Tuesday, 20 September 2022

Bills

Casino Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Implementation and Other Matters) Bill 2022

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Ms SHING:

That the bill be now read a second time.

Mr RICH-PHILLIPS (South Eastern Metropolitan) (10:44): I am pleased to rise this morning to make some remarks on the Casino Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Implementation and Other Matters) Bill 2022. This bill comes out of what has emerged as a sustained failure of regulatory oversight of the casino by the Labor government over the last 20 years. This is something which became particularly apparent during the investigations which were undertaken by the New South Wales government and the Bergin inquiry in New South Wales looking at the suitability of Crown to have casino licences in that jurisdiction.

Concerns had been raised in Victoria over an extended period of time—the member for Euroa in the other place raised extensive concerns about some of the governance arrangements relating to Crown Casino over an extended period of time—and we were consistently told by the Andrews government and by the Premier that there was nothing to see here. The message from the government was consistently, ‘There’s nothing to see here’, and yet the Bergin inquiry in New South Wales forced the government to take action. We know—we saw it as a matter of record in this house—that Crown and its proprietor at the time indicated their support in the 2014 election for a Labor government. We saw Lloyd Williams on a live mic indicating that James Packer, as the then proprietor of Crown, would be throwing his support behind a Labor government, and we subsequently saw the Premier saying, ‘There’s nothing to see here with the operations of Crown in Victoria’. But of course the Bergin report belled the cat.

So much material came out of the Bergin report that the Victorian government had no option but to hold its own royal commission here in Victoria into the situation at Crown Casino. Ray Finkelstein was commissioned to undertake that royal commission, on which he reported to the Governor on 15 October 2021 with 33 recommendations around the governance of Crown Casino. It is important to note from the summary of that royal commission this comment from the commissioner:

… for many years Crown Melbourne had engaged in conduct that is, in a word, disgraceful. This is a convenient shorthand for describing conduct that was variously illegal, dishonest, unethical and exploitative.

That is a damning comment about the conduct of Crown, but it is also a damning comment about the negligence of the gaming regulator. For 20 years—under this government and previous Labor governments—the regulator had overseen operations at Crown and consistently found essentially ‘Nothing to see’, and for a number of years the Premier consistently said, ‘There’s nothing to see’. So that comment applies, in my view, equally to Crown and the gaming regulator.

The government, on receiving the Finkelstein report with the 33 recommendations, has now gone down the path of implementing those recommendations. A number of those recommendations have already been adopted in earlier legislation; some have been adopted by regulation and some are being put in place by this bill before the house today.

I will run through the key areas that this bill seeks to address. The first is the issue of preventing money laundering and other criminal activity, and it is described as minimising gambling harm. This is through the introduction of carded play, a mechanism which will require any patron who seeks to gamble at the casino to essentially identify themselves through positive identification, participate in a mandatory precommitment mechanism and have an operating card to participate in gaming at the casino, which obviously is a substantial change from the current environment where any patron can simply walk into the casino and engage in play. This mechanism will come into effect from December 2025, and my understanding is that the reason for the delay in its implementation is that the technology to do this currently does not exist. That is a significant concern with this mechanism. It is a significant issue that we are seeking to legislate for technology that as yet is not in place to allow this to happen on all activities across the casino. A time frame has been set down to allow the introduction of carded play, but of course the technology will need to be developed to ensure that that can take place. Noting that this is a significant change in the way in which patrons will engage in gaming activity, there are a number of issues around privacy considerations for patrons, people who in the past have gone into the casino simply to gamble on a casual basis and a recreational basis who have not needed to give their life history to do so.

This is going to be a significant change for them in having to provide that identification prior to doing so. Clearly there are going to need to be some very tight safeguards around the personal information which is going to be collected as part of this mechanism to ensure that that is not disclosed more widely than it should be and is not to the detriment of patrons who simply just want to go to the casino for a $5 flutter. One of the reasons this is being done is the issue of money laundering, which, I understand, has been a substantial problem across casino operations, whether it be electronic gaming machines or table games, and that is an area where clearly there needs to be change. Whether this is going to be the best change, given its broader impacts, remains to be seen.

The second major change the bill makes is to enable the ongoing operation of the casino in the event the operator’s licence is cancelled, suspended or surrendered. One of the issues with the Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and Licence is that it did not recommend the cancellation of Crown’s licence in Melbourne, in part because of the implications of a cancellation—the fact that Crown is the single largest employer in Victoria. It is a very substantial economic enterprise, and to simply turn it off by cancelling that licence would have had a very significant impact on employment, on retail. There would have been a whole lot of economic consequences downstream if the casino had simply shut down in a day. It has very much become an enterprise that has fallen into the category of ‘too big to fail’, and simply cancelling the licence and turning it off was not going to be a viable option. Putting in place with this bill a mechanism which allows the casino to continue to operate on an interim basis, if the licence is cancelled, suspended or surrendered, until a new operator and a new licence can be put in place is a sensible mechanism. It will mean that if that step is required in the future, it can be taken without catastrophic economic effects and employment effects.

The next major change is in respect of regulating the ownership and governance of the casino and its holding companies and strengthening casino tax arrangements. They are grouped together as the one item, but in many respects they are two separate considerations. The bill seeks to put in place restraints around concentration of ownership of the casino. We have seen that throughout its history the casino has been held very tightly with large majority shareholders. That has obviously changed through the life of the casino, but there have been multiple large shareholdings. The bill seeks to put in a cap on the level of shareholding without approval from the gaming regulator so the situation cannot develop, as we have seen in the past, where there is a substantial shareholding without that shareholder having been subject to prior approval by the regulator.

The bill also makes a change with respect to the smoking exemption. There has been a longstanding smoking exemption in relation to the high roller area of Crown. This bill removes the exemption from smoking laws in the high roller area. While it is trumpeted in the government’s second-reading speech that this is a big reform, a big initiative, my advice is that that has already taken place—that Crown has already done that of its own initiative and has been doing so for some time—so legislating it now is not the substantial change that the government has presented it as.

One of the other changes that was made with earlier legislation was putting in place the special manager to oversee the casino, which is an unusual structure to have—a government-appointed officer overseeing at close range a commercial enterprise like the casino. Stephen O’Bryan, who in fact was the inaugural IBAC Commissioner, was appointed to the role to monitor the operations of the casino at very close range and provide reports to government. One of the things that we would like to see around the operation of the monitor’s oversight is for those reports to be published and to be tabled in Parliament. Accordingly we will move an amendment when the bill gets to committee to provide a mechanism for that, and I ask that that amendment be circulated now.

Opposition amendment circulated by Mr RICH-PHILLIPS pursuant to standing orders.

Mr RICH-PHILLIPS: The amendment is a simple amendment. It seeks to require that the reports when they come from the special manager, Mr O’Bryan, are tabled in this Parliament in due course, so that they are made available obviously to the Parliament and to the public to have a better understanding of and insight into how Crown is operating in accordance with its much tighter regulatory framework that has been imposed on it in the last two years. It is a simple amendment. It does not affect the operation of Mr O’Bryan and his team as special manager. It simply provides more transparency than is currently the case around the ongoing operations of Crown.

The coalition does not oppose this bill. It is a further tranche of implementation of the recommendations from the Finkelstein royal commission. As I noted at the outset, the government was caught napping in its oversight of Crown. This bill goes towards correcting that oversight, and we look forward to its passage this morning.

Mr ERDOGAN (Southern Metropolitan) (10:57): I rise to speak in support of the Casino Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Implementation and Other Matters) Bill 2022. This bill introduces nation-leading reforms to tackle gambling-related harm and address money laundering risks at Crown Melbourne in response to the Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and Licence. The royal commission handed down its report in October last year, and we immediately legislated the priority recommendations. At the time we said that further legislation would be introduced in 2022 with other major reforms recommended by the royal commission. This bill acquits those commitments. This package of reforms is a world first in its scale and will establish the strongest measures in any casino in Australia.

To understand the context and the royal commission’s recommendations already acquitted, the royal commission handed down its final report with 33 recommendations in October last year, and we have responded in record time. We legislated the commission’s nine priority recommendations through the Casino and Gambling Legislation Amendment Act 2021 in December last year. This set up the framework necessary to start holding Crown to account, including establishing the role of special manager. Stephen O’Bryan KC, Victoria’s first IBAC Commissioner, has been appointed to the role, overseeing every single aspect of casino operations and reporting on its suitability to hold the licence over the next two years. Make no mistake, unless Crown can demonstrate to the regulator that it has become suitable, the licence will be automatically cancelled.

That legislation also dismantled the sweetheart deal put in place by the previous Liberal government which made Crown untouchable. This arrangement meant that Crown would be entitled to compensation for any changes to the rules governing its operation. The royal commission was highly critical of that deal, which only served to shield Crown from proper accountability. Abolishing it has paved the way for our reform program to restore integrity to Victoria’s casino. The legislation also increased the maximum penalty Crown could face from $1 million to $100 million—above and beyond what the royal commission itself recommended—and empowered the regulator to act directly on the royal commission’s findings.

In June this year we passed further legislation to increase the powers of the regulator and its casino inspectors, acquitting two more recommendations from the royal commission. In June the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission (VGCCC) issued a direction to Crown Melbourne, recommended by the royal commission, to establish a single patron bank account. This recommendation is aimed at stopping money laundering through casino accounts.

The bill currently before the house delivers a further 12 recommendations across four key areas as well as some complementary reforms. The bill introduces the most significant reforms in casino regulation in decades and marks the next stage of the government’s comprehensive response to the royal commission. Preventing money laundering is a key aspect of this reform. These reforms will address the increased risk and occurrence of financial crime that occurs when people can access the casino and make large anonymous financial transactions. The bill will establish the framework to make carded play compulsory for all gaming machines and table games, with further regulations and technical standards to prescribe how carded play will operate in practice.

The bill introduces cashless gaming by phasing out cash at the casino by prohibiting a casino operator from accepting more than $1000 in cash from a patron in a 24-hour period. Under the new identity verification rules, patrons will be required to have their identity verified to receive a player card and to swipe that player card before playing any game at the casino and be paid winnings of more than $1000.

Harm minimisation is another important aspect. The Andrews Labor government has done more to tackle gambling-related harm than any government in the history of our state and this reform builds on our track record. We have already established a tough new regulator with a legislated focus on harm minimisation to guide every decision that it makes. As recommended by the royal commission, the bill introduces a nation-leading mandatory precommitment system on all pokies at the casino. This means that all Australian residents at the casino must fix a maximum amount they are prepared to lose before gambling on pokies, the first scheme of its kind in any Australian jurisdiction.

The bill requires the casino operator to fully implement mandatory precommitment and the compulsory use of carded play and cashless gaming by December 2025 at the latest. This time frame reflects technical advice on what is possible. We need to be realistic. These are world-first reforms that require world-first technologies. The mandatory precommitment system will need to be implemented by Crown by the end of next year. To allow for the development of technologies that do not currently exist, the full suite of harm minimisation and anti-money-laundering reforms will have a legislated start date of no later than December 2025. To complement this, government will work with Crown and the VGCCC to set early implementation dates on the remaining reforms, with the VGCCC to issue a binding implementation plan. This implementation plan will set out key milestones for implementation of the full suite of harm minimisation and anti-money-laundering reforms. If Crown fails to comply with these milestones, this will become grounds for disciplinary action, penalties for which include licence cancellation and fines of up to $100 million.

Ongoing operations of the casino are another aspect of these reforms. The bill will ensure that in the event of a licence cancellation, suspension or surrender a statutory manager appointed by the state has the full set of powers needed to run the casino. The bill will also ensure that the area on which Crown Melbourne is licensed to operate the casino is the area that will be subleased to any new casino operator. In consideration of the 10 000-plus workforce at Crown, these reforms enable the ongoing operation of the casino and a smooth transition to a new operator if Crown’s Melbourne licence is cancelled at the end of the period of the special manager’s oversight or at any other time.

Obviously another major part, which Mr Rich-Phillips touched on, is the improved ownership and governance structure that is being implemented. The bill also includes a suite of new provisions to minimise the risk of a dominant shareholder—like James Packer, as revealed by the royal commission—interfering in the operations of the casino. As recommended by the royal commission, the bill requires approval from the VGCCC for a person to acquire 5 per cent or more of shares in a casino operator or any of its holding companies; the majority of the board of a casino operator to be independent, including any of the holding companies; and the casino operator to appoint certain senior managers on a full-time basis who can only take instructions from or report to the casino operator. Obviously that is world leading in terms of a governance structure which works and should last the test of time.

There are a number of other complementary reforms in this bill before the house. The bill proposes additional reforms to complement the royal commission’s recommendations, as in interim steps towards mandatory precommitment—the existing YourPlay precommitment system, with the casino’s loyalty members required to link it to their accounts.

The bill will also restrict the use of casino deposit accounts and strengthen casino exclusion provisions. This means that people who self-exclude from the casino can no longer be penalised. The bill will also remove the exemptions that permit smoking in high-roller areas in the casino. This reflects the position advocated by the union and across the community. Crown will also be made to pay for the increased costs of regulating the casino, with the reintroduction of a supervision charge that was previously abolished by the Kennett Liberal government.

There are obviously still recommendations that we plan to acquit. A further eight recommendations will be delivered through a combination of administrative mechanisms and future legislation. These include the VGCCC directions to address money laundering and prevent crime at the casino precinct, a ministerial direction to deliver the new responsible gambling code for the casino and establishing a gaming data committee to be led by the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation. These are additional reforms that were not necessarily in the royal commission’s report but assist in the implementation and the process of getting there.

Mr Rich-Phillips discussed the opposition’s amendment. On those I will be very brief but just note that the amendment proposed by the opposition would require tabling of the special manager’s full reports to the regulator and the minister. This is the same amendment that the opposition moved on the first bill on the royal commission, the Casino and Gambling Legislation Amendment Bill 2021. The government will again oppose the amendment as it would fundamentally undermine the independent work of the regulator in determining whether Crown has returned to suitability at the end of the special manager’s term.

The opposition will be pleased to learn that the special manager already publishes six-monthly reports. The most recent report was published on 7 July 2022 and is available with a simple Google search on the World Wide Web. Publication of the full reports would provide a running evaluation of Crown’s suitability and give rise to legal challenges, effectively providing Crown with a right of reply, which is something we have explicitly removed with earlier legislation. It would not be appropriate to table the special manager’s full reports to the government before the regulator has made a decision on Crown’s suitability to hold the licence as it would compromise the independence of both the special manager and the VGCCC. The royal commission found the casino has a history of bullying and meddling with the regulator. This is why we have removed any right of reply or procedural fairness. Tabling the full reports during the special manager’s term would unwind this and only benefit Crown. The full special manager’s reports also contain information that is commercially sensitive and subject to legal professional privilege, giving further rise to legal challenge should the reports be tabled as contemplated by the proposed amendment. We know transparency is important, but we need to manage it properly. The stakes are simply too high. This is why we have asked the special manager to publish six-monthly activity reports.

While those opposite seek to undermine the royal commission every step of the way, we are getting on with this historic and nation-leading reform to restore Victoria’s trust in the casino licence. This legislation is the next step in our nation-leading reforms to ensure the disgraceful conduct revealed by the royal commission will never happen again. These reforms build on the priority measures the Labor government has already implemented since the royal commission, including establishing the office of special manager to oversee Crown’s operations. We support the remaining nine recommendations made by the royal commission and will implement them over the next 12 months through a combination of further legislation, directions and mechanisms.

Let us be clear: Crown Melbourne has one chance only to reform its operations and return to suitability to hold the Melbourne casino licence. If the casino operator does not demonstrate that it is suitable to hold the licence, its licence will automatically be cancelled in 2024. This is world-leading reform. No jurisdiction in Australia has implemented reforms of this measure. Whether it be in harm minimisation, with the limits and the new technologies that have been developed to be put into place, we are leading the way in tackling these problems of governance, with this new governance structure we have implemented. We are pushing ahead with the remaining reforms and recommendations of the royal commission. On that note, I commend the bill to the house.

Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (11:09): I rise to speak on the Casino Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Implementation and Other Matters) Bill 2022. This bill will deliver 12 recommendations of the Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and Licenceand complementary reforms. This is, I think, the third lot of legislation that we have had a look at in regard to the casino, and I think there is more to come. I am glad to see a limit being introduced, but this will not be brought in for another three years, and the technology to implement it is not even being developed. In the meantime gambling losses are increasing. They have steadily increased every year over the last 10 years, except when venues were closed due to COVID. While legislation such as this is necessary to ensure that the things that were happening at Crown do not happen again, the government should be looking at the problems that gambling is causing in the community.

I, just on Sunday night, went to Crown Casino to have a look. A friend of mine came from the UK, and I thought I would show him Southbank. It was Brownlow night, but I also showed my friend from the UK, Ravi, what Crown is all about. It is a very large venue. When you walk through it you do not have a sense of time. It is a melting pot of Melbourne. Many people who were there you could see could not afford to gamble, but they were there at late hours on a Sunday night, and there were others there dressed up to the nines in their finest gowns. I saw the Premier’s advisers, the Premier’s comms team and ministers there at the Brownlow. Crown Casino is a very interesting venue. It has big functions, but at the bottom you see people losing their houses and losing money they cannot afford.

In the last financial year Victorians using electronic gaming machines incurred over $2.237 billion in personal losses. According to the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission last year the cities in western metropolitan Melbourne accounted for over $529 million in electronic gaming machine—pokie machine—losses. That is over 23.6 per cent of total gambling machine losses in the state—pokie machine losses—in my west. It accounts for over $44 million of tax revenue that goes into the Community Support Fund. The money in the Community Support Fund is provided to the government portfolio departments for making grants to a wide range of community-based organisations and councils. I cannot find any accounts online for the Community Support Fund after the 2018–19 year. Just look online. Somehow, even though the government is collecting this money, it is not online anymore. But from looking over previous accounts of years that I was on council—I understand this quite deeply—it does not seem that this government has been spending that money in the west. They appear to be spending a lot on the other side of town, not in regional Victoria but in marginal seats. Surely if over 20 per cent of the taxes from electronic gaming machines—pokies—is coming from the west, it makes sense to spend that money back in the west and to try and tackle the problems of gaming and the missing community infrastructure.

Sadly there are not many pokie machines in the east. They are sitting in the west, in the poorer, most vulnerable suburbs and in regional Victoria. But the money, while it is taken out of those areas, is not spent there. We need alternative services to gaming, such as community groups, library facilities, health, fitness and wellness centres, swimming pools—places where the community can gather healthily. We need services that provide in-home financial and emotional counselling for people with gaming addictions and their families, and we need outstanding and overdue infrastructure—all things that could have been provided by the Community Support Fund that this government, for whatever reason, have not spent in the west or in the areas that they have taken the money from. This fund is to be used for the good of the community, not for election exercises by this government. While I see that this bill is necessary, I think it lacks some transparency in regard to reporting. Acting President, could I circulate my amendments.

Independent amendments circulated by Dr CUMMING pursuant to standing orders.

Dr CUMMING: I will read from my amendments:

1. Clause 52, page 54, line 15 … insert “(1),”.

2. Clause 52, page 54, line 22, after “subsections” insert “(1),”.

And the new clause is this:

3. Insert the following New Clause to follow clause 59—

‘59A New section 3.8A.10A inserted

After section 3.8A.10 of the Gaming Regulation Act 2003 insert—

“3.8A.10A Mandatory pre-commitment

(1) This section applies—

(a) on and after 1 December 2025; or

(b) the earlier day declared by the Minister under subsection (3).

(2) A venue operator must not allow a person ordinarily resident in Australia to play a game on a gaming machine in an approved venue unless—

(a) an account has been established for the person for the purposes of the pre-commitment system; and

(b) the pre-commitment system sets the following limit or limits, or requires the person to set the following limit or limits—

(i) not more than $100 or the prescribed amount in any 24 hour period; or

(ii) not more than $500 or the prescribed amount in any one month period; or

(iii) not more than $5000 in any 1 year period unless the person demonstrates to the venue operator that a greater amount will not cause the person undue financial hardship.

Penalty: 120 penalty units.

(3) The Minister, by notice published in the Government Gazette, may declare a day earlier than 1 December 2025 on and after which this section applies.

As I was saying, I have proposed some amendments to this bill to include some measures to reduce the losses that our communities are suffering through electronic gaming machines. This is similar to what has been proposed in Tasmania. It is very simple: for all electronic gaming machines, including those operated by hotels and other venues, a new cashless card, which is set to be implemented by the end of 2025, will be mandatory. This will have a default limit of $100 per day and $500 per month, which can be adjusted upwards or downwards.

A hard limit of $5000 per year will be in place unless gamblers provide proof that they have the financial means to spend more. This will help make sure that people game and gamble within their means and restrict their losses. With a little bit of hope, they will not lose their houses, they will be able to provide food for their families and their families will actually stay together. For me, the $5000 limit, when I heard that from Tasmania, made a lot of sense. For most people $5000 is probably land tax or council rates. Five thousand dollars is a reasonable gaming limit. If you are on a pension or Centrelink or other benefits, you still need to be able to provide for your family—food, rent and otherwise. I have far too many vulnerable people within my community that feel that somehow they are going to get lucky and somehow the luck of those gaming machines will give them the money that they need, to provide a car or clothes or to pay their rent, not really understanding what it does to their family. These pokie machines are actually designed to take your money. They are designed for tax revenue. They are designed for you not to win.

Over many years Dr Charles Livingstone, now an associate professor, has lived in my area in Footscray. He has been pushing for 25 years-plus for governments—this government and all the governments in the past—to actually do something about pokies and gaming machines. When I sat on council we were one of the first. We could see the harms that were created by previous Labor governments, because these pokie machines were actually introduced by Joan Kirner. We could see what it was doing to our community, so we put in some recommendations. When they were trying to put pokie machines at Whitten Oval we recommended that they put clocks on the walls, that the venues were not dark, so you did not lose sense of time, and that they provided tea and coffee and they provided breaks. This was 25 years ago.

Government after government take their time in looking after the vulnerable, but they are still happy to take the taxes but not spend them in the poorer areas. I do not see it in any budget. I do not see infrastructure promises where the money is taken. We need swimming pools so people can stop drowning—healthy options. In West Footscray I lack a RecWest. And probably one of the saddest looking facilities is Braybrook football club, the oldest football club in Australia. There is no election promise to build a new Braybrook Sporting Club, no promise for a RecWest in West Footscray and no promise for money for swimming pools in Wyndham or Hobsons Bay. Every single council is crying out for healthy options and for the money—the $50 million-plus—that you take out of those areas to be spent back in those areas. But then you are happy to take poor people’s money. They lose their houses. There is no infrastructure in their immediate areas.

I would hope that the government supports my amendments today. They are amendments that other jurisdictions, such as Tasmania—Tasmania actually had an election on this issue. Because of the gaming losses in Tasmania there was a change of government, because of what it was doing to that community, especially during COVID. But this government does lip-service—complete lip-service. There were a whole heap recommendations that you could have implemented. You could have gone to the highest level on your last day in the 59th Parliament—but no, not at all.

Dr RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (11:25): I am pleased to rise to speak to the Casino Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Implementation and Other Matters) Bill 2022. Given all of the pieces of legislation that this government has prioritised in the last few weeks of this term, from jailing peaceful protesters to creating new criminal offences, it is nice to be here on the very last day of government business debating a bill that actually does some good.

This bill is implementing the third tranche of recommendations from the Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and Licence, including the recommendation to reduce gambling harm at the casino. The introduction of carded gaming and mandatory precommitment at the casino are sensible harm reduction measures that the Greens are pleased to support. We know that gambling harm is a serious public health issue that negatively affects individuals, families and communities. The gambling industry has completely shirked its responsibility for the harm it causes to communities, and the lack of any real intervention from government has allowed the industry to make billions in profits by preying on the vulnerable.

In his report Commissioner Finkelstein was especially critical of the harms that were allowed to occur at Crown, saying:

Perhaps the most damning discovery by the Commission is the manner in which Crown Melbourne deals with the many vulnerable people who have a gambling problem. The cost to the community of problem gambling is enormous. It is not only the gambler who suffers. It also affects many other people, and institutions.

Crown Melbourne had for years held itself out as having a world’s best approach to problem gambling. Nothing can be further from the truth.

The report recommended a major reform to how the casino manages gambling harm: introducing a mandatory precommitment system. Mandatory precommitment requires patrons to set limits on gaming machines, before they play, on the amount of money they are willing to lose, the amount of time they will play or both. This is a harm minimisation measure, and we and other gambling harm minimisation advocates have been calling for it for years. Evidence from trials in Australia indicates that binding precommitment systems provide the best protection from gambling harm.

Here in Victoria we have had a voluntary precommitment system in place since 2015, but the YourPlay system has been a complete failure since it was introduced. It is used by hardly any players and on very few machines—on just a tiny 0.01 per cent of gaming machine turnover in Victorian hotels and clubs. Contrary to its purpose, it has done absolutely nothing to reduce gambling harm. Instead we have seen ever-increasing losses since the scheme was introduced. In the last financial year Victorians lost over $2.2 billion to the pokies. This July we hit a record monthly high of $270 million lost. And since the pokies were introduced to Victoria 30 years ago, we have lost a staggering $66 billion.

We welcome the government’s intention to transform YourPlay into a full, mandatory precommitment system at Crown Casino with enforceable limits on losses and on time. As the first step towards mandatory precommitment, the bill will require any person who is a member of the loyalty scheme at the casino to use YourPlay to track their play. It will also allow the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission to publish information about individual venue compliance with YourPlay obligations.

Given the complete failure of the program to date, the Greens will be watching the implementation of the YourPlay reforms and the data that comes from this very closely. The full precommitment system will be implemented at Crown Casino by December 2025. However, our question for the government is: why stop there? When the government introduced the first piece of legislation implementing recommendations from the royal commission, it proudly stated that it was going further than the recommendations and introducing even stronger measures than were recommended. It is disappointing that this has not been followed through when implementing the harm minimisation recommendations.

If this government was serious about reducing harm from gambling, it would know that gambling harm does not just happen in the gilded rooms of Crown Casino. In fact when it comes to the pokies, the vast majority of harm occurs outside the casino. Crown has just 2600, or 10 per cent, of Victoria’s 26 321 poker machines. The rest of our pokies are out in the community, in suburban clubs and hotels, where hundreds of thousands of dollars are regularly lost at the pokies each and every year.

In the last financial year the top five local government areas for pokies losses were Brimbank, Casey, Geelong, Hume and Whittlesea. While the pokies were shut for much of 2020 and 2021—a small respite from years of billion-dollar pokies losses—we are once again back on track for record levels of gambling harm. This July we hit a record monthly high of $270 million lost. If losses continue at this rate, the 2022–23 financial year will break records for amounts lost at the pokies and for the harm done.

The sheer scale of harm should be a wake-up call for all of us, and I know lots of communities are keenly aware of the harm caused by the pokies and are pushing to get out of pokies and to get pokies out of their clubs and hotels for good. But they have had their hands tied, and you have to look no further than what has been happening at our local government level for years to understand the scale of the resistance to transformative action by the state government. We have had so many local governments spearheading advocacy for harm reduction measures and the reform and reduction of pokies losses and harms—including, for example, by introducing harm reduction measures like differential rates, one of the few levers that local governments have to reduce the harm from gambling—only to be blocked by the state government, undoing the very little good work that is available within the laws that we have, given the very close relationship between this government and the predatory gambling industry.

Earlier this month I was horrified to read that the Premier was refusing to allow pokies venues to get out of their licences. The St Kilda Football Club is among a number of venues looking to get out of the gambling industry for good, but the government has refused, saying venues had already agreed to a 20-year agreement for gaming machine entitlements. These 20-year contracts have locked us into 20 years of escalating gambling harm. This government should be seriously considering buyback schemes, which have been successful in other jurisdictions and which allow gaming venues to hand back their pokie machines and be bought out of their licences by the government. It is a model that empowers venues to move to new sources of revenue and to stand up to the predatory gaming industry by saying, ‘Enough is enough’. It is extremely disappointing that the government will not even entertain this as an option. Perhaps it is because the budget is too reliant on the billions they receive in gambling tax and the government is too scared to find replacement revenue to ever take any serious steps towards reducing gambling spending, or maybe they are just too close to the gambling industry. The over $750 000 donation Labor received from the Australian Hotels Association in 2018 is clearly still buying special treatment. Perhaps it is because they are afraid of a negative campaign from the hotels association. We have seen the AHA default to a scare campaign the second they feel threatened by the prospect of gambling reform. Four years ago in Tasmania a similar campaign against Tasmanian Labor saw the Liberals retain government.

While it is extremely strange to be describing a Liberal government as an exemplar in gambling reform, that is exactly what I am about to do. Just last week Tasmania announced that it will be the first jurisdiction in all of Australia to introduce mandatory precommitment at all pokies venues in the state. The Tasmanian scheme will apply from December 2024—a full year before the Victorian one is implemented. The scheme will use a cashless card which will have a preset loss limit of $100 per day, $500 per month and $5000 per year. These can be lowered by players at any time. The new cashless card and precommitment system were recommended by the Tasmanian gambling regulator, who considered and dismissed facial recognition as a harm minimisation measure and strongly recommended mandatory precommitment as the best solution. To their credit, the Liberal government accepted these recommendations and have immediately moved to implement them. Unsurprisingly the Tasmania Hospitality Association labelled the move ‘Orwellian’ and ‘a slap in the face’, but the Liberal government appears to be standing firm, with the Deputy Premier, Michael Ferguson, saying:

I do expect a bit of noise around this issue, but we’re very committed to this. It will be a model for the rest of the country to follow.

Right now this government has the opportunity to do exactly the same. There is a real opportunity with this bill to go further and introduce world-first harm minimisation measures by mandating precommitment on all pokies in the state. The Greens have prepared amendments to extend the precommitment scheme in the bill to every gaming venue in the state, and I am happy for those amendments to be circulated now, please.

Greens amendments circulated by Dr RATNAM pursuant to standing orders.

Dr RATNAM: Our amendments would ensure that precommitment was mandatory on every single gaming machine in the state, not just those at the casino. If this government is prepared to acknowledge that a precommitment scheme would reduce gambling harm and that it is possible to implement one on gaming machines, then there is no rational reason why this should only be the case in one gaming venue in the state, the casino. This is a test for this government. Are they willing to put the people of Victoria first, do the right thing and take the opportunity right now in this bill, or will they cave in once again, defer to their mates in the gambling and hotel industries and only go halfway on harm minimisation?

Mr HAYES (Southern Metropolitan) (11:36): Sustainable Australia will support this legislation. Unfortunately Victoria is a state with a growing reputation for corruption, and here we are debating this bill today because of the Crown Casino fiasco, a corruption scandal which is up there with the biggest in the history of this state. An inestimable amount of harm has been done to the community as a result of what has happened at this casino and with gambling in general in this state, and the government, as in many of these matters, only acted when the evidence was impossible to ignore.

I commend the Age and its investigations that blew wide open the corruption and impropriety that many insiders had known about for years, as well as the whistleblowers, those insiders who are to be especially commended as they let some sunlight into the dark corners of this state. Some of these whistleblowers were actually inspectors at the casino; they were employees of this government. They tried to do the right thing through the proper channels, but they could not get anywhere. Then they approached federal independent MP Andrew Wilkie, and that is the way these government employees were able to do something about the rampant, open corruption at Crown Casino—by approaching a corruption-fighting federal MP, because their own state government had let them down and let all Victorians down.

I remember reading that the nickname for the casino given by some in the police force was Vatican City, being a state within a state. In the state of Victoria it is illegal to smoke inside hospitality venues, but not at the casino. It has got different rules to the state of Victoria, and there are still rooms in the casino where smoking is legal. At last this bill does something about that, so that is good, along with many of the measures in this legislation. It is also illegal to launder money in the state of Victoria, but plenty of that went on at the casino, and the warnings were all there. Good people trying to do the right thing were ignored. Many things illegal in the state of Victoria were okay at Crown Casino. But the truth always comes out, and it has done so here. The truth only adds to Victoria’s growing reputation for corruption, so any improvement in preventing money laundering at the casino, as proposed in this bill, however belated, is to be welcomed. But let us be clear: this is another mess this government has a large but not sole responsibility for causing. The Liberal-National party governments in part are also to blame.

If you do a search on the Age website under the heading ‘Crown Unmasked’, there is revealed a whole raft of stories about the problems at Crown Casino. I will read the headlines of each story from the Age website:

Gangsters, gamblers and Crown casino: How it all went wrong

Crown’s unsavoury business links: how Australia’s casino got tied up with criminals

Crown’s $80 million fine should be just the start

Crown ignored AFP warning on junket partners

Crown under fire for letting gamblers play pokies for 18 hours straight

Crown ‘lied’ to watchdog investigation into China arrests

The Crown casino royal commission is long overdue, and the Andrews government a laggard

Allow me to quote once again Annika Smethurst in the Age on 27 October 2021. She said:

For an administration renowned for its rigidity and tough punishments, the Andrews government has offered rare clemency to Crown casino in allowing it to keep its gaming licence despite being told it was unsuitable to operate.

The offer of clemency—‘rare clemency’, as identified by Annika Smethurst—to the so-called Vatican City is sadly not a surprise. This government for too long has been too close to the big end of town—big construction, big property, big unions, big business and big gambling—and the government allowed big gambling to operate from its own little city-state there on Southbank, seemingly immune from many laws that most other Victorians are subject to. Yes, organised crime was allowed to operate there with immunity, and such crime has had a tremendous negative impact on individuals, families and the society. To deal with drug addiction the government’s main strategy is going after drug dealers. But there was Crown Casino operating as a wonderful place to clean the dealers’ money.

While this bill tightens up controls over money laundering at the casino, I remain doubtful about the government’s commitment to tackling money laundering on an even wider basis. Money laundering in Australian property is of an enormous scale. I have introduced notices of motion in this place to ask the state government to lobby Canberra on the implementation of longstanding international agreements to prevent money laundering in real estate, but the previous federal government did nothing about this, nor were they asked to by the Andrews government here in Melbourne, which of course raises a lot of money from property transactions. Gambling and property—the government does not seem concerned whether the money to purchase real estate was raised legally or illegally. Action on money laundering at the casino as well as in the property sector is much needed in this state. We see in this bill improved measures around harm reduction. The mandatory precommitment is a plus but it is not on a wide enough scale. The government turned a blind eye to this issue for many years. Once again, as the Age headline sums up perfectly:

‘The deceit, the crime, the destroyed lives’: How Australia lost its gamble on casinos

The crime and deceit I have discussed; the destroyed lives are something that is a stain on the history of this state. The damage done from addiction to gambling is enormous.

I welcome the measures in this bill that go to addressing the harms caused by gambling at Crown Casino, and while I support this bill it is easy to be sceptical about its motive forces. ‘I am sorry because I was caught’ seems to be the overall theme in reply. Well, let me conclude by quoting the Age once again: ‘Victorians have a right to be sceptical’ over Crown. Crown’s behaviour has been egregious, but so too has been the failure of successive state governments to ensure adequate powers and resources for regulators. Let us hope the future is different, and to that I say, ‘Hear, hear’.

So I will support this legislation, hopefully with some amendments, although really it is only scratching the surface. We should be taking full note of what is happening in Tasmania in regard to this and in New South Wales—surprise, surprise, of all places—where they look like they are taking some tough action at last.

Mr QUILTY (Northern Victoria) (11:43): I will be brief. Crown Casino has behaved badly, as casinos have a bad habit of doing, which is why we have a government watchdog to oversee its operation. With competent oversight, Crown would have been forced to behave properly. But this bill does not address that. There are two main parts to this bill. The first aims to limit gambling activity in order to protect Victorians from themselves. Because there are a small number of problem gamblers, the bill aims to impose limits on us all. This becomes a burden for the many people who do not have any problem with gambling and who manage themselves responsibly. We all take risks in our lives, and it is up to us to make choices about which risks are worth taking and which ones are not. Problem gamblers already have options to exclude themselves and to seek treatment. All Victorians should not be treated as if they have a problem. The Liberal Democrats have a vision for Victoria where all Victorians are treated as adults with agency to make their own decisions. We should be reducing nanny state intrusions that aim to protect us from ourselves, not increasing them.

The second set of changes is to make it easier for the government to catch criminals by controlling and restricting the casino. Mainly the government wants to catch criminals by controlling everyone’s money. If a state knows everyone’s income and tracks everyone’s expenses, they can figure out when someone is making money from an undeclared and possibly illegal source. This detailed and pervasive surveillance is seen as necessary to allow the government to levy taxes, but the fact that a tool is effective does not automatically mean it is justified. Prevention and detection of money laundering are law enforcement tools that are forced on civil society to help government collect its revenues. As a principle we should not be forced to give up anonymity in our purchases and earnings just to help the government enforce the law.

In a broader sense the reason we have this legislation before us is because of government failure: firstly, the failure of the casino regulator to do what it was designed to do, and secondly, the failure of government drug policy. It is no secret that the most profitable criminal activity is selling illicit drugs. The reason it is so profitable is because of the war on drugs that shuts out legal competition, and casinos are used to launder the drug money. We do not support organised crime, but the solution is to change the drug laws and remove the profits from organised crime. That would end money laundering at casinos far more effectively than this bill will.

Victorians are not children who need to have their choices controlled by the government. We should be treated as adults and allowed to make our own decisions. That includes choosing to gamble. If Crown breaks the law, they should lose their licence—that would impose real costs—but this government is too close to Crown to do that. The Liberal Democrats will not support this bill.

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (11:46): I would like to briefly speak on the Casino Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Implementation and Other Matters) Bill 2022. I think, as we have heard from some of my colleagues here today, it is quite pleasing to come to the end of this term with some positive work done in this area. This bill acquits most of the recommendations of the Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and Licence. Many of you will recall that I raised the matter of Crown Casino as a matter of public importance in this chamber. It was knocked out at the time, but I feel like I was absolutely vindicated by what happened after. Certainly I would like to commend, while I am on my feet, Mr Andrew Wilkie in the federal Parliament for the tireless work that he has done on exposing the criminal elements of not just Crown Casino but also, as we are seeing play out, Star casino in New South Wales.

Among other things, this bill will strengthen anti-money-laundering measures and implement mandatory precommitment and other gambling harm minimisation measures at the casino, and these are important reforms. I know most of us have walked through the casino at some time; while many people might be enjoying themselves, we see many people who are not. Certainly, as the chair of the criminal justice inquiry—and even looking at the other justice inquiries that we have done over this term, be that spent convictions or even the impact of parental incarceration on children—we have seen the thread of gambling that weaves its damaging and life-destroying path through so many people’s lives, that leads them into our criminal justice system, that creates circumstances of family violence at home and that leads, ultimately and tragically, to loss of life.

These are important changes, but I think sadly there is also a missed opportunity. As the Alliance for Gambling Reform have indicated—and I know others have referred to the alliance—while they are glad to see the government make every effort to legislate and meet the recommendations of the Crown royal commission before the election, it is absolutely critical that the government commit to mandatory precommitment on all poker machines statewide, not just at the casino. It troubles me that on one hand we are acknowledging the harms—and we are acknowledging them by accepting the recommendations of the royal commission and by putting forward this legislation today—but we are failing to recognise that the vast majority of poker machine gambling is not happening at the casino. In fact only 10 per cent of pokies are located at the casino. The rest are in our electorates. The rest are in some of the most disadvantaged areas of our electorates, and I know Dr Ratnam and I in Northern Metropolitan carry a fair proportion of those poker machines in some of the poorest pockets of our electorate.

Mandatory precommitment has the ability to reduce gambling harm by ensuring people set time and monetary limits and stick to them. The bill also ensures identity measures that will also prevent money laundering. If this happens at the casino but not at other poker machine venues, well, it is a bit of a whack-a-mole project, isn’t it. We may reduce this harm and we may reduce this happening at the casino, but it means that we may be seeing that crime and that harm relocated to our pubs and clubs in our communities. And, as we say, we know that gambling harm is not isolated to the casinos.

Victoria just experienced the highest losses ever recorded in one month, in July 2022. That was $270 million in our pubs and clubs. That is how much money went through our poker machines. Certainly it is why this is not the first time that I have stood up and spoken about this. I have certainly put up amendments in this area, not just in this term but in the last term. It is why Reason has a longstanding policy to reduce the negative impacts of poker machines and promote responsible gambling—doing simple things like making the maximum bet per spin $1, reducing maximum daily trading hours at poker machine venues and the density of poker machines per electorate, making transparent the lobbying activities of pokie providers and their influence on government and engaging in long-term planning to try and decouple the government from poker machine revenue. I know it is not easy, but some of these actually are quite simple and are tools and measures that our communities have been crying out for, particularly those that have experienced firsthand, as many of us have, the harms of gambling addiction. This is the way we save lives and reduce the significant harm associated with gambling, which, as I mentioned earlier, includes mental health, includes suicide, includes family violence and includes the incarceration of many of our citizens.

Having made these points it is not surprising that I will be supporting Dr Ratnam’s amendments here. It may be more surprising that I will also be supporting Dr Cumming’s amendments here today, but for the same reasons that I spoke about last year in December I will not be supporting Mr Davis’s.

Ms PULFORD (Western Victoria—Minister for Employment, Minister for Innovation, Medical Research and the Digital Economy, Minister for Small Business, Minister for Resources) (11:53): I thank all members for their contributions on the debate on this bill today. I would acknowledge members’ concerns expressed through the debate about the harm of gambling addiction and in doing so bring members’ attention to the Rethink Addiction national convention held last week in Canberra—a really, really important discussion around addiction in all its forms, including gambling addiction. I, like many people in this place, many people in the community, have friends and family members who have lost just about everything to gambling addiction. Again, I would restate our government’s commitment to minimising harm wherever we can.

This bill marks the second major tranche of legislation to acquit the recommendations in the Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and Licence. I know a number of the comments that people have made through the debate go broader than that and beyond that, but that is the purpose of the bill today. What it will do is implement Australia’s strongest harm minimisation and anti-money-laundering measures at Crown Melbourne. The government has already acquitted 12 recommendations from that royal commission. There are 12 that are acquitted by the measures contained in the bill before the house.

Just if I could make a couple of quick remarks in response to some of the amendments that will be considered in the committee stage when we are on the other side of question time and possibly the other side of lunch, the opposition is proposing an amendment which would require the tabling in Parliament of the special manager’s reports to government. The special manager was established to oversee and report on Crown’s reform program to the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission, the independent regulator. These reports will inform the VGCCC’s final decision on whether Crown has returned to suitability to hold the Victorian casino licence. The government will be opposing the opposition’s amendment on the basis that we believe it would fundamentally undermine the important work of the special manager and compromise the independence of the regulator in its decision-making. The publication of the full reports would provide a running evaluation of Crown’s suitability and give rise to legal challenges, as they contain commercially sensitive and legally privileged information. This would effectively provide Crown with a right of reply and procedural fairness, which is something we have explicitly removed through earlier legislation. Whilst the amendment is well intentioned and seeks to improve transparency, this does need to be managed properly. The stakes are very high in implementing fully the recommendations from the royal commission. We have asked the special manager to publish six-monthly activity reports. The most recent was published in July, and it is available online.

I would take the opportunity to reiterate the government’s commitment given in December last year that we will publish the special manager’s full final and interim reports, subject to the public interest requirements of the Gambling Regulation Act 2003, within six months of any decision by the regulator on Crown’s suitability to hold the licence. The full reports will be published at the right time, and that will be after the VGCCC has decided if Crown’s licence should be cancelled.

The Greens have proposed an amendment. Dr Ratnam has foreshadowed an amendment that attempts to expand the bill’s requirement for mandatory precommitment on all pokies at the casino to all pokies across Victoria. We will not be supporting this amendment. We will be opposing it on the basis that we believe it is not necessary and it is also unworkable. It goes beyond the scope of this bill, which is about our royal commission into Crown and our response to it. Gaming venues like community clubs and RSLs do present a fundamentally different operating environment to the casino. They run smaller operations, they have a greater ability for staff supervision and typically their use of large sums of cash is less common. We do not believe that the controls at Crown necessarily can be assumed to be the right controls everywhere. The amendment would also fail in its aim to implement a statewide mandatory precommitment scheme, because what the amendment would do is require players to have an account with YourPlay, which is the existing voluntary precommitment scheme. It would not actually require YourPlay to be used at the machine. Again, I understand the objective of the exercise here, but we do not believe the amendment is the right way to achieve this.

In my one remaining minute, Dr Cumming’s amendment, if I could respond to that, has proposed a similar amendment to the Greens, which is about expanding mandatory precommitment. Our reasons for opposing that are the same as those that I have outlined in responding to Dr Ratnam’s, and we can talk about all of this at more length in committee.

Just to conclude, we are committed to implementing every single one of the royal commission’s 33 recommendations. Subject to the passage of the bill, 24 of those recommendations will have been responded to within 12 months of receiving the report. There are a remaining nine recommendations that will be acquitted through a combination of administrative mechanisms, such as directions of the VGCCC or the minister, and will be further legislated within the next 12 months. I commend the bill to the house.

Motion agreed to.

Read second time.

Business interrupted pursuant to order of Council earlier this day.