Review of the Registered Clubs Industry in NSW - Clubs NSW

11 Making it easier for clubs to amalgamate
ClubsNSW suggested that the above amendments should go further by making the
transfer of entitlements between amalgamated clubs exempt from forfeiture
requirements in all cases. 218 However, IPART considers that stakeholder concerns
related to the forfeiture scheme have been adequately considered by the review of
the Gaming Machines Act. It also considers that full exemption for amalgamated
clubs from the forfeiture rule would be contrary to the policy of gambling harm
minimisation.
Box 11.3 Social Impact Assessment and Local Impact Assessment
Currently each club premises has an SIA threshold expressed as a number of gaming machine
entitlements. Any transfers of entitlements that would result in this threshold being exceeded
require an SIA. The proposal is to move to the LIA thresholds (expressed as a number of
entitlements per local government area (LGA)) while keeping Class 1 and 2 assessment
categories. There will be ‘bands’ decided (and revised periodically) for each LGA by reference
to gaming machine numbers, expenditure on gaming machines and socio-economic indicators
published by the ABS.
There are a range of conditions for when and what type of LIA is required:
no LIA is required if the transfer is within the same LGA
no LIA is required for transfers into an LGA deemed as Band 1, with a limit that only 20 or
less gaming machine entitlements can be transferred per year
for transfers into LGAs deemed as Band 2, an LIA is required and the type of LIA will be
determined by the decision-maker
for transfers into LGAs deemed as Band 3, a class 2 LIA is required.
This approach would provide more flexibility, as the threshold would effectively change with
the demographics in the LGA, while still ensuring measures for gambling harm minimisation
are in place.
The replacement of the SIA with an LIA is expected to simplify the steps in some areas;
however, there the Class 1 and Class 2 assessment categories would be retained. Stakeholder
concerns mostly relate to the Class 2 assessment, which the proposals in the report on the
review of the Gaming Machines Act will not change significantly. But the change in the
premises-specific SIA threshold to an LGA gaming machine threshold should make it easier to
decide whether a club requires a class 1 or 2 LIA, see Figure 11.1.
Data source: Report on the Five-year Statutory Review of the Gaming Machines Act 2001, pp 21-22.
218 ClubsNSW submission, 4 April 2008, p 28.
192 IPART Review of the Registered Clubs Industry in NSW