Conscience vote gives poker machine bill's chances a boost

If a new bill becomes law, councils would be given the right to ban poker machines in vulnerable areas. Photo / Supplied

Parliament's Speaker Dr Lockwood Smith has given a late boost to a Maori Party bill to phase out poker machine trusts by giving MPs a conscience vote on the issue.

Dr Smith notified Waiariki MP Te Ururoa Flavell yesterday that he would allow a "personal vote" on the bill, in line with a convention letting MPs exercise their individual consciences on alcohol and gambling issues.

But the ruling appears to have come too late to change decisions already made by the National, Act and United Future caucuses to oppose the bill. The three parties have 64 of Parliament's 122 MPs, enough to stop the bill at its first reading, which could come today.

The bill, motivated by the high number of Maori problem gamblers, comes after tough new laws against New Zealand's other two main addictions, which also affect Maori disproportionately.

Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia announced a crackdown on cigarette retail displays last week, and a new liquor bill was introduced in Parliament this week.

Health Ministry figures show 36 per cent of clients of problem gambling services last year were Maori, more than twice their 15 per cent share of the population.

Mr Flavell's bill would require all poker gamblers to get "pre-commit cards" that would turn off the poker machines they were using when they reached spending limits programmed into the cards in advance - before they became mesmerised by the machines.

It would also replace the trusts which now distribute poker machine proceeds with committees appointed by local councils.

Councils would be able to ban poker machines 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.

The Internal Affairs Department has cracked down on several poker trusts associated with the racing industry recently.

Three trusts were banned from giving any more money to four trotting clubs last year after their grants to the four clubs jumped from less than $500,000 a year to $5.4 million over two years.

The Problem Gambling Foundation, the Salvation Army, the Hamilton Council of Christian Social Services and Poverty Action Waikato have all this week urged MPs to support the bill.

But Internal Affairs Minister Nathan Guy said yesterday that National would oppose it.

"I'm disappointed with the behaviour of some gaming societies but I'm not yet convinced we should turn the whole system over to be run by local government," he said.

"The Government's overall policy on gambling is to minimise the harm caused while maximising the returns to the community, and we are not convinced that Mr Flavell's bill would achieve this.

"Requiring 80 per cent of the proceeds from gaming machines to be returned locally would be difficult to enforce and would restrict the flexibility of gaming machine societies to make grants to the most deserving causes."

Labour's shadow minister for the issue, Chris Hipkins, said Labour's caucus had voted to support the bill before yesterday's Speaker's ruling.

Australia's Labor Government also decided to introduce "pre-commit" requirements for all poker machines by 2014 as part of a post-election deal this year with Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie.

The chief executive of a Melbourne company promoting pre-commit technology, Phil Ryan, said poker machines could be modified to track individual gamblers at a cost of about A$1500 ($1938) a machine, and individuals could be given fingerprint-encoded USB sticks for about A$10 ($12.70) each.

He said Australia's Productivity Commission recommended last year that the cost should be paid by gamblers, through programming the machines to pay out about 0.2 per cent less in prize money.

ETHNIC DISPARITY

*79 per cent of New Zealanders declared themselves as European/other in the 2006 Census.

*But only 49 per cent of problem gamblers were from this group.

*15 per cent of New Zealanders said they were Maori.

*But 36 per cent of all problem gamblers were from this group.

Ministry of Health, Census 2006