Wednesday, 31 August 2022
Bills
Casino Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Implementation and Other Matters) Bill 2022
Bills
Casino Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Implementation and Other Matters) Bill 2022
Second reading
Debate resumed.
Mr WYNNE (Richmond) (14:50): I am delighted to rise to make a contribution on the Casino Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Implementation and Other Matters) Bill 2022, and in doing so also, as this has been my first opportunity, to congratulate you, Speaker, on your ascension to the high office of Speaker of this house. It truly is a very esteemed position, which of course you have really trained for as the Deputy Speaker. We had quite a deal of fun throughout adjournments, which I miss and no doubt you will—
Ms Crugnale interjected.
Mr WYNNE: and the member for Bass misses as well. But it is fantastic. Congratulations to you. It is a much deserved and very honourable position.
This piece of legislation is really very, very significant because it comes off the back of and is a further tranche of the government’s commitment to implementing all the recommendations of the Finkelstein review into Crown Casino. I do confess at the outset that whilst I have been to the Crown complex, as all of us have on many occasions to attend functions and so forth, I have no experience of the gaming floor, as I think it is called, where these activities actually occur. But nonetheless I am fully aware of and have followed in some detail both the hearings of the Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and Licence and indeed the recommendations of the Finkelstein review itself. I was familiar with that also because a counsel assisting, Mr Adrian Finanzio SC, was—of course in a different part of his legal career—and he continues to be one of Melbourne’s most esteemed planning barristers, so it was a matter of particular interest to me.
The bill introduces nation-leading reforms to tackle gambling-related harm and address money-laundering risks at Crown Casino, as I said, in response to the Finkelstein royal commission. As members know, the royal commission handed down its report in October last year, and we immediately legislated its priority recommendations. At the time we said that further legislation would be introduced this year, 2022, with other major reforms recommended by the royal commission, and of course this bill acquits that commitment.
The package of reforms, I would put to you, is a world first in scale and will establish the strongest measures in any casino in Australia. We have seen the royal commission, we have seen the New South Wales Bergin inquiry and we have seen inquiries in Queensland and Western Australia as well in relation to both Crown and other casino operations. This particular bill actually deals with the next tranche of those measures, as I indicated, and it sets up a framework necessary to start holding Crown to account, including of course the establishment of the role of the special manager. Stephen O’Bryan QC, who was Victoria’s first IBAC Commissioner, has been appointed to the role, overseeing every single aspect of the casino’s operations and reporting on its suitability to hold a licence over the next two years.
This is quite an onerous oversight but one that indeed is absolutely appropriate, because when you go through the evidence that was provided to the royal commission itself, in so many respects the evidence that was provided was truly shocking as it related to junkets or alleged money laundering that was going on through the casino—behaviours that in many respects were quite reprehensible, particularly as they related to people who were vulnerable to the addiction of gambling.
And in that respect we owe a great debt of gratitude to Mr Finkelstein for both shining the light on the operations of that casino here in Melbourne but also giving us a pathway forward, because whatever we may think about casinos more generally, that facility is a really significant employer of people in this state. Mr Finkelstein no doubt had to weigh up these, in many respects, competing elements in his decision-making, and I think he has landed, with his 33 recommendations, on a particularly good and considered response.
The bill will prohibit a casino operator from issuing a player card without following prescribed requirements for identity verification and from allowing a game to be played in a casino other than by using a player card. It will limit cash transactions to amounts of up to $1000 in a 24-hour period. Obviously we are aware of circumstances where people get trapped in these casinos and stay on for literally days, and it is a wicked thing. It truly is a wicked thing. The cash transaction limit of $1000 will in fact curtail some of this activity. The bill will provide for mandatory precommitment; strengthen statutory management arrangements where a casino licence is cancelled, suspended or surrendered; and introduce an approvals process by the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission for shareholdings in the casino operator and its holding companies. The bill will require the independence of directors and senior managers, strengthen the casino exclusion provisions, place controls on patron deposit accounts and reintroduce the casino supervision charge.
Yes, this is important legislation. It is important legislation because it has gone through a thorough process that was implemented by this government through the Finkelstein royal commission. It absolutely shone a bright light on the operations of Crown Casino. I think that there would be nobody in this Parliament or indeed in this industry who is not aware of the crucial oversight that Mr O’Bryan will bring and the powers that attend to Mr O’Bryan’s position and that Crown Casino, frankly, is on notice. It is on notice that it has to change its governance structure and has to recognise that its modus operandi to date has been completely inappropriate.
They really have got a chance now to rectify what have been glaring, glaring inadequacies in their operation, and the reforms that are embedded in this bill are really important to Crown moving forward as, can I put it bluntly, a good corporate citizen, because to date you would have to say that they have failed very, very badly in that respect. But there is an opportunity for them. There is an opportunity for them to make good and to recognise the deficiencies that were so apparent and abundant. We know that there has been a change in their corporate structure and ownership, and now there is an opportunity for this new owner to demonstrate that they have learned the lessons of the royal commission, that they have taken on those lessons absolutely as an organisation, that they will implement all of these recommendations in full and that they will provide a venue that is in fact in accord with proper governance structures and proper legal practices as well, particularly of course to protect people who seek to go to the casino and play these games from the worst elements of, for some people, tragically, the addiction of gaming and gambling more generally. I commend this bill to the house, and I commend the Finkelstein royal commission’s work.
Dr READ (Brunswick) (15:00): I appreciate the contribution from the member for Richmond. I am pleased to speak on behalf of the Greens on the Casino Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Implementation and Other Matters) Bill 2022. This is the third bill implementing recommendations from the Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and Licence, and we are pleased to see that this government is continuing to take the findings of the royal commission very seriously and that it is following through on its commitment to implementing the recommendations. The bill we are debating today addresses the recommendations relating to money laundering and harm minimisation, including implementing mandatory precommitment for gaming at the casino. We are very pleased to see the latter introduced in this Parliament and sincerely hope it sails through the other place. Given the government’s less than stellar track record on minimising gambling harm and given the record gambling losses sustained during the life of this Parliament, we were not sure that precommitment would actually be legislated before the end of this parliamentary term, so it is reassuring to see it in this bill, which we support.
The bill is phasing out the use of cash in the casino by introducing compulsory carded play, or cashless play. This will mean that if you want to gamble at the casino you will need to have a player card and you will need to provide proof of ID to receive a card. The intention here is to remove the risk of the casino being used as a money laundering front by removing cash altogether and to stop people from anonymously accessing the casino. Cashless play is a really interesting reform for gambling in Victoria, and we will be watching the implementation of this reform closely. We know it has real potential to transform gambling at the casino for the better by removing the ability for players to launder money through the casino, but we also understand that unless implemented with robust and mandatory precommitment, it can be quite dangerous, because the physical sensation of inserting money into a machine can help alert a patron to how much money they are losing. This is in part a reason why gambling reform advocates recommend bet limits and load-up limits, as making a person insert more money more often means they are more aware of the amount they are spending—and the amount they are losing. Carded play may create a disconnect between a gambler and the amount of money actually being lost during gaming. And to properly reduce harm, carded play has to be implemented alongside really strong harm-minimisation measures, like enforced player breaks, more staff supervision and precommitment. That is why it is good to see the government following through on this royal commission recommendation. This scheme will require all players to set a limit on how much they are willing to lose at the pokies at Crown or a limit on how long they can play, or both, before they start gambling.
The mandatory precommitment scheme for gaming at the casino will be fully implemented by December 2025. We understand that this long implementation time is because the technology needed to enforce the scheme does not yet exist. The fact that the technology does not exist is a reflection of the industry’s priorities. Pokies are designed basically to siphon money from players with no way to track spending or enforce limits. We would encourage the government to work closely with gambling reform advocates like the Alliance for Gambling Reform on the design of the scheme and new technology to ensure it is as robust as possible. In the meantime, as a starting point, the bill will make YourPlay usage compulsory for Crown’s loyalty scheme members. We understand that this is a starting point, but it is a fairly inconsequential reform. YourPlay, which is the government’s existing voluntary precommitment scheme, has been a complete failure. Hardly any players use it, and it has done nothing to stop skyrocketing pokies losses. In the 2017–18 financial year YourPlay cards were used in sessions amounting to just 0.01 per cent of gaming machine turnover in Victorian hotels and clubs. It was not used at all in 170 venues. At the casino YourPlay cards were used to unlock the more harmful machines that spin faster and accept higher bets than other machines.
We would also prefer to see loyalty schemes phased out completely. It is difficult to see how you can minimise gambling-related harm if you link it to a scheme that offers perks to encourage people to return more often, gamble more and lose more money. In fact members of Crown’s loyalty program are more likely to experience gambling harm than other Crown patrons. That said, it is at least a step in the right direction towards mandatory precommitment at the casino gaming machines, and we look forward to watching it develop.
But it cannot stop at just the casino. While we acknowledge the serious harm caused to gamblers at the casino and Crown’s total failure to do anything about it, the scale of the harm done by the gambling industry in Victoria is much bigger than just the casino. It extends to all gaming venues in the state and particularly to all of the pokies out in the community. Crown has 2600 poker machines of the 26 321 in the state—in other words, almost 10 per cent. The rest are in clubs and hotels out in the suburbs. In July $270 million was lost—in just that month—at pokies in Victoria, approaching $10 million a day, a record loss.
If the government is serious about minimising gambling harm, this precommitment scheme needs to be rolled out to every poker machine in the state, not just in the casino. Otherwise there is nothing stopping a player from leaving the casino once they have hit their precommitment limit and playing on a machine in a club or a hotel that has no limits. We know the government is proud of going further on a number of the recommendations of the royal commission, but not this one. This is a missed opportunity to go further on harm minimisation, which means protecting Victorians, and to ensure that every gaming venue in the state has mandatory precommitment, player time limits and other harm minimisation measures in place. We can speculate on why the government has not gone further in this instance. Perhaps it is because the government’s budget relies on the money they get from pokies and because they are pretty cosy with the Australian Hotels Association and the clubs industry, but that is just speculation.
One other good thing about this bill is that it will remove Crown’s exemption under the Tobacco Act 1987 so that smoking will now be banned in all areas of the casino, something that I think is particularly important. So the Greens support this bill and commend the bill to the house.
Mr KENNEDY (Hawthorn) (15:07): I am glad to be speaking on the Casino Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Implementation and Other Matters) Bill 2022. This bill is a continuation of the rapid progress being made in the field of gambling reform following the Andrews government supporting every single recommendation of the Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and Licence.
I would like to briefly begin by referring to the comments from the member for Gippsland South and the member for Brunswick and to acknowledge that we have a lot in common on both sides of the house in regard to this matter. I note that the Age journalist Sumeyya Ilanbey has produced her book Daniel Andrews, which came out yesterday, and there are just a couple of excerpts that I would like to treat you to, because when the member for Gippsland South was talking you would think that the problems associated with the good and bad of gambling and all that sort of thing were only on one side of the house and that the Liberals were squeaky clean and altruistic and all the other great adjectives that could be applied. Well, Sumeyya points out a few things which are interesting. She says:
… Crown would donate just over $2 million in total between 2000 and 2020 to the Liberal and Labor parties …
and I am sure there is no suggestion that the Liberals returned that money. She also says, interestingly:
Crown’s significance to the state’s economy and politics cannot be overstated. Ever since Labor’s Joan Kirner gave the green light for a casino in 1990 …
and
the Liberals’ Jeff Kennett turbocharged things in 1993 …
every
Victorian premier has had a cosy relationship with Crown, which has enjoyed significant concessions …
Crown, in another comment:
has been politically untouchable in the three decades since it opened its doors. And senior Liberal and Labor politicians have courted the Packers.
I found that comforting, and also this:
Crown’s economic contribution to the state is unrivalled, and the money from the taxes the gaming giant pays helps fund schools, hospitals, roads and public transport.
Having said that, Sumeyya then goes on to say:
But integrity, transparency and accountability are critical pillars of democracy.
I think that this represents another bona fide attempt at trying to introduce a greater emphasis on integrity, transparency and accountability in the gambling industry, so I am very pleased to commend this piece of legislation.
As you know, the royal commission handed down its final report with 33 recommendations in October last year, and we have responded in record time. I want to make one point relating to the outcomes of the royal commission crystal clear to everyone here—that unless Crown can demonstrate to the regulator that it has become suitable to hold its licence, the licence will be automatically cancelled. This is just one of the important legislative steps we have taken in the wake of the royal commission. The bill before the house today delivers on 12 recommendations. These are a key part in the most significant reform in casino regulation in decades. This bill tightens regulations around money laundering, implementation time lines and corporate governance.
Just to say a little bit now about gambling harm, to be blunt, the gambling industry does an incredible amount of harm to everyday Victorians. The Alliance for Gambling Reform estimates that over 528 residents of Boroondara, which includes my electorate of Hawthorn, have a severe gambling-related problem. That is hundreds of my constituents being victims of this cruel industry, and it is simply not good enough. That is why I completely support the recommendations of the royal commission, and it is why I support this bill.
It will also fulfil the royal commission’s recommendation to introduce a nation-leading mandatory precommitment system on all pokies at Crown. Consequently, all Australian residents at the casino must fix a maximum limit on how much they are prepared to lose before gambling on the pokies through the YourPlay system. This is the first of its kind in Australia. This is just one of the innovative measures that form part of our gambling reform agenda. I would just like to emphasise how important this is. I am sure that many of you have observed the plethora of pokie machines in pubs and venues around your electorates and the effect this has on problem gamblers. Every single day Victorians lose $7.4 million to the pokies. This system will serve to limit losses on the vast number of pokies at Crown, protecting everyday Victorians. These reforms are a solid beginning to fixing the process, and I am proud of our commitment to the royal commission recommendations. But it is also important for us to be forward-looking and aspirational in our attempts at future gambling reform.
I am extremely concerned about the pervasiveness of gambling advertising in our society. It is everywhere, from the television to the football. It is a great concern for me that our children are growing up in a society saturated by the presence of gambling. If I could just say again how absolutely devastated I am every time I see those advertisements on TV associated with sport. The advertisements are incredibly seductive, but they always finish with this absolutely dishonest line, ‘Only gamble responsibly’. It is just a joke, when you think about it. There is seduction, seduction, seduction, and then it finishes with ‘gamble responsibly’. Well, how on earth can you?
The proper approach to this issue is one of harm minimisation. This is why the Andrews government has done more to tackle problem gambling and the harm it creates than any previous government. We have a strong track record in this area, which this bill adds to. With measures like increasing funding to the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation to $153 million over four years, we are committed to protecting Victorian gamblers. This bill represents an innovative approach to gambling reform as we continue to legislate our nation-leading changes. These reforms are to ensure that the disgraceful conduct that was unearthed at the royal commission never occurs again. We have already implemented a litany of priority measures, like establishing the office of the special manager to oversee Crown’s operations. We will implement the remaining nine recommendations made by the royal commission and will implement them over the next 12 months through further legislation, directions and administrative mechanisms.
I have said it before in this chamber, and I will say it again: the paramount focus when it comes to gambling reform must be on harm minimisation. Within this bill, it is not just the YourPlay system that forms part of the harm minimisation approach but also measures like the amendment of the Casino Control Act 1991 to allow for short-term exclusion orders to be made by both the casino staff and the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission to allow them to give a verbal direction to patrons to take a break and leave the gambling area. Even more stringent regulations over ownership are imposed by this bill, with VGCCC approval required to acquire or increase an interest in 5 per cent or more of shares in Crown or any of its holding companies. It is also updating the definition of an associate of a casino operator to include any holding company officer or owner of a casino. These provisions are required simply because we have seen casino owners in the past abuse their powers. We have already seen the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission commence disciplinary proceedings against Crown. The simple fact is that we cannot trust Crown to do the right thing. Whilst this state cannot afford to lose the jobs that Crown provides, it must be kept on a tight leash. Too much damage has been done to this state through a laissez-faire approach to gambling education in the past. Jeff Kennett’s gambling-led recovery was simply bad policy, and there is no escaping that. I commend the bill.
That debate be now adjourned.
Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.
Ordered that debate be adjourned until later this day.