Gambling Amendment Bill (No 2)

I just want to take a very brief call on the provisions of Part 1 of this bill, the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 2), because it has been some considerable time since it has been before this House. It was in fact introduced in 2007 to make some minor technical amendments to the Gambling Act, which was passed in 2003. Members will know that the Gambling Act is a very large and complex piece of legislation. Over the decade or so since it has been in operation a number of issues have emerged that need to be tidied up because practice has changed or different situations have come into effect. There are large sums of money at stake here, and as a result it is important that we get a good system and that the proceeds that are raised from gambling go where they are meant to go.

I have tabled Supplementary Order Paper 454, which, for the most part, responds to a number of court cases that have taken place since the Act’s introduction all those years ago. These cases highlight parts of the Act about class 4 gambling that are not necessarily clear, and the Supplementary Order Paper amendments address this by providing a measure of clarification. The Supplementary Order Paper makes clear the powers available against breaches of the law by gambling licensees—for example, the amendments to powers held by the Secretary for Internal Affairs include spelling out the ability to suspend or cancel licences for errant behaviour that occurred as a one-off at some point in the past. The Supplementary Order Paper also specifies the obligations on licensees after they are licensed, which include such duties as maximising the returns to the community from the gambling in question. The obligations are drawn from the criteria that need to be met when the relevant licence is first applied for.

The Supplementary Order Paper also contains a few minor and technical amendments, some of which correct drafting errors in the original legislation. In particular, there is a useful clarification of the requirements concerning the calculation of net proceeds by societies that run gambling operations. This refers to correctly reflecting the depreciation of gambling assets—typically, gaming machines that are owned by societies. There is also an adjustment to the membership arrangements of the board of the New Zealand Lotteries Commission to bring the commission’s membership capacity into line with similar Crown entities.

I note that the Green Party has also tabled Supplementary Order Paper 84. That Supplementary Order Paper makes far more significant alterations to the Act, including expanding territorial authority powers over gaming machine venues and changes to the definition of “authorised purpose” so that racing stakes can no longer be permitted. The Government will not be supporting this Supplementary Order Paper. Not only does it not conform to the intent of this bill to tidy up the Act to allow the statutory regime to operate as originally intended; it also goes way beyond where I think the general public mood is at the moment. In fact, the changes in that Supplementary Order Paper are very similar to many of the specific amendments that were included in the Māori Party’s Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Act, which was passed in 2013.

All of these measures have been the subject of many submissions to the Government Administration Committee. The Government has been through those and went into an extensive process, working with the Māori Party on that amendment Act to reach common ground on some of the specific changes. The amendment Act was supported in part by the Government at that time. Some of the amendments that are now in the Gambling Act duplicate those that are in the Greens’ Supplementary Order Paper. This includes a requirement to return gaming machine proceeds to the area where they are generated and the ability to introduce technology in gaming machines to minimise harm. Other reforms are included in the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3), which I recently introduced, and that is the appropriate mechanism for making more substantive changes to the Act, rather than in a technical bill like this.

I was going to go through and summarise very briefly the content of Part 1, but I note that at this late hour, and in the interests of making some progress—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: No, no, you’re not going to make much progress tonight. You might as well do it.

I said “making some progress”. I am very happy to just stand aside at this point and return to the bill at a later stage to allow for the debate to flow. I know this is a gripping measure. Members have waited a long time for the opportunity to debate this bill, and I am sure that there will be, if I judge by some of the comments so far, a very spirited involvement in the debate in the remaining minutes before the Committee rises this evening.

A few of us were wondering why this Gambling Amendment Bill (No 2) rapidly came up the Order Paper to become an urgent matter, when it had not been so important for the Government ever since the election in 2008. In fact, if one looks at members opposite, I think Colin King might have been here when it was introduced—Peter Dunne, obviously—but I cannot see anyone else in that corner of the Chamber who was actually a member of Parliament at the time the legislation was introduced, and that shows a certain lack of urgency.

But then I recognised the fact as to who has now got the portfolio and who wants to get a bit of publicity because he can feel Ginny Andersen—the hot breath of Ginny Andersen—heading towards being the member for Ōhariu. That is because what we have discovered in the phone calls that we have been making is that the people of that electorate are no longer biddable. They know about Peter Dunne’s disgraceful behaviour over a period of about 18 months. They know about his leaking. They know about the leaking that he did of the Government Communications Security Bureau report. They know about his disgraceful behaviour with regard to animals, which has become clearer and clearer, and what the Minister in the chair, the Hon Peter Dunne, is trying to do is to get back in the good books in his local electorate by picking up a very good piece of legislation that was in the name of the Hon Rick Barker.

Well, I see it is still in the name of the Hon Rick Barker. The Hon Rick Barker has not been a member of this Parliament since 2011. What a lazy, lazy Government. The Minister, with all these months and months and months, could not get his twink out, twink out a name on the bill, and write his own name there. With all the time the Government has had to consider this legislation, the Minister, the very lazy Minister who is in charge of the bill, who, I can see, is tweeting away now—I hope it is better than some of the tweets he has done in the last couple of years—

💬 Chris Hipkins: Be careful.

Well, I think the Minister is obviously, and it is very clear from the extensive phone calling that the Labour Party has done—[Interruption] Well, Mr Chairman, Part 1 of the bill deals with the purpose and the interpretation and new section 5, “Extended meaning of ‘conduct’ ”. I think we can focus in this particular area, looking at the Minister, on the extended meaning of “conduct”. The extended meaning of “conduct” is something that is very appropriate to consider with this particular Minister, because what happens in this particular area, after the interpretation clause—and I must say that the changes to the interpretation provisions are absolutely massive.

I do not think I have ever seen such a thorough piece of work on an interpretation clause as has been the case with my honourable former colleague Rick Barker. The changes in the interpretation clause of the bill go through a number of pages. In fact, they run through to page 10 of the printed bill, where in clause 6 there is new section 5 substituted, which repeals the previous section 5 and deals with the extended meaning of “conduct”. In this particular case it is in relation to gambling rather than to the other sort of conduct that one might focus on at the moment, but it does involve any of the following activities. It involves “organising, using, managing, supervising, and operating (but not playing) gambling or gambling equipment:”. So it is not the person who is actually doing the gambling, but the people who are involved in running the gambling.

Progress to be reported presently.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Appropriation (2014/15 Estimates) Bill without amendment and progress on the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 2).

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.