Spending on pokie machines per person in Kawerau district is the second highest in the country. Photo / File
Spending on pokie machines per person in Kawerau district is the second highest in the country. Photo / File
Kawerau district was ranked the second highest in New Zealand for per capita spending on gambling machines in the first quarter of this year.
Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand health improvement adviser Renee Bolkowy addressed the Kawerau District Council at a submission hearing on its gambling policy recently.
Since 2017, despite a sinking lid policy reducing its number of gambling venues from four to two, and the number of machines from 54 to 36, spending on machines continued to rise.
She said people in Kawerau lost around $3.2 million in 2023, up $245,000 from the previous year.
“This equates to almost $9000 a day from the district,” Bolkowy said.
Although the district now had the lowest number of gambling machines in the Bay of Plenty, “on average, each machine brings in more money than all but Tauranga City”.
She said 95% of residents lived in decile eight to 10 deprivation areas, and there was also no face-to-face gambling harm counselling service in Kawerau.
Te Whatu Ora’s recommendations were to retain the sinking lid policy and prohibit relocation or mergers of the two remaining venues even under exceptional circumstances.
New Zealand Community Trust’s grants, marketing and communications general manager, Ben Hodges, submitted against retaining a sinking lid policy.
The charitable trust is the beneficiary of the gambling machines in one of the two Kawerau venues.
The trust supported a capped policy with the current machine and venue numbers.
“Sinking lids are ineffective tools to reduce problem gambling,” Hodges said.
Kawerau district was ranked the second highest in New Zealand for per capita spending on gambling machines, in the first quarter of this year.
He provided statistics showing that despite a 44% reduction in gambling machines nationwide over recent years, there had been no corresponding decrease in problem gambling.
He said that without local venues, people could gamble online, and the sinking lid policy would eventually cancel out Kawerau’s ability to receive pokie grants.
In 2023, this had totalled $640,000 to Kawerau-based organisations.
“If pokie funding was to disappear from Kawerau, who or what would replace that funding?
“Council is the only real alternative. In order to replace that funding, you would have to lift rates by a pretty unappetising 4.3%.”
During Bolkowy’s submission, she said that even though at least 40% of gambling machine takings were meant to be given back to the community they were taken from, the amount given back to the Kawerau community was only 21%.
Hodges said he suspected there were some mistakes in the calculations, including that they did not take into account grants provided to national and regional organisations that benefited Kawerau.
“For example, for three years we funded Sports Bay of Plenty for a role they had that was embedded in Kawerau. That was $60,000, which is just one example.”
Mayor Faylene Tunui asked when Kawerau would be invited to be on the decision-making panel for the trust’s grants.
She said former Kawerau Mayor Malcolm Campbell had requested that Kawerau have a contributor on the panel and was refused. She repeated that request.
“We have had a breakdown of some of the decisions that have been made around that table,” she said.
The breakdown of figures stated that of the $435,000 granted to Yachting NZ over the past three years for salaries of regional development managers, more than $9000 was drawn from Kawerau.
Of the $175,000 granted to Surf Lifesaving NZ for salaries of sports managers, more than $4000 was drawn from Kawerau, and of the $7000 the trust granted the organisation last year, according to its breakdown of grant funding, $3668 was drawn from Kawerau.
“I can assure you that Yachting NZ has not had a presence in Kawerau, ever. Neither does Surf Life Saving New Zealand,” Tunui said.
“The Royal New Zealand Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals abandoned this community.”
The SPCA closed its Kawerau centre in 2022 but said it still offered a full range of services from its Rotorua branch.
Hodges said he would pass on Tunui’s request to his chief executive.
He said increases in pokie spending did not take inflation into account. When adjusted to account for inflation, expenditure was up by only 1.3% in the past 10 years.
