the maximum number of gaming machines permitted to operate at the new venue at the time when the new class 4 venue licence takes effect shall be no more than the percentage specified in the territorial authority’s relocation policy. So, again, that looks to try to give the authority the ability to reduce the numbers, and certainly not to assume that the current number of machines will be transferred over.

I think that that is an attempt to help improve this bill. There is, as I said, a range of other Supplementary Order Papers that have been put forward here tonight, and I really do hope that members opposite do honestly and carefully consider these amendments, because, you know, this is an opportunity to actually restore some of the measures that were in Te Ururoa Flavell’s bill to try to make this a bill that will reduce harm in our communities. I think that I want to give people the benefit of the doubt here—that they are not just, you know, basically gutting it so that their mates can get what they want out of this, and that the National MPs are not motivated by those sorts of issues. The opportunity, really, is to rise and speak on this bill and to look closely at the amendments and to attempt to replace some of the matters that are in the bill.

I think that in looking at the second reading speeches and at some of the comments that people have made, I did find it really interesting to see that the National Government—or certainly one National MP, and that was Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga—felt that somehow this Government has actually done something to reduce the number of pokie machines.

💬 Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: Yeah, we have.

Well, I am sorry, but that is called spin. That is called claiming something that is nothing—absolutely nothing—to do with the Government but everything to do with sinking-lid policies that local authorities have actually put in place. So I thought that it was really rich to hear, in fact, quite a lengthy piece about the number of machines being reduced and the amount of money that was being taken by pokies. Well, thank you to all the local authorities that actually have sinking-lid policies for that outcome, but it was certainly nothing to do with the National Government.

Again, though, this is the same MP who talks about the gambling scourge that needs to be addressed and about all the difficulties that gambling causes—this is our Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga. He said: “This is a scourge—this gambling scourge—that certainly needs to be addressed,”. He talks about it in terms of the number of constituents he sees in his electorate office, the kids who have gone without essentials, the broken families, and the broken relationships. Those are all true statements, but the member actually needs to do something to make that real, and not just make statements like that and then operate in a way that does exactly the opposite. So he could certainly start by supporting some of the amendments here, and, of course, later on he will have another opportunity when the Skycity legislation is up.

It is my pleasure to take a call on this Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill. It is the first call I have taken on this bill. It is also my pleasure to be a member of a party that is going to exercise its conscience on these issues tonight. I feel sorry for many of the members opposite. Clearly, their rhetorical flourishes show that they feel something different from what their party is whipping them to vote for. I do really feel a deal of sadness in the Chamber tonight as we debate this bill, knowing that there are members here who are going to have to vote against their conscience. Actually, the exercise of conscience is something that MPs should do more than a little bit. It is something that is crucial to our role as local representatives, and it is something that is fundamental to our justification for being in Parliament.

As I said, this is the first call that I have taken on this bill, and I have not traversed many of the grounds that many colleagues have on this bill and that have been well rehearsed. These are very important points about the harm that gambling, particularly pokie machines, does in our communities. I guess I was first alerted to the kinds of social harms that pokie machines can bring about in a community when I was first elected as a community board member in Christchurch in 2004, in a reasonably large ward that was made up of one very high socio-economic area and one very low socio-economic area. The high socio-economic area had not one pokie machine in it. The low socio-economic half of my ward was rife with pokie machines. This was nothing but a hope tax in poor suburbs. These machines were nothing but machines put there to give people who had no economic hope some hope in their lives and to exploit them along the way.

Talking to my constituents whom I represented as a community board member is something that I will remember for the rest of my political life, when we come to consider these issues. I think it is very important to consider these issues from a very grassroots, community-up kind of basis. We have heard tonight about a large number of agencies that have talked about what has happened to this bill in its passage through Parliament, how it really has been hijacked by the Government to push through its own aims, and that it does not resemble the bill that first came to the House. The Salvation Army, an organisation that is absolutely committed to reducing the harm of problem gambling in our communities, has come out and criticised many of the changes, saying that they do nothing for problem gamblers and those at risk, or for communities wishing to manage the impact of gambling. It is this kind of efficacy and the ability to reduce those harms that I am looking for in legislation that purports to be about addressing this very real danger that we have in many of our communities.

I want to talk specifically about a couple of the Supplementary Order Papers that have been brought by colleagues. One of these is Supplementary Order Paper 290, in the name of Carol Beaumont, which she talked about in her previous speech, and the other one is Supplementary Order Paper 292, in the name of the Hon Trevor Mallard. Both of these Supplementary Order Papers talk about the transfer of licences and deal with those issues. In the case of Supplementary Order Paper 290, this provides “that a territorial authority’s class 4 venue policy must include a relocation policy.”, which must specify the maximum percentage. It goes on in quite a bit more detail. Then Supplementary Order Paper 292, in the name of Trevor Mallard, talks about ensuring that “no class 4 venue licence may be transferred to an area that has higher deprivation than the old venue.”

To many members these may seem like very strict rules put on a piece of paper, and things that will never come into play, but I would like to share with the Committee and enter on the record what happened with class 4 gambling venues post-earthquakes in Christchurch. As a city, our city council and our community boards had to confront the very real issue that 36 class 4 gambling venues were destroyed in the earthquakes and were inoperable. I would like to point out that that is 36 venues, not 36 machines. Despite the fact that we had a reduced number of machines operating in our city, the circumstances of the earthquakes and the emotional stress that was brought about as a result saw a spike in gambling in our city. Along with alcohol consumption, gambling increased after the earthquakes. So the city council had to wrestle with a very real problem. I am proud to come from a city that, despite these issues and a lot of pressure that was put on it post the earthquakes in Christchurch to change its policy—because it had to come to review its gambling policy in February 2012, earlier than the due date of the August 2012 review—had to come and review this policy and decide. Some very real decisions had to be made. We had operators who were struggling for survival who said that they wanted to transfer these machines to areas that had not been damaged by the earthquakes. They put forward the argument, for which I think everybody, including the councillors who heard the submissions and subsequently voted to keep the sinking lid, had a great deal of empathy, that if it were not for the earthquakes, they could still be operating these machines that are a part of their business.

But sometimes communities and political leaders have to take a stand. Our community leaders and local body politicians in Christchurch made a call that we were not going to rebuild a city on the back of a poverty tax in our poorest suburbs, and that we were going to have political leadership in our city that said that the earthquakes have given us an opportunity to clear some of our communities of some of this harm. And we took that opportunity. I think this is actually something that Christchurch, when it looks back on the wake of the earthquakes, should be hugely proud of. It should be something that we celebrate. This is the kind of leadership we need. We need people who act on their conscience and who understand the harm that these machines can do in their community. They understand that it is a vexed issue but that, ultimately, they need to put the health and the well-being of their communities first.

I urge Government members to vote with their conscience tonight, to look at the harms that these machines do in their communities, and to exercise their conscience in a way that we as elected members are voted in by our communities to do. Thank you.

I am going to take a very brief call on the Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill. I have to say that there is a certain sense of irony in that the Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill, as this is called, is now actually widely accepted outside of Parliament as, in fact, increasing harm associated with gambling, rather than decreasing it. So perhaps we should spend quite a lot of time debating whether, in fact, the bill is appropriately titled, because, clearly, it is not. Groups like the Salvation Army are arguing that—and this is a direct quote—“For those of us who deal with the problems created by pokie machines every day this bill, on balance, will make matters worse.” The Problem Gambling Foundation is saying: “I think what we are seeing is a proposed radical rewrite of the bill, and I don’t think it will do a great deal for harm minimisation at all.” I could go on.

I had some big concerns about the bill when it was first introduced. I thought it went too far in some areas, and, in fact, there were concerns about whether the bill would even have been enforceable in the form that it was introduced. I had a lot of feedback from local authorities in my area, for example, which were saying that they did not really want the responsibility for the distribution of pokie machine proceeds. So the bill as introduced definitely needed a major change. What has happened, though, is that that major change has basically completely removed the bill’s original intent.

There are a number of Supplementary Order Papers put forward by members that I will certainly support. The ones that I have some concern about, and therefore will not be voting in favour of, are those that specify a certain percentage of pokie machine proceeds that must be distributed within the geographical area from which they are taken. The reason that I am concerned about that is the potential effect that may have on national organisations. Actually, there are a number of very, very valuable, genuinely charitable community organisations that do not necessarily work within a defined geographical area but, in fact, operate throughout the country.

One of the concerns that I have is if you say—and it is a fair argument to make—that this money is taken out of this particular community and therefore should be invested back into the community. That is something that I strongly believe in, but by saying that the only organisations that contribute back to that community are those that are based within that community is wrong because, actually, some of the—[Interruption]—Trevor Mallard is suggesting that I put in a further amendment. Some of the organisations that contribute very positively to some low socio-economic communities, for example, might actually be based—have their head offices or whatever—in wealthier areas. That does not necessarily mean that they are not contributing. Well, in fact, in many, many cases they are contributing very positively to other communities. I would hate to see an amendment passed in this Committee that would prevent the proceeds from pokie machines going into those organisations that are doing such valuable work. I am going to be voting against that set of amendments. There are a variety of them that have been put forward.

Ultimately, problem gambling has a big impact on many people in the community. It is a small group of problem gamblers who have a really, really big problem, but we need to be very mindful of the massive social harm that that causes and the ripple effect. So it might be a small group of people who actually have the problem with gambling, but the effect of that problem gambling ripples out to a large number of people—their friends, their family, and their employers. It really does have a big impact in the community. So whenever we make decisions about gambling law and policy in this House, we need to be very mindful of that. I think that there is going to be another debate coming up very shortly where we are going to be talking about problem gambling and the opportunity to increase problem gambling. That is the one that I am very much looking forward to debating.

It is a pleasure to take a call on this, the Committee stage of the Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill. May I also join my parliamentary colleagues in acknowledging Te Ururoa Flavell for the work that he did on this bill, certainly working with the Government to put in place measures for harm reduction. I just want to acknowledge the hard work that he did. We heard a number of submissions on this bill. Certainly, the Government has taken up a number of the recommendations, and certainly some of the submissions, to reduce harm.

As I said in my second reading speech, this is a legally permitted activity. It might be an activity that some of us or many of us in this country disagree with. However, this bill is about harm minimisation. It is about reducing harm and reducing access, but it is also about education. Not one member across the aisle there talked about education and about allowing those people with problems to get access to resources that will allow them to do away with their addiction and do away with their problem gambling.

To address the Supplementary Order Papers that have been tabled tonight—and I had a first view of them tonight, although I was invited by Mr Mallard on Twitter to consider the Supplementary Order Papers. It would be nice to pick up the phone and call us if you want us to have a discussion about these bills, but I did read these tonight on entering the Chamber. Supplementary Order Paper 292 talks about not having any transfers to higher-deprivation areas. The Commerce Committee changed this already and says that councils need to have regard to “the social impact of gambling in high-deprivation communities” when developing venue transfer policies. So this Supplementary Order Paper is superfluous. It is superfluous because it has already been taken into account in the deliberations of the select committee. It would also—and Mr Mallard should think about this—preclude class 4 venue licences from being transferred from less desirable suburban areas into central business districts and commercial areas. Some of them tend to have high-deprivation indices.

I turn now to the Supplementary Order Papers—there are three of them, actually—that deal with the distribution of proceeds within regional council areas and within local territorial authorities. Iain Lees-Galloway tabled Supplementary Order Paper 293, Ruth Dyson tabled Supplementary Order Paper 294, and Dr Rajen Prasad tabled Supplementary Order Paper 295. Again, I say to members opposite that the bill, as amended by the select committee, already enables regulations to be developed to this effect. Mr Mallard knows this.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Who trusts Chris Tremain?

I hear you, Mr Mallard. I have been consistent in this House in saying that I would prefer that laws be passed in primary legislation but only to the extent that a better law or a better set of regulations can be promulgated in a consultation process, which is what the bill develops and what it states. It already enables regulations to be developed to this effect. It is important that these are flexible and they are not set through legislation. Mr Mallard knows this.

And I add that the Supplementary Order Papers say only in the same regional council or territorial authority district—the same as what? What happens when an organisation or a society has machines in different areas? How do you distribute those funds?

💬 Chris Hipkins: Pro rata.

Is it pro rata? Are they calculated—no, no, again, there are no answers, because, again, these Supplementary Order Papers have not been developed with any thought and consideration to the consequences. I say to members opposite: think about putting this through regulation, think about having a consultation period with those in the industry, and—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I agree with the member. On those ones I agree with him and I am allowed to vote the other way.

Oh, you do? So Mr Mallard agrees with me on that. I thank Mr Mallard for acknowledging that his colleagues were wrong—that one, two, three muppets were wrong. Iain Lees-Galloway is sitting at the back—you are wrong. Where is Ruth Dyson? She is wrong. [Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order!

I just want to hear Mr Mallard, rather than coming in this Chamber and embarrassing his three colleagues, actually pick up the phone again, and tell these guys to withdraw the Supplementary Order Papers because they are superfluous, they are redundant, they do not make sense, and they were not thoughtfully considered.

I now move to Mr Mallard’s Supplementary Order Paper 296, where he states that there must be a minimum rate of return of 40 percent in 2014-15, increasing by 1 percent each year. Again, I say to the member, and he is an experienced member, but he obviously had not thought this Supplementary Order Paper through, because, again, the Government is able to make these through regulation. We have already signalled publicly that these will be changed by regulation, and most important—and Mr Mallard knows this—is that we have signalled our intention, but this is better done through consultation with the industry. I think Mr Mallard would accept that—I think Mr Mallard would accept that.

Having said all that, I could go on about the Supplementary Order Papers that are tabled here. I have given you some clear examples. I have given this Committee and the public of New Zealand clear examples of why these Supplementary Order Papers have not been thought through. They are redundant and superfluous, and I am sorry but the members need to think about these before they come to the Chamber again.

It is a pleasure to follow Sam Lotu-Iiga, whose contribution this evening was full of weasel words, and full of fluff and nonsense, to be honest. It sounded to me like a member who knows how out of touch he is with his electorate on this issue. He is a man who is desperately trying to, perhaps, I do not know—it is not quite dog whistling, but trying to send the message to his electorate that he does not toe the party line on this position on this Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill. But of course he has been whipped—he has been whipped. He would like the people of Maungakiekie to believe that, somehow or other, Sam Lotu-Iiga is on their side, and that he might be lobbying the Government for the soft regulations that he referred to that might be the way to get the changes they really want through, because he is not supporting what the people of Maungakiekie want to see happen with this legislation.

I say to Sam Lotu-Iiga that he should turn back to his party and say: “Allow me to use my conscience, National Party. Allow me to vote the way I want to. Allow me to vote the way the people of Maungakiekie want me to.” The Labour Party is giving its members the chance to do that. The Labour Party is saying that gambling is a conscience issue, and so the Labour Party will have members express a range of views on the Supplementary Order Papers that have been offered up, but it sure will not happen from the National Party.

What has really happened here is that we have seen how the National Party views democracy. It certainly does not want to give its own members the democratic right to express their views on this bill, and it certainly did not want to give its coalition partner Te Ururoa Flavell his democratic right to pass the legislation that he wanted to pass.

Te Ururoa Flavell is looking at me. He is glaring at me as though he does not know what I mean. I say to Te Ururoa Flavell that if that member is glaring at me and wondering what I mean, I mean the fact that everything after clause 4 of the original bill that that member took to the Commerce Committee has been crossed out by the National Party and it has all been changed to something that does the complete opposite of what that member originally intended. That is the way the National Party views democracy. That is its view on democracy—to cross out anything it does not agree with and, like the Borg, just expect all its members to toe the party line on a piece of legislation that now increases the harm caused by gambling.

Te Ururoa Flavell—that member knows it. The member in the chair knows that as a result of what the National Party has done to his bill, it now increases the harm caused by gambling. I do not understand why that member has not withdrawn this bill from the Order Paper, because it now does the exact opposite of what he originally intended. As other members have said, a lot of us who voted for the bill to go to the select committee wanted to see some changes, but we did not expect to see the National Party change it to the extent that it has.

Just referring to some of the Supplementary Order Papers, I hope that members will support my Supplementary Order Paper 293, which I think is the balanced approach to keeping—

💬 Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: Trevor doesn’t agree.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I don’t.

Look, Trevor Mallard disagrees with me, and on this side of the Chamber we are allowed to do that. It is called democracy, Sam Lotu-Iiga. You might want to try it sometime. But I hope that some members will support this, because this is the balanced approach to keeping funds within the region from which they were raised.

Coming back to my home town, I am sure there are plenty of people from Ian McKelvie’s electorate who come into Palmerston North, do their gambling there, and then go back home. It would be wrong for those people not to be able to access the funds from that gambling if they were distributed out to community organisations, say in Feilding, Marton, Ashhurst, or up in Taihape. So what my Supplementary Order Paper does is that it allows those funds to be distributed not just in the territorial authority area in which they were raised but also to the wider region, because there is no doubt that people from the wider region will be moving around and doing their gambling in different parts of that region—

I rise to speak to this Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill in the name of Te Ururoa Flavell. I commend Te Ururoa for his original intention on this bill. Without a doubt it was a heartfelt intention. He has seen at close hand just what kind of damage gambling does to families, particularly those in areas of greater deprivation whose only hope, it seems, particularly with this Government’s employment policies—or lack of them—of bettering their lives is to play the pokies. I commend Te Ururoa for bringing the bill before the House, but I am sad to see it in the state that it now is. As my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway just said, the whole thing has been so emasculated that it is a wonder that Te Ururoa Flavell has not chosen to withdraw the bill rather than have something be presented that is at high risk of causing greater harm than less harm. That is contrary to what I know Mr Flavell’s intentions were in the first instance.

I want to speak to three Supplementary Order Papers in particular, and they are all Supplementary Order Papers that I am going to oppose. I want to demonstrate that we on this side of the Chamber clearly are able to make up our own minds about these issues, because gambling has always been a conscience issue—it just is not today, not with this Government. So we are seeing people who would normally vote otherwise, such as Jonathan Young or Sam Lotu-Iiga, having to vote in ways that I think probably are contrary to their consciences, and they have to explain that to their electorates. That is a tragedy, really, because these men are compromising principles they hold dear. They may not be the same principles as mine, but I think they are principles that these men hold dear, and therefore they have a separate and independent opinion on this issue, which they are not allowed to express on this occasion.

I want to say, in response to a point that Sam Lotu-Iiga raised earlier, when he said that the regulations allow flexibility for the law, that I am not sure whether he understands that that is actually a mistake for legislation. If legislation provides for regulations that may be used to thwart or subvert the original intention of the primary legislation, that is not good lawmaking. For that member to say “Here is a very flexible law.”, or “The regulations allow it to be flexible.”, I am sorry, but he is going to run foul of the Regulations Review Committee if regulations are promulgated that undermine the primary purpose of the legislation. Flexible law, Mr Lotu-Iiga, is not what we do here. We try to get the law right so that it cannot be subverted by a process that does not get parliamentary scrutiny later on.

I just want to say, in respect of Supplementary Order Paper 292, in the name of Trevor Mallard, that I absolutely support it because that would ensure that “no class 4 venue licence may be transferred to an area that has higher deprivation than the old venue.” That goes to the point I made earlier about areas of deprivation and the false hope that these ghastly machines give people. I would also like to support Supplementary Order Paper 293, in the name of Iain Lees-Galloway, because it is moderate, it is a thoughtful amendment, and so is Supplementary Order Paper 294, in the name of Ruth Dyson. But then it came to Supplementary Order Paper 295, in the name of Rajen Prasad. I drew the line because we were seeing these amendments then scale back the amount that a corporate society must apply of net proceeds from “class 4 gambling to societies or for purposes located in the same territorial authority district.”, or an adjacent one.

I am going to spend this call talking about my Supplementary Order Paper 325, which I am really hoping the member in the chair, Te Ururoa Flavell, will actually support as well. It is an amendment to the original Gambling Act and a restoration of what was in the Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill that was put forward by Mr Flavell, which is to take racing and race meetings out of what are known as the authorised purposes of the Act.

I think we need to think about what the Gambling Act is actually about. The Gambling Act 2003 says that the only reason we have pokies in New Zealand is to contribute funds for community purposes or for authorised purposes, and those authorised purposes are a charitable purpose or a non-commercial purpose that is beneficial to the whole or a section of the community. Then, somewhere in the mid-2000s, after the 2003 Act came into being, there was an amendment to it that said that promoting, controlling, and conducting race meetings under the Racing Act, including the payment of stakes, became an authorised purpose as well. The original intent of the 2003 Act was to support community organisations and to support good charitable organisations that do great things for their community and that do not make money in other ways.

I am not sure about anyone else in this Committee, but from my point of view, those people who own racehorses do not strike me as being charities. I think that it is anathema to most people to know that the proceeds of one form of gambling are supporting another form of gambling, particularly when you take into account the millions that pass through the New Zealand Racing Board from its own gambling, so I hope that there will be some support, particularly from the Māori Party members, for this Supplementary Order Paper tonight.

What is really interesting about the authorised purposes is that pokie trusts tend to forget that the only reason they exist, actually, is to distribute that money for authorised purposes. They frequently act as if they own that money and that it is their largesse that they distribute. It was really offensive to me to find out that during the submission process a couple of pokie trusts were using the money that they got from that gambling, money that was for community purposes, to lobby, to hold workshops for community organisations, and to scare them into putting in submissions against Mr Flavell’s bill. I am not sure about anybody else in this Committee, but using community purpose money to lobby or to influence a select committee strikes me as something that is meddling terribly with democracy, and democracy, frankly, should not be bought.

It is for this reason that I am opposed to the Government’s suggestion that we put some of the harm minimisation attributes of this bill into the regulations. As Mr Lotu-Iiga said, that will mean that there will be further consultation with the industry, and what we know is that the pokie industry scared community organisations into opposing this bill. We had over 30,000 submissions—30,000—most from community organisations fearing that they were going to lose money. I take on board what Mr Hipkins said about national organisations fearing that they would not be able to access funds, but with the original intention of an 80:20 percent split—that 20 percent of the proceeds could go elsewhere—I do not believe there would have been many national organisations that would suffer or lose money. We have created an addiction. We have created a society in which our community organisations are addicted to pokie money.

Talofa lava, Mr Chairman, and thank you for the opportunity. I will take a short call on this, the Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill. I want to say to Mr Te Ururoa Flavell that when he first drafted the bill and sent it around to members of the House for support, I was one of perhaps many in this House who indicated that, yes, we would support it. I recall also that there was widespread support from community organisations on the ground, at the grassroots level, that were dealing with the problems and harm that gambling causes. In fact, I was lobbied, and no doubt many in this Committee were lobbied, by organisations that supported the original bill that you had drafted.

Sadly, that mood has changed because, after the work of the Commerce Committee, it seems that there were many clauses in that original bill of yours that have been removed, and so organisations like the Problem Gambling Foundation no longer feel that your original bill is intended to reduce harm, as the title of the bill states. In fact, the Salvation Army, in my meetings more recently with it, is also concerned about the continued harm that this bill now appears to actually promote. So, like my colleague the Hon Maryan Street, I too wonder whether the member whose name is on this bill has not considered withdrawing the bill altogether, given that its original intent has been so watered down by this particular Government.

I want to talk also, with reference to a comment made by Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga, about the consultation with the industry. I absolutely agree with the last speaker from the Green Party, Denise Roche, that the feedback that I am now getting from those community organisations whose sole work is to reduce the harm that gambling causes in our community is that they are, in fact, being threatened by the industry—threatened by the industry—if they raise any opposition, not only to this particular bill but also to the Government’s Skycity convention centre bill, which increases the number of pokie machines.

I want to refer to the Supplementary Order Papers that resonate with me. Supplementary Order Paper 290 on the transfer of licences, in the name of Carol Beaumont, has value, I think, in that it provides that “a territorial authority’s class 4 venue policy must include a relocation policy.” What I would hate to see is what we see in other countries of the world, where it seems like those communities that are most deprived are the communities with a huge amount of gambling, as well as alcohol being used, etc. I think that that amendment gives some meat to territorial authorities to ensure that their policies do include words to the effect of how they would control the relocation of licences.

Supplementary Order Paper 292, in the name of the Hon Trevor Mallard, on the transfer of licences, again resonates with our community in that it ensures that “no class 4 venue licence may be transferred to an area that has higher deprivation than the old venue.” I am somebody who lives in Māngere and has grown up and lived in Manukau City almost my entire life. We were perhaps one of the first communities to advocate quite strongly in petitions to the council and to central government that we did not see the need for an increase in pokie machines in our communities. We were the ones who were the first to advocate quite strongly. Manukau City Council, before it was rudely swallowed up by the super-city, was one of the first to have a sinking-lid policy. That is a policy that has now been adopted by the entire Auckland region. Again, if anybody in this Committee doubts the sincerity and the passionate desire of the Auckland region to say that pokie machines do cause harm and that we do not want any more pokie machines, they simply need to look at the pattern of what the authorities and leaders of that community have advocated for—no more pokie machines. We held strongly—

Tēnā koe, Mr Chairperson. Kia orana. Kia ora tātou katoa. Knowing that time is running out, I thought I would take the opportunity, having put our case at the start of this debate, to respond to some of the issues that have been put in front of the Committee tonight.

The first one I want to take up is from my colleague from the Green Party and whanaunga from Ngāti Raukawa, Denise Roche. She sort of put the heat on me by saying that, with Māori communities and Pasifika communities—I really got the feeling that she was having a jab at me—did I really know what they feel? I have got to tell her that I do know what they feel. I understand what they feel. I have seen family members who have lost their marriages, their partners, their husbands, their wives, and their houses. I know what they feel. I want to tell her that.

The second part that she talked about was that our bill will do nothing. I can say in front of this Committee that the motivation for this bill was against that background of a real desire to do something about the effects of pokie machines on our communities, and I will not resile from that position for anyone.

The third part, so that she knows—and I take her point in respect of the racing industry—is that I accept her amendment and will be supporting it, because we are allowed to do that. We will see what the outcome of that discussion is.

To Mr Hipkins, I understand his issue in respect of national organisations, but you have heard the response back from the Green member, and I leave it there. But I understand the issue around national organisations. It would have been good for him to put in an amendment if he wanted to really shake that one up.

To Mr Iain Lees-Galloway, tēnā koe. The first thing I want to say to him is that the word is Taihape, not “Tai-ha-pee” or “Tai-happy”—just to help him out if he happens to visit his constituency. And one of the things—

💬 Hon Member: Well said.

Sorry, I did not mean it like that. I meant if you are moving into that area. Sorry about that—my apologies.

💬 Hon Member: You never know what boundaries will move.

You do not know. I did want to say that Mr Lees-Galloway and a number of members have talked about democracy a lot tonight. We have got the two major parties, and it is all very well when we talk numbers, but in this case I do not think it takes too much imagination to understand that as a small party that is getting one or two opportunities to place bills in front of this House, you have got to work with whoever is in line or else forget it. Some people have said that we should have withdrawn the bill. I say “No way!”. It was put up with the right intentions, and, sure, we did not get everything we wanted, not at this point in time, but the good thing is that we have been able to negotiate, as I said earlier, with the Hon Chris Tremain to be able to move things into the future, and into future bills for the Minister. I am pleased about that because it will still achieve the goal, and we have been looking long term into the future. As three members in this Parliament, for us that is how democracy works. You have got to play the game, you have got to understand the game, and I will not resile from the opportunity that we had to place the bill in front of this Parliament.

It is interesting that those people opposite might disagree with the Māori Party and say we should have done more, but I have not heard of any bills from the Labour Party in respect of this issue over the time that I have been in Parliament. I have not heard of any of that. I looked at the last Order Paper, and I did not see any paper in respect of gambling. So please do not preach to me about what I should do. That is the next part.

To the Hon Maryan Street, I am fine with her discussion. That was all right.

To Su’a William Sio, he talked about some of the organisations being a little bit disappointed that it did not go far enough; in fact, they said it did not do anything. I reject that. I reject that on the basis that, as I say, you have got to put it in the bigger picture about the long-term goal.

I would just say, I suppose in closing, that the Māori Party will be supporting some of the amendments, as I declared at the start of this debate, because they were a part of the original intent. We did not get all of the things that we wanted. We got some, not all. That is well known. So we will be supporting some of those amendments. Others we will not be supporting, and we will see what happens when we go through the vote in a short space of time. I just wanted to wrap that up to make sure that everybody is clear about what we are doing. However, I appreciate, generally, the comments and the acknowledgments that have been made in respect of this bill. Hopefully, we will get another one drawn very soon. Kia ora tātou.

Clauses 1 to 4 agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 325 in the name of Denise Roche to insert new clause 4A be agreed to.

The question now is that clause 18 stand part, but before we do that we have a number of amendments. The first one is in the name of the Hon Ruth Dyson. It is an amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 294. Supplementary Order Paper 294, Dr Prasad’s amendment in Supplementary Order Paper 295, and the Hon Trevor Mallard’s amendment in Supplementary Order Paper 297 are ruled out of order as being a direct negation of the question.

Clause 18 agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 298 in the name of the Hon Trevor Mallard to clause 19 be agreed to.