Whanganui councillors vote to keep 'sinking lid' policy on pokie machines

Deputy Mayor Jenny Duncan chaired the final stage of deliberations on Whanganui District Council's gaming venues policy. Photo / Bevan Conley

Councillors have voted to retain a sinking lid policy on the number of pokie machines in the district, following a public hearing on Whanganui District Council's gaming venues policy review.

Of the 58 public submissions the majority - 39 - wanted to retain the current policy of reducing pokie machines in the district.

Another 19 were opposed, and 11 of those wanted to cap the number of venues instead.

Council officers recommended the council keep the "sinking lid" policy that progressively reduces the number of pokie machines in the district, and tighten it up a bit.

A first vote on whether to keep the sinking lid policy was 5-3 in favour, with Mayor Hamish McDouall and deputy mayor Jenny Duncan and councillors Josh Chandulal-Mackay, James Barron and Hadleigh Reid voting for and councillors Rob Vinsen, Alan Taylor and Graeme Young against.

Under the policy no new licences for pokie venues can be granted. But existing licences can be moved to another location where necessary, for example if a building burned down.

Barron suggested adding a clause preventing them being moved into suburbs of high deprivation. But defining "suburb" and "high deprivation" could become a problem, the council's senior policy analyst Justin Walters said.

Instead councillors decided any move could only be into the CBD. The venues would be more easily controlled there, Vinsen said.

The change swayed Vinsen to vote for the amended policy making it 6-3 with Young and Taylor still opposed.

Taylor said the councillors clearly don't want pokie venues in the district. They were only shifting the problem, not solving it. The real solution had to come from government.

Duncan said submitters showed that sporting groups would miss out on a lot of funding without donations from gaming machine societies.

"We need a different model to support them."

Pokie venues make a lot of money from their machines, Young said. He feared that without them some clubs would have to close.

Duncan had no sympathy with that, and Chandulal-Mackay said clubs purposely set up in deprived areas in order to get more customers.

The Problem Gambling Foundation has said that half the gambling harm in New Zealand is from gambling on pokies.

"Those machines are set up to be addictive, and indirectly to cause harm."

Duncan added that venues are not allowed to make the bulk of their money from gambling.

Government is considering what to do about gambling in general, and she suggested taking a remit on it to Local Government New Zealand, in order to push the process along.

For Reid, gaming venues are a reverse Robin Hood, taking from the poor and giving to the rich.

McDouall suspected Whanganui was not getting 40 per cent of the money that was spent here back in donations. He wants to "dig down on the money being returned or not returned".

"No one adequately answered to my mind the basic question: Why is gambling in our community going up?" he said.

Several councillors said reducing the number of pokie machines in the district has not reduced harmful gambling - but it was something they could do and it would let gambling venues know their licences may not last forever.

"It's not an ideal policy, but it's a compromise, and it might achieve something," Barron said.