The proposal by the Minister for Sport, Wayne Berry, to change the ACT TAB from its present status as a Territory-owned corporation to a statutory authority seems without rhyme nor reason. He has stated it will make the body more accountable, but it is already accountable through the Territory-owned corporations legislation which gives the Chief Minister and relevant Minister one share each, the only shares. That status should be enough to ensure accountability.
Mr Berry has said it is ALP policy to bring some corporations under government control. If so, its application to the TAB a bad policy. Mr Berry surely cannot argue that the TAB will run more efficiently or profitably as a statutory authority. In its outing as a corporatisation it has performed exceptionally well, especially in the past year. In the past year its turnover went up 2.6 per cent and in the six months to December 31 it went up 7 per cent on the same period the previous years. Clearly the TAB is on a winning streak, and it would be dumb to change owners or trainers now. These are impressive figures in a recession, and they were made against stiff competition for the gambling dollar with the opening of the casino. It is inconceivable that bringing the TAB under more direct government control could improve this, the more so if it came under Mr Berry’s control. Mr Berry has not had an outstanding success in dealing with financial matters, as his form in hospital administration bears out.
One could only therefore speculate as to Mr Berry’s real motives. As a corporation, appointments to the board and the executive must be made on business merit. As a statutory authority Mr Berry would have a wider class of people to chose from _ namely anyone. Once before, Mr Berry made an appointment to a body that caused considerable unease among the professionals involved. That was an appointment to the Pharmacy Board. With that track record, people in the racing industry are rightly fearful of appointments Mr Berry might make to a TAB constituted as a statutory authority.
The TAB provides some important community functions. It provides an organised, fair and clean way for people to gamble on races. Without it, illegal betting would be rife. Indeed, even with it there is some illegal race gambling. As a clean and open form of gambling it provides fairer returns to punters (84 per cent). At the same time it enables the gathering of money for general revenue, money to administer the TAB as a self-funding organisation and money to support the racing industry, which in turn employs some 440 people full-time and more part-time.
If the ACT TAB is not run along efficient, business-like lines, the people of the ACT will be sore losers. Last financial year its turnover was $86 million. Of that, $5.5 million went to the ACT Government and $3.6 million to the racing industry. If the ACT TAB is not run properly, in the long term these sums will fall. Money will go to interstate TABs and to other forms of gambling, some of it interstate. This is truer in the 1990s than ever before. The mobility of money and the use of telephone accounts using 008 numbers make the taking of the ACT dollar interstate very easy.
Every resident of the ACT, whether interested in racing and gambling or not, has an interest in the efficient running of the ACT TAB. It must be in a position to respond quickly to competitive pressures. It can do this far more effectively as a corporation than under the dead-hand of ministerial control and public-service procedures.
Mr Berry should keep his hands off the TAB. It is not broke, so it should not be fixed. Moreover, there is much else that is broke in Mr Berry’s other departments where his energies would be better spent.
Fortunately, Mr Berry’s proposals require legislation and cannot be done by ministerial edict alone. The three Independents with the Liberal Party would do well to knock Mr Berry’s ideologically driven folly on the head.