Clubs in Canberra will have to surrender their electronic gaming machines licenses from April 2019 – a step which comes as part of the Government’s gambling reforms and is aimed at cutting the number of machines on gaming floors to a total of 4,000 by 2020.
Yesterday, the Government finally passed the long-awaited changes in the existing gambling legislation, with an overhaul of the contribution system of the clubs community in Canberra also being involved in the changes, under which the contributions are raised to 8.8% of net gaming revenue, and the extra 0.8% is set to be controlled by the Government.
Today @GreensACT moved a motion in the @ACT_Assembly that will curb some of the damaging impacts of poker machine addiction in the ACT.
— Shane Rattenbury MLA #Greens (@ShaneRattenbury) May 11, 2017
The step comes after a critical audit of the scheme which took place earlier in 2019 and found that the territory’s clubs were commonly involved in a scheme aimed at supporting professional sports teams rather than junior teams or providing funding for programs focused on reducing gambling-related harm. Representatives of the sector raised their voices against the planned change, saying that it would result in major poker machine revenue losses, but the Government gave the green light to the piece of legislation.
Gambling is one of Australia's most dubious industries. A companion reform to this commendable National Integrity Commission push would be for Labor to sell its 800 poker machines in NSW and the ACT: https://t.co/G1DboX1hhf
— Stephen Mayne (@MayneReport) January 30, 2018
Cash incentives of AU$12,000 have been offered by the Government since August 2018 to small and medium clubs until the end of January 2019. Other clubs can also reach possible discounts on lease variation charges and land and planning charges by the end of January next year.
Gordon Ramsay Faces Criticism from Clubs ACT
The legislation changes were supported by Labor and Greens Assembly but not from the Opposition. Mark Parton, the spokesman on gaming matters of the Liberals shared some concerns that the Government had failed to properly discuss the changes with the local community and had ignored the Clubs ACT.
However, the Attorney General Gordon Ramsay did not agree with these claims. He had that despite there had been no meeting with the peak clubs group, two other meeting with government officials had been offered to the group, which however Clubs ACT was unable to be present to.
Under the changes to the final bill which was officially rolled out yesterday, Mr. Ramsay has also formally required clubs offering so-called poker machines to report any community contributions made to political parties. What is more, a 2% limit is to be imposed on in-kind support provided by large clubs. As revealed by the Government, clubs which do not meet the requirement for the payments will also be made to pay a 150% fee of the underspend through the scheme.
A number categories of contribution will be set, including educational, equality or cultural diversity, social inclusion, recreational, charitable, educational, women’s and community sport, national disaster relied or assistance, as well as addressing substance misuse or dependence. In addition, the claims for professional sports will also be suspended under the changes, unless it comes to women’s sport.
- Author
Daniel Williams
