Racing Industry Amendment Bill

We have presented a legislative statement on the Racing Industry Amendment Bill and move, That the Racing Industry Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: We must continue to invest in our horse racing industry if we want to double its value to the economy, create more jobs, and match leading racing countries like Ireland. This bill is a big step towards achieving this goal. We’re, therefore, pleased to see this bill moving into its final stage in the House. It was introduced in December last year, and we have moved at a pace to get here, but not at the pace we should have been to get it through Parliament a long, long time ago. However, better late than never.

This bill amends the Racing Industry Act, which established TAB New Zealand and its legislative purposes, such as the provision of funding to the racing industry. The bill extends TAB’s existing land-based monopoly on betting to online. This is about protecting returns to the racing industry and adjusting our legislation to the online betting environment. This bill will make sure that betting revenue stays in New Zealand and contributes to the industry as the Act is set up to do. We recognise that there will need to be checks and balances on TAB to ensure it continues to operate with integrity and is fulfilling its statutory duties to the racing industry. For example, the Minister for Racing and the Department of Internal Affairs will have the power to require TAB to provide information for transparency. There are also regulation-making powers for harm minimisation and consumer protection, should further constraints be needed.

This bill received excellent input in the select committee process, and I thank the committee for that. There was excellent input in the select committee process from a range of stakeholders and individuals who care about the success of our racing and sports industries, not to mention some passionate punters. We’d like to, again, thank the Governance and Administration Committee for rigorously considering the bill and reporting it back to the House with thoughtful recommendations to improve it.

Additionally, the committee of the whole House agreed to move the Governance and Administration Committee’s recommendations on when TAB New Zealand can refuse a bet from the Act and into the regulation-making powers. This change gives us time to get the consumer protection policy right and to prevent any unintended consequences for TAB New Zealand and consequential risks to the financial sustainability of the racing industry. This bill is better for these changes. We look forward to seeing the racing industry and sports thrive as a result of this bill. We commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Kia orana, Mr Speaker. Meitaki maata. Thank you. It’s a pleasure to rise and take a call, as Labour’s racing spokesperson, on this bill this morning.

We will continue to support this bill. We have supported this bill at all stages, from first reading right through the committee stage through to third reading, today, because it continues the good work that the previous Government had started in this space. The Minister talks about this being a belated approach to this, so I guess we’ve got to ask the question: what’s taken the Government so long, given that there’s been support from around the House on this particular bill? But we are here, today, and we are going to pass it none the less.

The sustainability of the racing industry is so important. This is a really important industry, and I acknowledge that the Minister himself knows firsthand the importance of this industry to our economy. I’m sure many of us would have, in our communities or in other communities around the country, at some stage, been part of a race meeting. Whether they are some of the high note race meeting opportunities—if we think of the Karaka Million or the Golden Kiwi—or whether they are in smaller rural communities like Winton or Waverley, they are all experiences that we should have.

I know that what’s really important in this space is the real difference that this will mean for participants in the racing industry. If we think about that value-add to our economy—and I know the Minister has floated this figure around—it’s just shy of $2 billion. It’s $1.9 billion of value-add to the New Zealand economy. When we think of the breeding operations in this country, of the opportunities that that presents for economic development, and of the advantage there and the fact that we are a global leader in that space, that is worth a significant amount of financial capacity for New Zealand—so too is the opportunity that presents for those who work in the industry, whether it be in paid employment or whether it be by way of volunteerism. Many of the racing clubs throughout New Zealand rely on the voluntary nature of hard-workers and members in their communities who are wanting to simply give back.

When we look at those numbers and if we take into account the number of volunteers and everyone else, there are more than 40,000 people involved in this industry. If we’re looking at the actual FTE—fulltime-equivalent—figure, it’s around 14,000. Many of us may actually just turn up to a race meeting without full awareness or understanding of what the industry looks like—from the people who might assist in parking your car through to the hospo staff that are involved at a venue, through to the active participants, whether they be drivers or jockeys, whether they be trainers, whether they be owners, and whether they be stable hands. Whether it’s the officials that are there from the club or, indeed, from the integrity perspective, as stipendiary stewards or racing adjudicators or course officials, this is a huge operation. Of course, TAB operations and operators are a huge part of that as well. This will make a huge difference, I believe, to the sustainability and future focus of an industry that is so vital to New Zealand’s prospects domestically and, also, further abroad.

I want to join the Minister in acknowledging the work of the Governance and Administration Committee that spent a lot of time processing submissions and listening to people. I was able to sub in on that committee from time to time. What we’ve got in front of us, I think, is a bill that reflects the submissions that were received but also reflects the desire of members of this House to ensure that we are able to support an industry, as I said, that makes a huge contribution to New Zealand’s prospects domestically and abroad.

What this bill will do is, effectively, create a legislative net for turnover for betting operations here in New Zealand. The value of that net, based on the advice that had been provided by the Department of Internal Affairs officials, is around about $180 million annually. What this bill will do is it will, effectively, retain that $180 million here in New Zealand for utilisation by the TAB, which will then go into the employment and volunteering opportunities that I’ve just referred to not a moment ago.

One of the changes that was made by the committee of the whole House was around the way in which the TAB would be able to refuse a bet. Now, this is a real issue. I was surprised to learn, during the select committee process, that the level of communication that the TAB is required to give to someone who they refuse a bet to is actually probably not at a standard or a level that members of this House—and certainly not members of the committee—would have liked to have seen, so the committee turned its mind to that. We have supported the Minister’s amendment as part of this process to move that change from this legislation into secondary legislation through regulation. We have no issue with that, as we said through the committee stage. However, what we would like to see is some assurance—and I appreciate that can’t be achieved through this process—from the TAB and officials that they will be working with appropriate haste to give effect to what was the select committee’s desire. The Minister, to be fair, has given an undertaking that, yes, it’s his expectation that the officials would be working on this to give effect to that particular change.

One of the things that I think it’s unfortunate that the bill does not provide for—and this will not come as any surprise to the Minister—is an opportunity, I think, to look at the class 4 gaming licences that are currently retained by the TAB. Given that there would be an influx of dedicated revenue of around $180 million for the TAB that could be offset, I think, by relinquishing the class 4 licences that the TAB holds. Now, I know the TAB has said that they believe they are a gold star, gold standard operator, but I think, from Labour’s perspective, that that would have been a fair compromise in exchange for what was the legislative net. I know that won’t come as any surprise, and I understand my colleagues will, perhaps, refer to that in their contributions as well.

One of the things that I think that the Minister absolutely needs is some provision expecting that the TAB will provide them with a level of information so that they are able to exercise their duties. We absolutely support the changes in this bill that will provide for the Minister or the Department of Internal Affairs to require the TAB to provide specific information so that the Minister or the department is able to undertake their duties and exercise their responsibilities with the information at hand.

I think that this is a bill that will seek to signal to New Zealand’s racing industry that Parliament is 110 percent behind their endeavours. That is what’s needed. This is a unique industry. We have a unique position on the global stage in that we are seen by many other countries around the world as world leading in terms of our breeding within the equine code, and that’s something that we need to maintain.

Now, being able to ensure that there is an ability to have this dedicated legislative net for monies to be circulating within the industry—and I certainly expect that the TAB will be utilising that money for industry good. I mean that’s what it should be about; it should be for industry good. Now, yes, we can talk about harm minimisation and what that might mean, and that’s an important role that needs to be taken on board as well. If there is this money that’s coming through to the TAB that is being captured onshore, it needs to be spent onshore, and it needs to be for the benefit of the racing industry. It needs to be for the benefit of the more than 40,000 volunteers who, every week, go around various racecourses all around the country because they are passionate about that, which is important as well.

At third reading, albeit in urgency, we are supportive of this bill. I want to acknowledge all of those who have taken the time to be a part of this process, whether it’s the officials who have been involved, whether it’s the Minister or his office, whether it is the many submitters who had taken time to share their thoughts and experiences—and that’s an important thing, the experiences that were shared by submitters to the select committee. I think this has meant that we’ve landed at a piece of legislation that is going to make a huge difference. I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Regarding the Racing Industry Amendment Bill, the Green Party, like all parties in the House, is supporting this bill. The legislation supports the New Zealand racing industry by making TAB New Zealand the sole provider for sports and race betting, both on land and online. This ensures that gambling profits are returned to the racing industry.

The bill makes several other changes, including new oversight powers for the Minister to seek information from TAB New Zealand and regulatory oversight for the prohibition on other operators, and extends regulation-making power for harm prevention and minimisation to online TAB platforms. It creates regulation-making powers to specify circumstances in which the TAB can exclude customers from using their online platforms and to prescribe consumer protections.

The net profit of the TAB is distributed to the racing industry through grants to supporting organisations. Minimising competition protects gambling revenue for the racing industry. I think around $185 million was being repatriated offshore under the present state of affairs, and this bill will ensure that more of that money is retained by New Zealand.

In terms of the Green Party position, we have a phalanx of policy writers in our membership who very diligently go through policy and make us the party with the most sophisticated and deepest portfolio of policies of any party in this Parliament, and the party policy—[Member applauds] Thank you. Thank you, mate. I appreciate that.

The party policy of the Greens requires us to prevent new forms of gambling that are associated with harm and to regulate all existing forms of gambling to prevent or minimise harm. We see this bill as being consistent with that. It does prohibit online betting services by offshore operators, and online gambling is one of the riskier forms of gambling due to its easy access and easiness to conceal. Offshore operators are also not covered by New Zealand law and the protections provided by regulation. We see that as an important step in the right direction to ensure that online gambling is covered by regulation that takes into account the significant harm that gambling can have in our society. It is a pernicious addiction for some, and this has to be dealt with seriously. We see the powers of the Minister to address that and the regulation-making power for harm prevention to be an important part of that.

Our position on opposing forms of gambling that cause harm might be a challenge for us, regarding the Government’s legislation to put class 6 land into a lottery for pine tree growing, that I hadn’t considered, in terms of another piece of legislation the Government is trying to push through the House right now. We previously supported legislation back to racing in 2019 to introduce offshore betting charges with revenue distributed among the racing codes, which we determined was sensible, given the current racing industry provides a service to offshore vendors for no compensation. The same justification applies to prohibiting offshore betting.

The primary point of the bill is to protect the financial sustainability of the racing industry. There is some question over whether that sustainability is a good thing for some people who are concerned about the impact on animals used for entertainment and about animal welfare across racing codes. However, just for clarity, it is the Green Party’s policy to seek to regulate racing, not to explicitly call for its abolition other than, in this instance, greyhound racing. We acknowledge the Minister’s clear indication that it is this Government’s intention to phase out the greyhound racing industry, and we obviously support that position as well.

There is the risk that protecting TAB’s monopoly and limiting competition will increase TAB profitability at the expense of betting consumers. This was an issue that was canvassed at the committee somewhat, and I know some submitters directly reached out, expressing their concerns about the loss of competition and the monopolistic nature of this new regime. That is something that I think we, as a Parliament, need to keep a close eye on because we do want to make sure that there is not a monopoly restriction of people’s ability to gamble where they’re doing that in a safe manner. We think the expanded regulatory-making powers to protect consumers offer some protection for that. In summary, the Green Party is supporting this legislation. We see it generally as a step in the right direction, and we will be commending it to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party to give our support to this bill. Issues raised about the monopolistic abilities and the further undertakings by the Minister, as raised by Tangi Utikere, give some confidence that this will be done in a diligent way that respects punters and respects the industry. Really, what we’re here to do today is make sure there is a long-term successful and viable racing industry, because while it may have once been known as the sport of kings, it is the sport of Kiwis. We’re an egalitarian society that enjoys these sorts of activities, which are the legacies of our forebears. I commend this bill to the House.

Now, we’re away and racing. Giddy-up! It’s a pleasure to speak on this bill. One of the things I just want to touch on very briefly—the Minister for Racing did cover it—is the change to regulation-making powers in terms of how much money goes to sporting codes. Of course, it’s not just the two horse racing codes that will benefit from the more than $100 million that this bill will deliver to revitalise the racing industries but also other sporting codes. It is important to me that we see suitable money going through to that.

Also, I think one point, just for future consideration, is around virtual and fantasy sports. We’ve got students here from Kaingaroa School today in the gallery. It’s great to see them. I’m sure that will be something they’ll be interested in in the future. We should keep our eyes open for that. For now, I commend the bill to the House.

Tēnā koe. We support this bill. It was a pleasure to actually be in the Governance and Administration Committee and to hear the submissions. I do think it’s unfortunate that this Government goes through the process—when we do actually avoid urgency and go to select committees, it seems extraordinary that we ask people to submit on several complex bills in January. It doesn’t seem likely that we would necessarily get the best input from people, but, in this case, we’ve got a wide range. I’d like to thank Rachel Boyack for chairing that select committee.

It is quite unusual that—maybe we’re in a six-horse race today—we’re all supporting the establishment of a monopoly, which is an interesting place for this House to be in. I’d like to note that some of us have more interest in equestrian and equine matters than others, but, as somebody has already mentioned, it’s not only about supporting the racing industry—over 90 percent of the racing code’s annual income comes from the TAB—but it’s also a whole range of sports, from boxing to tennis, from rugby to many other sports.

It would be quite interesting to know—it is quite opaque—which sports benefit to what degree. Should the benefit be in proportion to their “betability”? I’m not sure if that’s a word, but perhaps it is now that it’s been said on Hansard—“betability”. Are there other sports that, perhaps, do more for the economy or do more for people’s physical or mental health than the ones that are easiest to bet on and most popular to bet on? I do think an ongoing discussion with Sports New Zealand would be useful for looking at that issue. Let’s not assume that everywhere in the world does do betting on sports codes. There are 28 sports codes in New Zealand that received some funding. What about the ones that didn’t? I’ll just use an example here of the cycling brevet Tour Aotearoa, where you can take from 10 days, for the superhumans, to 45 days, for some of us, to go all the way from Cape Reinga to Bluff. I’m sure there is plenty of spending on food and accommodation on the way. You don’t bet on that, so there will be, presumably, no support for that kind of participative support.

How is the visibility of that distribution going to be dealt with in the future? This is not just about whether it’s the right sports that is funded. At the moment, every sport that receives funding, I believe, has to sign a confidentiality agreement, so it’s quite difficult to see externally whether there’s a fair division. In order not to infect all of you with my cough, I think I shall finish by saying we support this, we support the regulations change, and it’s a pleasure, for once, to be supporting something across the House.

In the words of the Minister in charge of this bill, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, this has been a long time coming. I’m really keen to see it proceed and be passed into law as of today. Therefore, I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. While everyone’s in a hurry to get out of here, we might just settle in and have a good hard talk about something quite important to the country. I congratulate Minister Peters on an important piece of work. For anybody who loves sports, they will actually look right now and see that the Auckland City FC has just drawn with the Boca Juniors one-all, which is an absolutely huge thing. The reason I raise that is because, if you look across three betting sites, the odds are different across all three. The interesting thing is that if you had put your wager on Auckland City to either draw or win that game, you would have come out a very rich person at the end of that game.

This is a bill that looks towards making sure we can protect the sports betting industry here in New Zealand but also making sure that we can look towards the kinds of codes that Mr Costley has already spoken to, which can allow a far more inclusive betting sector, if you will. You can bet on almost anything around the world, but in New Zealand, this bill is something that will make sure that we set the foundation for a better future in this particular space.

Just finally from me on this matter, because my colleagues have touched in it, there is an important matter around harmful betting and making sure that we can continue to protect people. There are provisions in this bill that say that the TAB has the ability to stop certain bettors, and there’s a framework to allow them to do that, but, ultimately, we know that the best way to stop people from falling into gambling harm is to stop them from gambling in the first place. In communities that many of us know and represent well here in the House, this is an important issue, and I take the words of my colleague Mr Tangi Utikere about the opportunity to, once again, have a look at pokies in communities.

While that may be somewhat of a missed opportunity in this particular bill, we do support it. We look forward to an ongoing discussion with the sector as the sector evolves. By the time this bill started its gestation period and got to this point, the sector has already changed multiple times. There are far more online gambling platforms that have started in that period of time than most people in this House can fathom. On that note, we congratulate the Minister on a piece of work that he’s worked hard on, as I know we did, certainly, in my time in the House here. We commend this particular bill to the House.

I too, on behalf of the National Party, want to commend this third reading of the Racing Industry Amendment Bill. I also want to acknowledge Nick Roberts, Chief Executive of TAB New Zealand, and his team up there—no doubt they are waiting for this to come through—and commend them on their good work. I wish them all the very best as TAB New Zealand extends its monopoly on race wagering to include online betting. I commend the bill. Thank you.

This next call is a split call between the Labour Party and the National Party. I call Lemauga Lydia Sosene.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to thank the Minister for bringing this to the House in the third reading. It is pleasing that we are supporting such a vital industry to Aotearoa. I just want to quickly mention, in terms of the pokie machines and class 4 gambling. that it could have been a missed opportunity, as my colleague Peeni Henare has talked about. In our community in South Auckland, there is a real problem with the gambling on those pokie machines. They’re just too prevalent in our local community, and it does not reduce in terms of gambling harm behaviour. That is part of this legislation, and I did want to raise it.

I do want to thank the Governance and Administration Committee, I do want to thank the submitters and also the TAB industry—they still have an obligation to those who struggle to manage their gambling behaviour, and sometimes the proliferation of pokie machines in local communities is a real problem. There needs to be that balance. Congratulations to the Minister for this Racing Industry Amendment Bill. I commend the bill to the House.

I rise to support this bill on behalf of the National Party. TAB New Zealand is the financial backbone of New Zealand’s racing industry. I would also like to extend the support and advocacy for the TAB New Zealand team to Jason Fleming and to Matt Smith for their tireless advocacy for the racing industry in New Zealand, which, of course, contributes over $2 billion to our economy and creates 13,000 jobs. This bill is about continuing to support that very important industry, so I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the Racing Industry Amendment Bill. It was a real pleasure to chair the committee for most of the process. I do want to acknowledge the chair who took over from me, Camilla Belich, who oversaw the final stages of the select committee process as this bill made its way through the select committee and, now, to the House for its third and final reading today.

We are really pleased to see this bill proceed and to support this bill. This was work that began under the previous Labour Government, and I do note that there are some concerns, from our side, around some elements of the bill that we think are missed opportunities. I’ll just talk to that briefly. We heard from a number of submitters, and one particular theme that came through was from national sporting organisations, who also will benefit from this bill. Those sporting organisations made really compelling submissions about how the proceeds from sports betting are distributed to their organisations. I do just want to point to some commentary in the select committee report, because there were two specific things they asked for and, I guess, some—I wouldn’t necessarily go as far as saying—push-back. I would just note that, actually, some of the things they asked for are already addressed in the Act. The committee did note in its report that they’d like to see the Government look at this a little bit further.

The two things that were specifically asked for was an amendment to section 82 of the Act to set out an accounting formula to determine how profits are generated from sports events and distributed to our national sporting organisations. The reason they asked for this is so that they have, I guess, more involvement and certainty around ensuring that the appropriate amount of profit is then shared with those sporting codes. What the committee did hear and note, though, is that section 128 of the Act does provide for regulations to be made to prescribe methods, and so there would be the opportunity for this under secondary legislation. The sporting codes asked for it to go into the body of the Act, and, actually, I don’t believe that’s the appropriate place for it; I think a better place would be to have it in secondary legislation. The committee, I think, correctly noted that those regulations could be used to address the concerns of those organisations, as opposed to writing it into the primary legislation.

The second big call that the groups made was having a requirement for representatives of national sporting organisations or Sport and Recreation New Zealand to be represented on the TAB New Zealand board. It was useful for the committee to hear from the TAB board and hear about the expertise of many of them, who have actually come from sporting codes or have come from Sport New Zealand. While we appreciated the suggestion of putting a requirement in, there didn’t seem to be a problem in reality, and I note that section 56 of the Act provides that Sport and Recreation New Zealand must be given at least four weeks to make nominations to the selection panel that recommends appointments to the TAB board. On balance, I think the committee made the right decision by not writing requirements into the Act, but it did state that that they encouraged the Government to investigate these issues further. I would support that. While this bill is about ensuring the certainty of the racing industry, obviously the TAB has a really important role in overseeing betting and, then, the proceeds of betting in the racing industry and our sporting codes, which are very important to who we are as New Zealanders. I wanted to take some time just to note those comments from the select committee process, because I thought they initiated a useful conversation. I also wanted, I guess, to reassure the sporting codes that I think there are things in the Act that do go some way to addressing the concerns that they have.

The final comment I just wanted to make—because I think most of us would like to see this bill passed, if we can, before 1 p.m., particularly the Minister—was noting, in the report, the differing view from the Labour Party and the Green Party around class 4 gambling. There was supposed to be more work undertaken, and that would have removed TAB’s class 4 licence. I think that some of my colleagues, like Peeni Henare and Lemauga Lydia Sosene, have made some very good representations around the concerns that we have as a Labour Party about the impact of gambling products like pokies. Gambling products like betting on horse racing are far more regulated, are far safer, and cause significantly lower levels of harm for people. There would have been an opportunity here to take some steps and take some action around reducing the harm that comes from the use of class 4 pokies, which I’ve certainly seen in my community—some examples of significant harm that it causes to people in communities. We feel there’s a missed opportunity there. But, look, we are keen to see this bill, hopefully, passed before 1 p.m., and I thank the Minister for bringing it to the House. We commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to stand in support of this bill, a bill which goes a long way to supporting the racing industry in New Zealand, which is a big part of our DNA. I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise just to say well done to all of those involved. This is a great bill. I did my time on the board of Hawke’s Bay Racing, and I know all of that team will be very pleased. I commend the bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.