Wednesday, 21 February 2024

Statements on parliamentary committee reports

Public Accounts and Estimates Committee

Gambling and Liquor Regulation in Victoria: A Follow up of Three Auditor-General Reports

Mathew HILAKARI (Point Cook) (10:04): I rise to speak again on the Gambling and Liquor Regulation in Victoria: A Follow up of Three Auditor-General Reports by the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, of which I am a member. I acknowledged the chair in my last contribution on this and also the secretariat, but I would like to acknowledge the deputy chair, member for North-Eastern Metropolitan Region Nicholas McGowan, and also Bev McArthur from Western Victoria. I always appreciate their gentle humour and subtle irony that they bring to every committee process that we undertake. I know that is something that I can tell the chair appreciates as well. I unfairly besmirched the member for Gippsland South in a previous contribution on PAEC by acknowledging that he was the grandfather of the committee; in fact he is the father of the committee, and I just want to make my apologies again for unfairly doing so.

I also want to thank the member for Melbourne Ellen Sandell for her contributions, which are always sincere, in regard to gambling reform. I also want to thank Dr Krystle Gatt Rapa, the lead analyst; Dr Kathleen Hurley, the analyst; and Mathias Richter and Caitlin Wu, who also helped us ably across the committee’s report.

I will take up where I left off last time to talk about the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation. One of the things that I think is important to note is that this has been reformed and changed by this government, and part of this is related to the operation of 11 years of the VRGF. Over this time we have seen only a consistent level of those people in our community experiencing the harms of gambling. Also we have seen that only 1 to 2 per cent of those people who have been experiencing the harm of gambling actually seek support from government services in Victoria, and the effectiveness of gambling treatment and services provided is simply unknown. For a body who is researching gambling in Victoria, certainly that needs to be improved, and this government is improving that by reforming that and moving that into other government agencies.

I rise on a day when we hear reports of 40,000 people self-excluding through the federal government’s program, including 18,000 people who are excluding themselves for their entire lifetime from online gambling. It just speaks to the nature and extent of the problem that we are experiencing as a community. I encourage the federal government to complete some of those other aspects of the report that were made and ensure that advertising for online gambling is in line with the report of Peta Murphy, who I think made an enormous contribution and a lasting contribution, and I hope that contribution is honoured by our federal government.

There were 20 recommendations in our report on online gambling to protect the community from gambling harm. They go to some of those around online gambling strategy and a code of conduct for online gambling providers, many of whom are located in the Northern Territory for what I believe and what the report sets out are largely tax reasons and probably an environment which they describe as more helpful to their business prospects. What I read into that is actually more harm for our community and more ability to take dollars out of our community without the appropriate treatment and support for the harm of those people who are experiencing gambling challenges.

I do want to pay acknowledgement to the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission. I started to talk about the chair Fran Thorn in my last contribution, but since that time, on 15 February the VGCCC fined the Rye Hotel $80,000 for breaches of their obligations, including falsifying records to cover up erroneous cash payments and providing cheques to ineligible persons. It says that the VGCCC is on the right path and that we have the right personnel there to really take on people who are not doing the right thing in a harm-causing industry. So I say to both the chair Fran Thorn and the CEO Annette Kimmitt: keep up the good work. You are doing a terrific job in holding these companies to account. I cannot but encourage that more. I know I will be coming back on a number of other matters on this report.