Gambling (Definition of Remote Interactive Gambling) Amendment Bill

We now come to clause 2. This is the debate on commencement. The question is that clause 2 stand part.

Thank you, Madam Chair. For clause 2, when we’re looking at the commencement date, now, one of the things we have mentioned that the Minister has mentioned previously is around the time frame—that the temporary nature of the existing provisions expires on 31 October 2024—and is also one of the reasons why we had the truncated the select committee process where we were unable to tease some of that out. However, the first question is whether the Minister would consider, considering some of the concerns that have been brought in terms of the lack of data, rather than having the bill come in to effect on 1 November, pushing it out by three months into something like 1 February 2025 and giving a three-month grace period in which we are able to, or the communities are able to, work with the Minister on addressing some of the issues that we weren’t able to tease out as a result of the limited time frame we had for this bill?

The first question would be, then: would the Minister consider pushing that time line out a little bit, just to give a bit more time to work with the affected communities? I know that, in terms of the submissions—and in terms of some of the conversations we had previously—potentially, those foundations that do undertake those class 3 gambling operators currently existing and have been using the remote interactive gambling format have some data around this, but we also note that the communities themselves haven’t really had a time to contribute to the development of this permanence. Would the Minister consider pushing the amendment date out by three months to have that time to be able to work with the communities on what that may look like? Noting that that is something we can still allow or we can still give the class 3 gambling operators the confidence to say, “Yes, you can continue doing this because we will, in effect, pass the bill. However, we will have a provision in place that allows that transition.”

That’s the first question. The second question is: I more wanted to get clarification from the Minister in terms of subclause (2) of clause 2, which is around “if the date of the day after Royal assent is 1 November 2024, the Act comes into force on that date.” Essentially, my understanding is that what it’s saying is that, if they fall on the same date, then it is that date, but I am curious to know from the Minister: is this a formatting or drafting reason for you to have to specify that? Presumably, subclause (1) already is clear enough.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 Principal Act