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Gambling Amendment Bill - First Reading
Thursday, 5 April 2012, 8:25 am
Speech: The Maori Party
Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill - first reading
Wednesday 4 April 2012; 9.30pm
Te Ururoa Flavell (M?ori Party—Waiariki):
I move, That the Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. It is my intention that the bill be considered by the Commerce Committee in time.
Umpteen pieces of research tell us that problem gambling can have devastating consequences on individuals and wh?nau. Those consequences can be demonstrated in relationship breakdowns, financial ruin, psychological distress, criminal offending, imprisonment, and suicide. So you could say that it severely compromises the potential of wh?nau.
The M?ori Party takes this issue really seriously, so when we had the opportunity to enter into a relationship agreement with the National Government we made social hazards part of our negotiations. So we are really thrilled that National agreed to support this bill’s referral to the select committee, and we hope that it will do so through subsequent phases.
Actually, I am looking forward to wholesale support across the House for this bill. The inquiries and support provided by members of the House across the parties indicated that there are matters to be addressed with pokies, and having the bill go to the select committee will no doubt allow that discussion to be opened up. Sure, there might be some things that need some tweaking, but let us have the submissions and let us have the debate.
I am clear that it is not likely that we will get rid of pokie machines altogether. People do, however, recognise that something needs to be done about pokies and the harm caused by those machines. But it seems to be counterbalanced by those who run the “Who is going to pay for the sports club uniforms?” argument or, perhaps, the “Who will sponsor the kapahaka competition?” argument.
People are concerned that they may not get the money stream, and I understand that. But we are trying to focus on the harm, and that is why we have termed the bill the Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill. This bill proposes a law change that would enable local authorities in consultation with their communities to reduce the number of pokie machines in their district.
The purpose of the bill is to provide local communities with more power to determine where pokie machines may be sited and how the proceeds can be distributed. Venues for electronic gambling machines tend to be overly represented in lower-income communities and town centres.
M?ori and Pasifika populations are effectively being disproportionately targeted and even severely harmed by them. This bill seeks to overcome these inequities of harm in the location and excessive numbers of pokie machines by enabling local authorities in consultation with their communities to reduce the number of, or even eliminate, pokie machines from those suburbs and towns where they are particularly concentrated or are doing particular harm.
It also changes the responsibility for distributing pokie funds and provides an informed and democratically accountable distribution method. In doing so, we hope to end the inefficiencies, lack of transparency, risks of unethical behaviour, and failure to appreciate and respond to the greatest needs of particular geographical and ethnic communities in the distribution of the community benefit funds from pokies. To take money out of the Kawerau community, for example, and distribute it in Hamilton, or Christchurch, is wrong, and we want to address that.
The bill also proposes to give gamblers more ability to limit and control their own gambling behaviour through player tracking devices and pre-commit cards. I suppose the background to a lot of this discussion for us as the M?ori Party is that tangata whenua have no history of traditional concepts of gambling. Indeed, there is no word for it in the M?ori language.
David Grant has described the introduction of gambling by the new settlers as “cultural baggage”, a baggage that has been disproportionately associated with M?ori. So here we are today recognising that M?ori are two to three times more at risk of problem and pathological gambling than non-M?ori and that M?ori youth are six times as likely as non-M?ori to develop gambling problems.
So instead of leading to self-determination, gambling creates more and more reliance on gaming machines being the road out of the poverty trap that many find themselves in. But that, unfortunately, is a dream. Even those in the gambling industry openly say that the machines are there to take your money. One might win now and again, and it is the belief that it will happen again and again that feeds the addiction.
If we take into account the ripple effect of each individual problem gambler having a direct impact on at least five people, we are looking at close to 250,000 adversely affected by M?ori problem gambling.
The M?ori Party has consistently described the harm associated with gambling in terms that Dr Lorna Dyall has described as a social hazard. Dr Dyall compared the intervention of games such as Risk or Powerball as on a par with the introduction of any biological or chemical hazards that are likely to place people at risk or in danger of loss or injury. She describes these games of chance as social hazards that require the same extent of licensing, management, monitoring, and ongoing research to assess the full social, economic, and cultural impacts.
So the M?ori Party has made changes with regard to the work on the tobacco reform. We are looking at alcohol overuse, particularly amongst M?ori communities, and tonight we want to focus on gambling harm. This bill proposes to do so in five ways.
Firstly, this bill responds to the public sentiment and evidence that there are already too many pokies and venues in some locations and district by adding public sentiment and evidence of harm to the major criteria to be applied in developing a territorial authority’s gambling venue policy. It empowers local authorities, after consulting the community and affected operators, to eliminate or reduce the number of pokie machines and venues in particular suburbs or towns where public sentiment or evidence of harm justifies this.
Secondly, it cuts out racing and racing-stake money as an authorised “charitable” purpose that is inconsistent with the community benefit tenor of the rest of the principal Act. Special consideration to this industry alone should not continue when community and iwi organisation are so desperately short of funding.
Thirdly, it requires the distribution of proceeds to be carried out primarily for the benefit of community, sporting, and social service organisations operating within and for the benefit of the geographic community in which the venue is located. It specifically requires all pokie-machine trusts, corporate societies, and other distributors of the proceeds of gambling machines to return at least 80 percent of these funds generated by gamblers losses on local pokie-machines back into the charitable organisations that are meeting the priority needs in the same local authority area as the venue, and within the same local authority ward, local board subdivision, or community board area where such subdivisions exist.
Fourthly, this bill also phases out the pokie trusts or corporate societies as the distributors of community benefit money from pokie machines. Within a year’s time it passes over responsibility for those distributions to special committees of local authorities with a majority of representation from community organisations, which are sort of modelled on the Creative New Zealand creative communities fund committees and the former Hillary Commission local committees. I might say that this section has been a major discussion point in some submissions to me from some trusts who believe that they are doing things by the book, if you like, but even they admit that not everything is as it should be. So I look forward to the ideas from the industry.
Fifthly, gamblers who are having problems with their behaviour when using pokie machines, frequently have their problems exacerbated by losing track of the amount of losses or of the passage of time. Gamblers could more often be able to manage their gambling if pokie-machine venue operators were obliged to keep track of each gambler’s overall losses and time spent gambling through using common technological devices like player tracking systems. If, in addition, gamblers were equipped with pre-commit cards in which gamblers pre-set, away from the gambling venue, limits on the amounts of losses and time spent gambling on pokie machines, then they could restore control over their own behaviour and greatly reduce the problems they could face from pokie gambling.
This bill proposes making such player tracking devices and pre-commit cards a required condition of a pokie-machine venue operator’s licence as issued by the Secretary of Internal Affairs.
Finally, there is no dispute over the fact that gambling is extremely destructive to individuals, wh?nau, and communities in the way in which they impact on the quality of life for wh?nau and inhibit their capacity to control and manage their own lives.
We know the answers lie in individual and whanau ownership and accountability around the problems of gambling. But Government quite rightly so – has a powerful role to play in creating healthy environments for changes and this is what this bill aims to do.
