Kim O’KEEFFE (Shepparton) (18:37): Today I rise to make a contribution to the Gambling Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. I think everyone in this place agrees that we need to do more when it comes to gambling harm and supporting people with addiction. There have been many stories shared in this place, and I myself have shared a couple of incidents. When you go through these bills, I think a lot of those times come back when you have had those really challenging times within a community or a family or with a friend.
Definitely there is so much more to be done, but we also need to make sure we are supporting not only people with gambling addiction but also the venues and the clubs that do such great work within our communities. Just this week I had a great email from one of our local clubs. They are putting on a community event. Every single month they have some event, but for this one in particular they identified the need to support some very vulnerable people in our community. It is that connection that we all need to stop and think about. These clubs do great work, they are businesses, but we need to have really great legislation that supports them as well.
Some of the changes included in the bill are to update and consolidate the process of monitoring gambling licences in order to ensure relatively similar requirements and processes. There are some major changes and concerns with this bill, in particular the concern about another tax grab. I think today, with what we have experienced on the steps of Parliament, the ongoing distress of increasing taxes is continuing, and the introduction of another tax, snuck in through this bill, is just another impost on people of Victoria. It is distressing. I think if many of the people in this chamber, particularly from the other side of the house, had come out onto the steps of Parliament today and listened to some of those people, our farmers, our CFA volunteers, members of the Victorian community, business communities that are so impacted by this new tax – when we stand in this place we have a sense of responsibility, and today I did not see that responsibility. I saw it from this side of the house, going out to the steps, listening and really taking note of what is impacting Victorians and what is impacting our farmers, our CFA volunteers, our businesses, as I said.
When do we get to a point where we can actually all agree on some things? I think today should have been one of those times. This tax that has been imposed on our volunteers, our farmers and our communities is just wrong. If you were not out there today – which I know the other side were not – watch the news, watch the coverage and listen to the people that have been impacted. Listen to their voices, because that is all they want.
Here in this place, as I said, this is just another tax. Whilst we want good legislation, we do not want to see an impost on people and on businesses. As the member for Ovens Valley mentioned, it is expected that the cost of the premium will be passed on by monitoring companies to the venues, creating a situation where it results in a substantial impact on operational costs, particularly in smaller towns across rural and regional Victoria. A lot of these businesses, like the ones I was chatting to you about before, are small venues. They are not multimillion-dollar businesses, so imposing another tax – a new tax from Labor – does impact on their bottom line. Uncertainty about the premium and the term of the licence payment and concern for the industry as a whole does have an impact. Whilst the government claim the premium will be market driven, there is no clear guarantee that this will be the case, and nor will they put a figure on the licence term. The minister claims that the addition of a premium payment will extract better value for the monitoring licence, as he mentioned in his second reading. However, it is clearly defined in clause 7 of the bill as a new tax. We are seeing time and time again these sneaky hidden taxes that this government keeps throwing at Victorians. Just today, as I mentioned on the steps, thousands and thousands of people coming out to protest against tax was something that should hit home to everyone in this place, and we need to do better. The impact of increasing taxes and the cost of living is significant across the state of Victoria.
Today we had the budget – another budget that did not help regional Victorians. We keep ripping the heart out of regional communities with increasing taxes, and the budget is no different. In fact in the budget today there was a further 17 per cent decrease in regional development, and agriculture funding was cut by almost 13 per cent. It is just relentless the way this government is turning its back on the regions. And here we are today with another tax.
Coming back to the bill, as noted, the feedback from stakeholders has been supportive of some of the changes, but there are great concerns about the uncertainty of the new tax and associated costs. We are supportive, as I said, of our local clubs. As the member for Murray Plains raised, these clubs provide a critical service to the community. The member for Murray Plains had a few examples of that, and I have shared some as well. As we mentioned, many of them are smaller venues. Many of my local clubs are very supportive of the local community, and they are also aware of gambling harm and making sure that they do things in a responsible manner.
This bill makes some amendments to the monitoring licence framework. The bill also makes amendments to Victoria’s public lottery licensing framework in preparation for the expiry of the current licence in 2028. There are also some minor and non-controversial technical amendments the bill seeks to make, including the proposed phasing out of the use of cheques from the Australian financial system. The bill amends payment of winnings provisions for gaming venue operators, casino operators and bingo centre operations to ensure that payment by electronic funds transfer is always a permitted alternative to payment by cheque. We do know that some people do not know how to do that quite yet, so we will have to work that one out.
The bill will give the state the power to issue a long-term extension of a public lottery licence and will modernise the licensing process in order to make it consistent with the licensing processes for the other major gambling licensees. The bill does include amendments to clarify the functions of the independent review panel that reviews and reports on the licensing processes undertaken by the government. The changes made through the bill will seek to align the panel’s process with modernised gambling licensing processes and simplify the process for the minister to refer matters to the panel for review.
The bill will reduce barriers to voluntary exclusion at the Melbourne casino by ensuring the Melbourne casino operator is required to issue an exclusion order on request by a person and removing unnecessary administrative requirements for it to be witnessed. An exclusion order prohibits a person from entering or remaining on casino premises. Under the amendments, it is an offence if a casino operator does not issue an exclusion order to a person upon voluntary application by the person. This is a change from the current provision, which affords the casino operator discretion in deciding whether to issue an exclusion order upon request or not. Self-exclusion is an important mechanism to address gambling harm. The purpose of clause 71 is to strengthen the regulatory framework for voluntary exclusion orders. Whilst the government is not aware of any situation where the casino operator has refused or would refuse to issue an exclusion order upon request, this change will close a potential loophole.
We would hope in these circumstances that assistance would also be provided to seek help if needed. You would think that should a patron have to exclude themselves that they must be in a very vulnerable position and would hope that help would be provided.
Some other minor amendments the bill seeks to make include enabling the continued operation of precommitment at Crown Casino in Melbourne. The amendments the bill seeks to make will enable Crown to securely keep a temporary database of precommitment information and players’ last known limits in order to ensure the effective operation of the precommitment functions, unless communication with the statewide system is re-established.
As we know, the YourPlay technology is outdated and unreliable, and it is in effect posing unnecessary barriers for patrons, particularly compared to the more sophisticated system that is used at Crown, which uses picture-in-picture graphics to guide players. This is forcing community clubs to have to adopt a less sophisticated system and creating a two-tiered approach that unfairly disadvantages small and not-for-profit venues. In addition to all of this, compelling patrons to track their recreational activities raises significant privacy concerns and risks alienating casual players who just want to enjoy local, affordable and legal entertainment. I think, on that note, when we talk about people coming in to use a venue, particularly when it comes to social connection, many people do not get to connect to community, and sometimes heading out to a club or a venue is their way of coming together. I think it is really important that we think about that.
Getting back to people, I know the member for Eureka has shared her story, and those of others, in this place many, many times about the impact on communities when we do not have the correct mechanisms to support people that are going through challenging times with their addiction and gambling harm. One of my closest friends – I have raised it in this place – lost his house and his job. He lost everything. He was being very clever, and often you find people with gambling harm do cover it well. How do we actually help in those circumstances? We had a staff member many years ago – I have raised this in this place – a young girl, a casual girl, and we knew there was money missing, but we did not think it was her. That is quite awful at times. You are sitting in your workplace – this was my husband’s business – and thinking it is perhaps this person taking money. We ended up finding out it was the young girl. You try and support someone, but they have taken tens of thousands of dollars through your business. You want to help. It is all very well to call in the police and do things that you think should be in place when it is really a crime, but more than that we wanted to support this person and make sure that, for her future, she could have the help in place that she needed. She was a young mum, she was a casual worker and she had an addiction. So in that place, we need to do better.