The Government has been accused of undermining community sport with its plans for online casinos.
It's is preparing to licence up to 15 online casinos as it regulates online gambling for the first time.
The online operators won't need to give returns to sporting clubs or other community groups, like is required of other licensed gambling, like Lotto, TAB, and pokies.
The leaders of the country’s 33 biggest sports are warning it puts grassroots sports at risk.
Cycling NZ Chair Martin Snedden joined Jason Pine to unpack the plans and the impact it will have on community sport.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Vine
from Newstalk zb.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
But.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
To kick off this our thirty five of New Zealand's
biggest sports codes, representing around six and a half thousand
sports clubs and more than one point six seven million
participants across the country, have united to oppose proposed new
gambling legislation that they say could threaten the very future
of grassroots sport. The government is considering a bill to
(00:35):
regulate online casinos and license up to fifteen of those
to operate here in New Zealand. But unlike other licensed
gambling such as Latto the tab Pokey machines, they don't
plan to make those online casino operators give anything back
to local communities. On top of that, there are affairs
(00:57):
that once online casinos are legal and marketed, they'll eat
into the market share of pokeys without replacing the one
hundred and seventy men million dollars a revenue that goes
back to sport from those machines every year. One of
our foremost sporting administrators and former international cricketer Martin Snedden,
(01:17):
is leading the call for re examination of the bill
and he joins us now, Martin, thanks for your time.
Ever since gambling has been legal in New Zealand, all
political parties have honored the principle that a share of
gambling revenues must go to communities, including community sport. In fact,
the Gambling Act of two thousand and three enshrines that principle.
(01:38):
Pokey trusts have to give forty percent of their annual
revenues to communities. Lotto and the tab have similar obligations.
How has this obligation been missed in the original drafting
of the online Casino Gambling Bill?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Half nn Jason, I think your introduction a lot of
the points that I would make, but I don't understand
how they've missed it other than I think what's happened
that the Department of Internal Affairs, in preparing analysis to
provide to their minister. The Minister of Internal Affairs, Brook
(02:16):
van Falden, has failed to place significant emphasis or a
spotlight on this in order to make sure that she
and then as a consequence a cabinet has been properly
informed about the risk to community funding, including sport funding.
And we should always remember that in what the pokies
(02:37):
do is that sport gets a lot of funding, as
you said, one hundred and seventy odd million a year
at the moment, but the same amount goes to non
sporting communities who are operating at the front line, who
are struggling in many cases to hang on there and
provide those services. So it's a huge omission, and it
(02:57):
is I guess I would describe it as a breach
if it went through as it is at the moment,
it's a breach of a social contract that successive governments
have had with New Zealanders over the last fifty years,
where consistently over that time the conversation about legalization of
(03:19):
gambling has been coupled with a tradeoff, or a few
trade offs, but in particular one that has seen proceeds
from gambling being allotted to community including sport. And now,
for the first time that I'm know of, they're moving
away from this, and they're doing it without having any
real consultation prior to the bill being tabled with the
(03:43):
impacted communities, and that's not great. So once we found
out about this, and it was really by accident that
I stumbled across this a few weeks ago, we've really
had no choice but to start to make public noise
in order to help the Minister sit up and take
notice and realize the full extent of the rest that
this bill was posing to community funding, including sport.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Is this an oversight, Martin or why wouldn't they have
put it in there? It's not deliberate surely that they
wouldn't deny community sport and as you've mentioned, you know,
whider community organizations and arts, culture, etc. They wouldn't deny
them the ability to benefit from gambling as is enshrined
as I say, under the Gambling Act. Is this just
an oversight?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Well, I've read the paper sitting in behind the bill
and it wasn't an oversight insofar as it went to
Department of Internal Affairs through to the Minister of Internal Affairs.
And I think that there was a very brief, pretty
bland reference in it to paper that went to Cabinet.
But I don't think Cabinet was given the benefit of
(04:50):
some proper analysis as to the real risk here, and
that is an oversight. I think what the rationale behind this, Jason,
is that government quite rightly are trying to regulate an
unregulated area with internettional online casino operators. I'm told that
over the last five years they've built up a market
(05:13):
here worth about six hundred million New Zealand a year.
Now quite right, the government saying, well, we want to
get some regulation around that, and so they've set up
a framework to regulate which has tried to entice international
operators to take licenses to operate on a New Zealand platform.
(05:34):
And I guess they've tried to make the offer attractive
because whilst the government itself will take a twelve percent
gaming tax plus GST and a little bit for problem gambling,
I think possibly some of the thinking was that if
they then, on top of that required the international operators
to provide what the class for pokies have to do,
(05:58):
which is additional monies into that could be set aside
for community in sport, and that what might their offers
offer less attractive. Now I'm looking at it and thinking, well,
hold on, we've got international operators who are not based
in New Zealand, will not base themselves in New Zealand.
Once they get a license, will simply enable online platforms
(06:21):
to be accessed by New Zealanders apart from what they
have to pay to the government for tech gaming tax
and GST. They're going to drag all the profits off sure,
and over time community is going to suffer because over
time this is just going to gradually eat into the
(06:42):
moneies that can be derived by the pokies, and as
a direct result of that, the money that then flows
onto community, including sport.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
I can't understand how this has happened. Why would the
government not want it to be exactly the same as
the pokies, exactly the same as lotter, exactly the same
as the tap Well are they worried? I mean it's
of an online casino operator doesn't want to contribute to
the country that it's operating within as a you know,
(07:16):
as a as a give back if you like them tough,
they don't get to operate here. What's the government? Why
wouldn't the government just just say here are the rules.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Well, I agree with you. I think that's what should happen.
And if they say, well that's not economically viable for
us to do it, then fine, go and operate elsewhere.
I don't set up a situation which runs a real
risk of really hurting community, really hurting sports organizations. They're
(07:48):
missing an opportunity here. Now I should caveat this by
saying we're only at the first reading of the bill.
There's now a public process that's going through. Hopefully a
lot of organizations and individuals that are now aware of
it because of the noise we've made over the last
few days, will take the opportunity of putting public submissions
and they have to do it in the coming week
(08:09):
because those finish on the seventeenth of August, and hopefully
once those submissions are and there's a consistent message there
which sends a signal to the Minister of Internal Affairs
that she has to take notice of this, that she
has to rethink this and honor the social contract that
successive governments have had with New Zealanders for fifty years.
(08:31):
And as you said, the Gambling Act is loud and
clear about this, and that should be a principle that
continues through this legislation. So I'm hoping that as a
result of the noise there will be greater realization within government.
I try to imagine, you know, guys like Art Mature,
(08:54):
the ministers for Chris Bishop, the Associate Minister, the Prime
Minister himself, Chris Luxem They love sport, They do not
want surely to allow legislation to go through the risks
this happening, So now's there opportunity because as I said,
I actually don't think they were aware of before the
(09:14):
last week, and I think now that the awareness of
it will be much greater and the realization of the
risk will be much greater. So hopefully what we'll see
is good praises followed and then adjustments made to reflect
this that ultimately will result in protection for community funding
being inserted into this legislation once it becomes final.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
You said hopeful, Martin, do you feel optimistic that that
will be the case once all the facts are made
known to people who maybe weren't aware of them up
until now.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
I can't get a read on this at the moment
because I haven't had or haven't started conversations with the
key decision makers and influences within government. I've now got
a meeting with the Minister of Internal Affairs that'll come
up in about a week and a half, so that'll
be a start to the conversation. But I think there's
a whole lot of ministers that will be sitting up
(10:08):
and thinking about this at the moment, and Mark Mitchell
and Chris Bishop will be too because of their portfolio
responsibilities with sport. Another probably will be Louis Upston, who's
Minister for Disabilities. Now you know it's not just sport
here as I've said it, it's actually a whole range
of organizations, including organizations that look after people with disabilities,
(10:34):
and this funding from class for pokies is essential to
their future financial sustainability. So they can't afford this to
be to be pulled apart by this type of legislation,
which you know, on the face of it, it just
provides no real benefits to New Zealanders. Why set up
(10:55):
a framework that enables international operators not to even base
themselves in New Zealand but actually use New Zealanders to
grow profits for themselves and have a well on effect
which ultimately will hurt organizations that are based in New
Zealand and are looking after people who need help.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Bang on, bang on. So you're obviously advancing meetings and
good to know that that Brook van Velden has agreed
to meet with you, and hopefully some of the others
you've mentioned will also be involved in conversations. What about
you know, your every day member of a sports club, Martin,
our listeners. Is there anything they can do?
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Yeah, they can, you know, if they care about this,
and they they can find the link on I guess
it's the Internal Department of Internal Affairs. I guess if
they google online to see our gambling bill submissions, then
that'll take them straight to a link. And it's a
really simple thing to file a submission. You don't need
(11:55):
to get complicated about this. If someone feels passionate about this,
just get online, fell In, and a few sentences just
I care about this. This shouldn't be out to happen.
Protect community funding going forward. And if they do that,
and they're just going to add into the noise that
hopefully them will be enough that government sit up and
(12:17):
take notice and do something about it.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
I'm glad you stumbled on this by accident, Martin.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yes I might. I mean I'm staggered that it wasn't
really something of major discussion in the public domain, simply
because it is such a departure from what has happened
in the past, and philosophically, you know, it's a major
departure because everyone knows that gambling does cause problems for
(12:47):
a number of people, and you know, it's a bit
like smoking. You wouldn't you wouldn't let it happen. But
in this instance, over the years, there's been discussion and
it's been agreed that one of the trade offs is
that at least the proceeds from gambling are put into
good causes, including community in sport. So that's a principle
(13:10):
that should be continued, and that's what happens. And if
there is a sensible mechanism put in place in our
percentage of the gambling profits is set aside for that purpose,
If the right mechanisms are found for getting it to
the front line of community, including community sport, then that's
(13:31):
a great end result and we will have achieved what
we set out to achieve. If it doesn't happen, if
the bill goes through in its current form and this
omission is not rectified, then the damage to this will
gradually become a weird year after year, and it might
take a while for it to fully be seen and realized.
(13:57):
But it's an avoidable mistake, and people now know this
is on records saying you don't have to do this,
you can get it right now, So take the opportunity,
please and do that. Rather than have it proved to
you and then try and passic around and fix a
(14:18):
mistake that was absolutely avoidable in the first instance.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Good Man Martin, good to have you leading the fight.
Appreciate you updating us. So we'll look forward to seeing
what happens in the next little while as you as
you meet with some of the some of the decision makers,
We'll stay in touch.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Thanks Jason.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
For more from Weekend Sport with Jason Fine. Listen live
to News Talk zed B weekends from midday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Vine
from Newstalk zb.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
But.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
To kick off this our thirty five of New Zealand's
biggest sports codes, representing around six and a half thousand
sports clubs and more than one point six seven million
participants across the country, have united to oppose proposed new
gambling legislation that they say could threaten the very future
of grassroots sport. The government is considering a bill to
(00:35):
regulate online casinos and license up to fifteen of those
to operate here in New Zealand. But unlike other licensed
gambling such as Latto the tab Pokey machines, they don't
plan to make those online casino operators give anything back
to local communities. On top of that, there are affairs
(00:57):
that once online casinos are legal and marketed, they'll eat
into the market share of pokeys without replacing the one
hundred and seventy men million dollars a revenue that goes
back to sport from those machines every year. One of
our foremost sporting administrators and former international cricketer Martin Snedden,
(01:17):
is leading the call for re examination of the bill
and he joins us now, Martin, thanks for your time.
Ever since gambling has been legal in New Zealand, all
political parties have honored the principle that a share of
gambling revenues must go to communities, including community sport. In fact,
the Gambling Act of two thousand and three enshrines that principle.
(01:38):
Pokey trusts have to give forty percent of their annual
revenues to communities. Lotto and the tab have similar obligations.
How has this obligation been missed in the original drafting
of the online Casino Gambling Bill?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Half nn Jason, I think your introduction a lot of
the points that I would make, but I don't understand
how they've missed it other than I think what's happened
that the Department of Internal Affairs, in preparing analysis to
provide to their minister. The Minister of Internal Affairs, Brook
(02:16):
van Falden, has failed to place significant emphasis or a
spotlight on this in order to make sure that she
and then as a consequence a cabinet has been properly
informed about the risk to community funding, including sport funding.
And we should always remember that in what the pokies
(02:37):
do is that sport gets a lot of funding, as
you said, one hundred and seventy odd million a year
at the moment, but the same amount goes to non
sporting communities who are operating at the front line, who
are struggling in many cases to hang on there and
provide those services. So it's a huge omission, and it
(02:57):
is I guess I would describe it as a breach
if it went through as it is at the moment,
it's a breach of a social contract that successive governments
have had with New Zealanders over the last fifty years,
where consistently over that time the conversation about legalization of
(03:19):
gambling has been coupled with a tradeoff, or a few
trade offs, but in particular one that has seen proceeds
from gambling being allotted to community including sport. And now,
for the first time that I'm know of, they're moving
away from this, and they're doing it without having any
real consultation prior to the bill being tabled with the
(03:43):
impacted communities, and that's not great. So once we found
out about this, and it was really by accident that
I stumbled across this a few weeks ago, we've really
had no choice but to start to make public noise
in order to help the Minister sit up and take
notice and realize the full extent of the rest that
this bill was posing to community funding, including sport.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Is this an oversight, Martin or why wouldn't they have
put it in there? It's not deliberate surely that they
wouldn't deny community sport and as you've mentioned, you know,
whider community organizations and arts, culture, etc. They wouldn't deny
them the ability to benefit from gambling as is enshrined
as I say, under the Gambling Act. Is this just
an oversight?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Well, I've read the paper sitting in behind the bill
and it wasn't an oversight insofar as it went to
Department of Internal Affairs through to the Minister of Internal Affairs.
And I think that there was a very brief, pretty
bland reference in it to paper that went to Cabinet.
But I don't think Cabinet was given the benefit of
(04:50):
some proper analysis as to the real risk here, and
that is an oversight. I think what the rationale behind this, Jason,
is that government quite rightly are trying to regulate an
unregulated area with internettional online casino operators. I'm told that
over the last five years they've built up a market
(05:13):
here worth about six hundred million New Zealand a year.
Now quite right, the government saying, well, we want to
get some regulation around that, and so they've set up
a framework to regulate which has tried to entice international
operators to take licenses to operate on a New Zealand platform.
(05:34):
And I guess they've tried to make the offer attractive
because whilst the government itself will take a twelve percent
gaming tax plus GST and a little bit for problem gambling,
I think possibly some of the thinking was that if
they then, on top of that required the international operators
to provide what the class for pokies have to do,
(05:58):
which is additional monies into that could be set aside
for community in sport, and that what might their offers
offer less attractive. Now I'm looking at it and thinking, well,
hold on, we've got international operators who are not based
in New Zealand, will not base themselves in New Zealand.
Once they get a license, will simply enable online platforms
(06:21):
to be accessed by New Zealanders apart from what they
have to pay to the government for tech gaming tax
and GST. They're going to drag all the profits off sure,
and over time community is going to suffer because over
time this is just going to gradually eat into the
(06:42):
moneies that can be derived by the pokies, and as
a direct result of that, the money that then flows
onto community, including sport.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
I can't understand how this has happened. Why would the
government not want it to be exactly the same as
the pokies, exactly the same as lotter, exactly the same
as the tap Well are they worried? I mean it's
of an online casino operator doesn't want to contribute to
the country that it's operating within as a you know,
(07:16):
as a as a give back if you like them tough,
they don't get to operate here. What's the government? Why
wouldn't the government just just say here are the rules.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Well, I agree with you. I think that's what should happen.
And if they say, well that's not economically viable for
us to do it, then fine, go and operate elsewhere.
I don't set up a situation which runs a real
risk of really hurting community, really hurting sports organizations. They're
(07:48):
missing an opportunity here. Now I should caveat this by
saying we're only at the first reading of the bill.
There's now a public process that's going through. Hopefully a
lot of organizations and individuals that are now aware of
it because of the noise we've made over the last
few days, will take the opportunity of putting public submissions
and they have to do it in the coming week
(08:09):
because those finish on the seventeenth of August, and hopefully
once those submissions are and there's a consistent message there
which sends a signal to the Minister of Internal Affairs
that she has to take notice of this, that she
has to rethink this and honor the social contract that
successive governments have had with New Zealanders for fifty years.
(08:31):
And as you said, the Gambling Act is loud and
clear about this, and that should be a principle that
continues through this legislation. So I'm hoping that as a
result of the noise there will be greater realization within government.
I try to imagine, you know, guys like Art Mature,
(08:54):
the ministers for Chris Bishop, the Associate Minister, the Prime
Minister himself, Chris Luxem They love sport, They do not
want surely to allow legislation to go through the risks
this happening, So now's there opportunity because as I said,
I actually don't think they were aware of before the
(09:14):
last week, and I think now that the awareness of
it will be much greater and the realization of the
risk will be much greater. So hopefully what we'll see
is good praises followed and then adjustments made to reflect
this that ultimately will result in protection for community funding
being inserted into this legislation once it becomes final.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
You said hopeful, Martin, do you feel optimistic that that
will be the case once all the facts are made
known to people who maybe weren't aware of them up
until now.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
I can't get a read on this at the moment
because I haven't had or haven't started conversations with the
key decision makers and influences within government. I've now got
a meeting with the Minister of Internal Affairs that'll come
up in about a week and a half, so that'll
be a start to the conversation. But I think there's
a whole lot of ministers that will be sitting up
(10:08):
and thinking about this at the moment, and Mark Mitchell
and Chris Bishop will be too because of their portfolio
responsibilities with sport. Another probably will be Louis Upston, who's
Minister for Disabilities. Now you know it's not just sport
here as I've said it, it's actually a whole range
of organizations, including organizations that look after people with disabilities,
(10:34):
and this funding from class for pokies is essential to
their future financial sustainability. So they can't afford this to
be to be pulled apart by this type of legislation,
which you know, on the face of it, it just
provides no real benefits to New Zealanders. Why set up
(10:55):
a framework that enables international operators not to even base
themselves in New Zealand but actually use New Zealanders to
grow profits for themselves and have a well on effect
which ultimately will hurt organizations that are based in New
Zealand and are looking after people who need help.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Bang on, bang on. So you're obviously advancing meetings and
good to know that that Brook van Velden has agreed
to meet with you, and hopefully some of the others
you've mentioned will also be involved in conversations. What about
you know, your every day member of a sports club, Martin,
our listeners. Is there anything they can do?
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Yeah, they can, you know, if they care about this,
and they they can find the link on I guess
it's the Internal Department of Internal Affairs. I guess if
they google online to see our gambling bill submissions, then
that'll take them straight to a link. And it's a
really simple thing to file a submission. You don't need
(11:55):
to get complicated about this. If someone feels passionate about this,
just get online, fell In, and a few sentences just
I care about this. This shouldn't be out to happen.
Protect community funding going forward. And if they do that,
and they're just going to add into the noise that
hopefully them will be enough that government sit up and
(12:17):
take notice and do something about it.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
I'm glad you stumbled on this by accident, Martin.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yes I might. I mean I'm staggered that it wasn't
really something of major discussion in the public domain, simply
because it is such a departure from what has happened
in the past, and philosophically, you know, it's a major
departure because everyone knows that gambling does cause problems for
(12:47):
a number of people, and you know, it's a bit
like smoking. You wouldn't you wouldn't let it happen. But
in this instance, over the years, there's been discussion and
it's been agreed that one of the trade offs is
that at least the proceeds from gambling are put into
good causes, including community in sport. So that's a principle
(13:10):
that should be continued, and that's what happens. And if
there is a sensible mechanism put in place in our
percentage of the gambling profits is set aside for that purpose,
If the right mechanisms are found for getting it to
the front line of community, including community sport, then that's
(13:31):
a great end result and we will have achieved what
we set out to achieve. If it doesn't happen, if
the bill goes through in its current form and this
omission is not rectified, then the damage to this will
gradually become a weird year after year, and it might
take a while for it to fully be seen and realized.
(13:57):
But it's an avoidable mistake, and people now know this
is on records saying you don't have to do this,
you can get it right now, So take the opportunity,
please and do that. Rather than have it proved to
you and then try and passic around and fix a
(14:18):
mistake that was absolutely avoidable in the first instance.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Good Man Martin, good to have you leading the fight.
Appreciate you updating us. So we'll look forward to seeing
what happens in the next little while as you as
you meet with some of the some of the decision makers,
We'll stay in touch.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Thanks Jason.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
For more from Weekend Sport with Jason Fine. Listen live
to News Talk zed B weekends from midday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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