Mr BAYLEY (Clark) – Honourable Speaker, I rise to speak in support of this. In terms of the urgency, today the Premier made a commitment to release this report but he gave no timeline on when it would be delivered. As was evidenced yesterday, we have significant issues of trust in relation to the government’s transparency on this issue. It is an issue of significant public importance.
To address the member for Bass’s point as to why we are not seeking the Deloitte report, we have certainly asked for that and are very interested in that. The reason we constrained this motion to the MaxGaming report is because that is explicitly what the government has relied upon in terms of justification for its backflip on this precommitment card. I read for the record, from the media release issued yesterday by three government ministers on announcing the deferral of the pokies pre-commitment card, which in our view is kicking it well beyond the long grass, where I doubt we will ever see it come back again. I quote:
The move follows a report provided to the government by MaxGaming, which revealed a significant likely cost increase and implementation delays and further outlined the complexity of the proposed card-based system, including the need to create a centralised banking.
That is the justification the government has given for kicking this card into the long grass and we have significant concerns about that. It is a significant issue of public interest to have a look at that MaxGaming report as a matter of urgency, not least because of an inherent conflict that company has. They are the company that actually manages the electronic gaming machines in Tasmanian venues and has partnership arrangements with the Hotels Association. It is critically important that we get that documentation.
As you can see, the motion in response to the Premier’s answer today has been amended to give an additional day for the release of this. It should not be that hard for the government with its resources to have a look at that report and deal with those so-called IP issues, if indeed they need to be dealt with. That is why the motion is written the way it is.
It is urgent in terms of the transparency issues and it is urgent in terms of people’s lives, because this is an industry that is sucking the life out of some of our most vulnerable communities. It costs us millions of dollars every year. It is no exaggeration to say it costs lives. People commit suicide as a result of their addiction to these machines which, let us be clear, are designed to addict. They are designed to win and take in more money than they spit out. It is very clear that this is an issue we need to deal with. There are policy differences, as the Premier has identified, but this is not an issue of policy.
What we are debating today is not an issue of policy difference. We will find time to have that down the line. This is an issue of transparency and accountability and we Greens see it very clearly as our role in this House to hold the government to account and on behalf of the community push hard to make sure the government is transparent about the information upon which it bases its decisions. This is a significant decision, given the amount of focus, interest and energy that has been put into this card.
I note from Ms Johnston’s questions this morning that she has a clear belief that the Liquor and Gaming Commission feel that this card is ready to go. That is why it is significantly in the public interest to understand exactly what the MaxGaming report said and why the government is putting so much weight into it.
I make the point again that the Leader of the Greens made. This need not be a long debate. We can get this over really quickly. The government can agree to release this report. It can be done and dusted and then we can get on with the MPI and other business. We all want to do that. It is about transparency on policy decision-making and it is about transparency of a report from an entity that is involved in gaming and that has significant question marks around it.
We are losing thousands of dollars to these machines. We are losing lives to these machines. It is creating significant pain and hardship across our community. The government made a rock-solid commitment, including in the election context, about this card and it is time we had transparency about why it has backflipped on its commitment to bring it in as soon as possible.
