Bills

Gambling Administration Bill

Statutes Amendment (Gambling Regulation) Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 26 September 2019.)

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee) (16:48): I rise to speak on both the Gambling Administration Bill and the Statutes Amendment (Gambling Regulation) Bill brought by the government. These are important bills that seek to do a broad range of things, none the least mostly contained within the Gambling Administration Bill to continue with—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Lee, you are the lead speaker I take it?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: —yes—the government's program of changing the regulatory regime that applies to gambling in South Australia and to consolidate those powers within the Commissioner for Liquor and Gaming. I indicate that the opposition is broadly supportive of these measures, with some caveats.

While there are some changes in the Gambling Administration Bill which broaden and better specify the commissioner's powers, aside from the case of the Lotteries Bill, there is also the intention of the government to leave in place the remaining bills, which will continue to regulate those parts of gaming, in particular the Authorised Betting Operations Act, the Casino Act, the Gaming Machines Act, the Problem Gambling Family Protection Orders Act and so on.

Mr Speaker, as you and many others would be aware, it has been of great concern to me and to many of my colleagues that the landscape for gambling in South Australia has fundamentally changed over the last 10 years. While we in South Australia are used to prosecuting public debates about the impact of gaming machines, or indeed the impact of having a licensed casino operation in South Australia, there is a far greater and, in my view, more prevalent form of gambling occurring in our community, and that is with respect to online gambling.

Unlike all those other areas I touched on in reciting the different names of the other acts, which also regulate types of gambling in South Australia, online gambling is comparatively lightly regulated. Indeed, insofar as governments are able to control the provision of online gambling channels, some of it is even unregulated, which is a great frustration to governments across all jurisdictions.

While I take to heart some of the concerns raised by members of the community, which are related to the regulation of gambling activities with regard to gaming machines, I would respectfully suggest that there is also a very significant concern which needs to be addressed through online gambling. Before I pursue further remarks in that vein, I did want to also touch on what has been seen as a fairly significant reform in this area, and that is to provide a broader range of opportunities for gaming and gaming machines through the provision of note acceptors.

The opposition is prepared to support that with some additional suggestions for improvements. I am very grateful to the government, and in particular to the Deputy Premier, for their willingness to accommodate some of those suggestions. We have a significant number of amendments between both the government and the opposition in these two bills. Some of them, as you would imagine, when trying to amend a large number of bills and amend them as thoroughly as these two bills intend to do, are of relatively technical nature, and some of them are of a more substantive policy nature. But I look forward to moving those amendments, and hopefully succeeding with those amendments, along with the government, during the course of this bill's passage through the house.

Again, I put on the record my appreciation of the approach of the government in being willing to accommodate those requests of the opposition, which I feel will mean that not only will we have a far greater capacity to regulate and a far greater capacity to understand the breadth and the extent of online gambling in South Australia but there will also be far greater controls in some areas, nation-leading controls over gambling on gaming machines, or poker machines as they are colloquially known in our community.

While many in the community maintain reservations about the introduction of note acceptors, along with the other package of reforms that the opposition and the government agreed upon, I think we have the balance right and, importantly, those more than 25,000 people who are supported by the operations of hotels in South Australia can look forward to maintaining a livelihood and not being continually undermined by that area of largely unregulated gaming.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General) (16:54): I thank the member for Lee for his comments in relation to the advancing of these reforms and some foreshadowed amendments that have been considered since the tabling of these bills. May I add two things to the fulsome matters that need to be looked at. One is the question of online gambling and the commitment, which I make here today on behalf of the government, to ensure that a select committee is presented for parliament's consideration to be established to investigate online gambling in both its application and its current regulation, or inadequacy thereto, what protections we have to deal with vulnerable persons—that includes every 18 year old who is eligible to get a phone account—and how we might manage that in the future.

It is clearly a form of gambling that has its challenges. I commend the commonwealth parliament for recently passing legislation to introduce offences to prohibit other aspects of online gambling. They have undertaken significant studies in this regard. There was some work done by the IGA, which is a body that is now discontinued here in South Australia, and one of our committees in the parliament has been vested with terms of reference to consider. However, it is a serious issue. I agree with the member for Lee that we need to look into this. I would expect that we can prepare terms of reference and look to introduce that for consideration of the parliament early next year so that we can get on with that important work.

The second aspect relates to not only providing support to any future inquiry but also, generally, the public being informed with sufficient data to enable reasonable assessment of what we are dealing with. That publication of data is significantly already provided to the commissioner. It is a question of making sure that it is available in a format to enable public access to it. The agencies that are able to provide these services have the possession of this data. It needs to be provided to the commissioner. He would then be responsible for making it available.

There is just one minor issue on the question of commercial-in-confidence information that may need to be sorted out before that is finalised but, as I have said, my understanding is that agencies have to make provision of this type of information in Victoria, and if they can do it there they can do it here. I simply indicate that I agree that that is a matter which needs to be progressed. We need to have some assistance from the community for them to be informed, to work with us on how we might deal with gambling regulation in relation to the online options. With that, I thank the member for his indication and commend the bills to the house.

Bills read a second time.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: I ask that the Statutes Amendment (Gambling Regulation) Bill be the first bill we deal with in committee. If that requires us to change the order, I would appreciate that. I am advised that, for the purposes of amendments that are being proposed, it would assist the committee and us if it could be done in that order: Statutes Amendment (Gambling Regulation) Bill 2019 to be followed by the Gambling Administration Bill 2019.

The CHAIR: My advice is that there is no issue with that whatsoever.