Mr BAYLEY – We spoke a little bit earlier on the harm minimisation. We are advertising to promote $100,000 in the Budget. Every day this scheme is delayed comes at a cost to Tasmanians. For some it could be catastrophic. It could be incredibly deep and have a wide‑ranging effect across their family and friends. Have you made provision for further delay, and boosting the temporary or interim harm minimisation activities that the government can support? Our line of questioning has been sceptical about the motivations, the capacity, and the interest of MaxGaming to deliver this. Clearly, as we are hearing, this is also an incredibly technical challenge. Putting aside any cynicism or scepticism about the motivations, it’s not unrealistic to expect a further delay and that this won’t be in place by the end of next year. What have you got in place, or what are you prepared to advocate for in your role as Finance minister, for additional harm minimisation activities that can at least try to stem the pain and bleeding for vulnerable Tasmanians?
Mr STREET – There are the items that we took to the election in harm minimisation. One of the most important things that we have is a doubling of the community support fund as well, which has gone from 4.1 to 8.3, roughly. Of that, 75 per cent is dedicated to harm minimisation programs that departments can bid for to run programs. There has already been a significant investment since the new arrangement we’ll put in place to double that fund and double the amount of money that’s available for those programs – 25 per cent goes to Active Tasmania for sport and recreation, that’s in the legislation. The other 75 per cent is available for harm minimisation programs. We believe that we’re already making a significant increase in investment in those harm minimisation programs. Gary or Jonathon, do you want to speak any further about that?
That fund is available for any government department to put a bid in to access that money. For example, DPAC might put a bid in for a specific amount of money to go to the market for organisations like TasCOSS or Anglicare to run additional harm minimisation programs.
Mr BAYLEY – Have you set yourselves a threshold or a point where if you don’t get progress on this card, and you keep getting delays, and MaxGaming keeps highlighting the problems or challenges, is there a point where you have to completely review this as an option and go to more effective ways of delivering safety for Tasmanians, which is clearly taking poker machines out of pubs and clubs? Is that something that you’re willing to consider if MaxGaming keeps putting on the table these delays and inability to address the challenges?
Mr STREET – Our commitment is to introduce the gaming card system. We’re still aiming for December next year. At this stage we haven’t contemplated any other action outside of that because we’re confident that we can meet that time frame.
Mr BAYLEY – What are you going to do if it can’t be? What happens in June next year when MaxGaming says, ‘These challenges continue, we haven’t fixed XYZ’ – what are you going to do there?
Mr STREET – That’s a hypothetical that I’m not prepared to even enter into at this stage.
