Editorial: Time to tackle social cost of the pokies

Photo / Hawke's Bay Today

Opinion

Parliament has made only desultory and discordant attempts to tackle the impact of poker machines.

A serious examination of these insidious and addictive machines and their social cost is overdue. Maori Party MP Te Ururoa Flavell's Gambling Harm Reduction Bill should be that opportunity.

The Speaker, Lockwood Smith, has done his part by giving MPs a conscience vote. It will be a shame if National, Act and United Future ignore the convention of letting MPs exercise their individuality on gambling and alcohol issues and adhere to caucus decisions to oppose the bill.

Their voting clout would deny even a select committee hearing for Mr Flavell's bill, which would replace the charitable gaming trusts that distribute poker machine proceeds with committees appointed by local councils.

Councils would be able to ban pokies in vulnerable areas, 80 per cent of proceeds from the machines would have to be distributed locally, and payments to the racing industry would be banned. Additionally, all pokie gamblers would get 'pre-commit cards' that would turn off the machines they were using when they reached pre-programmed spending limits.

Internal Affairs Minister Nathan Guy says he is unconvinced the bill would fulfil the Government's aim of minimising the harm of pokies while maximising returns to the community. That is also the requirement prescribed for pokie trusts in the 2003 Gambling Act. Unfortunately, it is being heeded only in part.

Yet Mr Guy says that while he is disappointed with the behaviour of some gaming societies, he does not believe the system should be turned over to local government. He also suggests the 80 per cent return would be difficult to enforce, and says there would be no flexibility to make grants to the most deserving causes.

His argument has limited substance. The present law imposes a lower pay-out limit, and its flexibility - and, in many respects, lack of clarity - has been an obvious factor in the misuse of pokie profits. Equally, the minister's "disappointment" with the behaviour of some pokie trusts plays down a rash of problems.

A spokesman for the Internal Affairs Department suggested this year that 30 of the country's 50 gambling trusts had "issues of non-compliance" similar to those of the Trusts Charitable Foundation, which paid more than $500,000 to one of its trustees to sign up new pokie venues. It was ordered to shut the gambling rooms at all of its 74 venues for six days.

This was not an isolated punishment. A slightly less severe penalty was imposed on the Southern Trust for unjustified expenses aimed at enticing pub operators to join the trust.

Further, the department has had to crack down on huge sums being pumped from pokie machines to trotting clubs in a way that raised conflict of interest questions. All in all, there is more than enough evidence to suggest the future of pokie trusts should be looked at.

Further substance for that scrutiny is provided by the fact that Mr Flavell's bill provides a reasonable alternative. Previously, anti-gaming advocates have suggested the work of the trusts should be done by a centralised bureaucracy. That raised the threat of pokie money going to pet projects unrelated to the local community.

The local committees stipulated by the Maori Party bill, and the 80 per cent return requirement, offer a good prospect of pokie profits being distributed to local charities, sports clubs, schools, community groups and so on with fewer problems than those associated with the trusts.

Parliament should be doing more for those under the spell of poker machines and for the poorer communities that, disproportionately, suffer the consequences. The greater coherence of Mr Flavell's bill offers a good starting point.