SunRRA calls for New Review of Brimbank Gambling Policy

Brimbank continues to climb Victoria’s poker machine Biggest Losers list, and our disadvantaged community is now only $1M away from moving into First Place, according to recently-released State government figures.

This outcome flies in the face of the Brumby government’s A Fairer Victoria policy, which aims to reduce disadvantage in less affluent communities like Brimbank. Brimbank City Council’s Gambling Policy remains controversial after a 2005 review by consultants Borderlands Co-Operative was effectively nobbled.

The gambling review was nobbled when it became clear that community views on gambling problems in Brimbank - and what was needed to fix them - did not align with State government objectives. These were to increase its gambling revenue. Gambling venue operators also actively lobbied Brimbank Council.

In SunRRA’s opinion the lack of clear separation in the roles and responsibilities of State MPs, Councillors and council officials continues to affect decision making at Council to the detriment of the local community. Gambling venue operators also appear to have significant influence over Council decisions in this area.

In SunRRA’s opinion, governance at Brimbank City Council remains a worst case example of how elected Councillors and an appointed administration have lost control of decision making. This control has been handed to the ruling political faction (ALP Unity), led by Federal and State government MPs. Gambling policy is but one example of these governance failures and the local community is being put further at risk as its elected representatives blindly pursue political goals .

Background

Brimbank City Council –on the record as being influenced by state and federal government MPs - last reviewed its Gaming Policy in 2005. Borderlands Cooperative was employed to review the impacts of gambling in Brimbank as well as run community consultations, prepare recommendations and produce an Action Plan.

In June 2005 an extensive community consultation process was undertaken but by the end of September 2005 this was killed off by Brimbank Council.

Advice to SunRRA was that the community feedback was at odds with the Bracks government revenue-raising goals, and that Council was listening to the State Government instead of the community. The community message on gambling was not what the politicians wanted to hear.

In reply to questions about the next stage of the consultation process, SunRRA was told Council had terminated the Borderlands contract. Borderlands advised that the consultation process was supposed to involve four phases and that only three were completed at the time Brimbank Council closed it down.

In the last phase –Phase 4 - it was intended to go back to the community in mid August and validate the Borderlands review paper. Any changes to the paper were to be made after this final phase of consultation.

SunRRA was advised that the Council CEO, the Gaming Review working group and council officers said that the recommendations and views set out in the Borderlands report were too radical for our councillors to deal with.

Borderlands were told that Council officials felt they wouldn’t have enough time to educate the Councillors before the election (Nov 05) so they could make decisions reflecting the community’s inputs and suggestions.

SunRRA spoke to a Brimbank Council official on 22/9/05 and was told that Council had taken some of the information from Borderlands review and prepared a “Gaming Directions Review”paper with it. This paper was to be presented to Councillors at the next Council meeting.

In this way the Borderlands Review document was never to see the light of day. Councillors reported to SunRRA they had been initially denied access to the original document.

SunRRA was forced to FOI the Borderlands Reports and in the first instance this was denied. SunRRA appealed and eventually access to the public documents was granted. The fact that SunRRA was forced to FOI community-owned documents, and the fact councillors were being refused access to them, was outrageous. This type of behavior suggests a culture of deceit and subterfuge was alive and well in the corridors of Brimbank Council.

Councillors were briefed on the 22^nd August 2005 that the Borderlands Reports and Recommendations were to be released. Somewhere between this date and the release of the Directions Paper council officers decided –without consultation or a briefing –to substitute the release of the Borderlands Discussion Paper with their own Directions Paper. Out of nowhere Council officers produced 14 Gaming Policy recommendations that ignored the findings from the Borderlands community consultations process.

At the time SunRRA raised serious questions about the BCC Gaming Policy recommendations. Our questions about Council officials' experience in creating social policy have never been answered.

Brimbank City Council paid experienced consultants $20,000 to conduct the gambling policy review, only to fire them and replace their recommendations with those from inexperienced Council officers. Borderlands had previously completed this same process for at least 8 other Melbourne councils.

SunRRA’s submission to the Brimbank Council states Brimbank needs to produce Gaming Policies that are unique, economic, socially and culturally specific to the Brimbank municipality. The current Directions Paper Recommendations do not meet these requirements.

Key Points

Following are points SunRRA believes should also be considered in a new Review of Brimbank’s gaming policy;

• Failure of Process in 2005

A Briefing Note was presented to Councillors on August 22^nd 2005, setting out what Councillors must agree on in regard to the Borderlands Draft Report. This suggests the Councillors were not aware of any plans to bury the report or preparations for a Directions Paper, but thought that the draft report had been prepared and was ready and due for release in 7 days.

Questions that still need to be answered:

• What date was the decision made to cancel the proposed course of action set out in the August 22^nd Briefing and replace it with a new one?

• Who made this decision and what processes were followed in the course of this decision?

• Were the Councilors consulted or were the Councilors given the opportunity to comment or vote on this decision?

• Who indeed was consulted in the decision, set the time line and prepared the Directions Paper?

• Lost Opportunity in 2005

The prepared Briefing Note makes some strong recommendations but ultimately was not implemented as the process was abandoned.

• Under ‘Action Required’the comment is made - “Council needs to consider if a GPAC opportunity will be available to the community”.

• Under ‘Analysis’these statements were made - “Gaming has continued to increase in the municipality and subsequently the economic losses have continued to rise”and “The ongoing social implications of these losses in an area ranked third on the Socio Economic Index For Areas (SEIFA) in Victoria, suggest a different approach is needed to reduce further community harm”.

The Gaming Policy Review Directions Paper’s final recommendations do not reflect these recommendations. The statement about ‘community harm’is not mentioned nor reflected in the Directions Paper. It is totally ignored.

• Failure of Consultation Process in 2005

Another 28 page Borderlands report called the “Community Consultations Report”was prepared and released with the draft review documents. This report contains feedback on the consultation and findings. Some interesting facts regarding the process are;

Eight focus groups were offered but the eighth session did not attract any participants so there were only 7 sessions.

The report goes on to say that flyers summarizing preliminary findings for community feedback “were distributed by Council to various community groups and a copy was posted on the council website.”

This in fact did not occur. Council did not distribute the flyers, only making them available via the website, libraries and council customer service centers. The flyers were not distributed to any groups or previous participants - if you did not have access to the internet nor happen to come across them in the library or customer centre then you would not have known about them.

So you won’t be surprised that only 3 people responded to the flyer, two via email and one via a telephone call to the consultants. It’s not too hard to figure out why. This represents a huge failing on Council’s part to manage this part of the process .

Altogether 62 people participated in the consultation process - a very small number considering the multitude of Brimbank residents and ratepayers who are affected by this policy.

• Distribution of Gaming Venues in Breach of State Legislation

EGM’s are still overwhelmingly located within hotels. As in 1999, this does not reflect the overall State requirement for a 50/50 balance between hotels and clubs, which may well have implications for the proportion of gaming revenue returned to the community.”

The above comment from the Borderlands report indicates Brimbank has failed to address this issue since the Brimbank 1999 Gaming Policy, and continues to breach State Legislation.

Roughly 70% of EGM’s in Brimbank are in hotels and 30% in clubs. This is not currently being addressed.

• Failure to Include all Council Strategies, Plans & Policies in 2005

The following Brimbank Council reports were referred to by Borderlands;

1. Municipal Public Health Plan 2004-2006

2. Access & Equity

3. Youth Action Plan 2002-2005

4. Disability Inclusion Strategy

5. Drug Strategy

6. Volunteer Action Plan

7. Municipal Transport Strategy –Linking Brimbank

8. Community Groups Leases & Lincences

“Due to difficulties in retrieving them from Council’s website, the following could not be included in this literature review, however they will be incorporated into the final analysis for this project;”

• Council Plan 2004-2008

• Brimbank’s Children Plan

• Ageing Well Strategy

Brimbank Council Gaming Review has failed to take the last three Council policies and Strategies into consideration and are not referenced in the Brimbank Gaming Policy 2006-2009.

Borderlands intended to reference these documents during the final stage of consultation but their services were terminated before this could occur.

Council’s website does not seem to be valued highly by officials, as policy and planning documents are often not made available in an ongoing way.

Conclusions

Borderlands review in 2005 concluded that:

“it was evident that many people feel there is insufficient community infrastructure and support”and the key priority areas identified were;

1. Revenue from Gaming

2. Advocacy relating to gambling regulation

3. Land Use

4. EGMs on Council owned land

5. Gaming venue code of practice

6. Municipal response to local EGM applications to VCGR

7. Community collaboration

8. Prevention and remedy for gambling problems

9. Community resilience and well being

10. Public education and awareness

11. Establishment of Working Committee

(Borderlands report 2005)

SunRRA believes there are big gaps in the process undertaken in 2005. We are seeing the results now in the highest losses on record in Brimbank.

SunRRA believes Council caved in under pressure from ALP politicians and gambling venue operators, and chose to just “contain gambling problems”. The Brimbank Gaming Policy Statements are bland, grey and standardized, and mean virtually nothing. They do not take into account the special significance of our disadvantaged area, nor the higher than average risk factors associated with our population. Transport issues are not addressed.

SunRRA is demanding Brimbank Council re-instate the Borderlands review process, and submit the Borderlands recommendations as prepared in 2005 for community consultation and validation.

It is now patently obvious the current Council Gambling Policy is inadequate and not working. Council is now firmly in breach of it’s duty of care by continuing to ignore recognized professional recommendations in favour of non professional and illegitimate Council officials' recommendations. These recommendations are not sourced from the Brimbank community.

SunRRA intends to raise this matter again with the appropriate Federal and State MPs, all political parties, current Councillors and Anti-Gambling lobby groups as it firmly believes that reducing further community harm is far and away the first priority. This issue will be a key one in the next Brimbank Council elections.