The Star: June 03, 2021

The Star Thursday June 3 2021
14
NEWS
Dog barking
program saves
council time
• By Devon Bolger
THE CITY council is spending
$40,000 to analyse dog barks.
In February, the council began
using a programme that can
analyse the audio taken from bark
recording devices to determine if
it is loud enough and long enough
to take action.
The devices have been used for
10 years, recording the extent of
the barking when a complaint has
been made.
In the past 12 months, the
council has received 2384
complaints about dogs barking.
An Official Information
Act request revealed $29,880
has been spent on the project
to automatically analyse the
recordings to date.
Another $5000 is expected to be
spent for it “to get to production”
and a web page will be set up,
bringing the total expected cost to
$40,000.
The costs includes staff salaries,
while the council says the non-staff
costs are very minor.
In its OIA response, the city
council says the project is expected
to save 240 hours a month of staff
physically listening to the audio
files.
—NZ Herald
Casino in spotlight over pokie
donations to community
• By Matt Slaughter
NOT ENOUGH of Christchurch
Casino’s profit is going to charity.
That is the view expressed in
the city council’s draft submission
to the Gambling Commission.
The commission is reviewing
the charitable trust licence
conditions of the country’s six
casinos - in Christchurch, Auckland,
Hamilton, Dunedin and
Queenstown.
But Christchurch Casino
chief executive Brett Anderson
said it exceeds its charity
donation requirements, while
still achieving its main goal of
running a business.
The city council submission
questions the amount of money
from each of Christchurch
Casino’s 454 machines, $390,000
in total, which went to the
community in 2020.
Last year $859 from each
machine was donated,
compared to $20,000 from each
Christchurch non-casino pokie
machine in the 2019-20 financial
year, $26.4 million in total.
Anderson said the most up-todate
figure of casino donations is
actually $407,000.
Christchurch Casino is
required to pay its charitable
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz
trust at least 2.5 per cent of
its annual profit or $250,000,
whichever was greater. On top
of this, it pays an additional
minimum of $100,000 in
charitable payments at its own
discretion. Non-casino gaming
machine operators are required
to provide at least 40 per cent of
the profits as community grants.
Said the city council’s draft
submission: “The council believes
that neither the current
donations required, nor those
actually provided, provide
credible social license for CCL
(Christchurch Casino Ltd) to
operate in our city.
“Donations to the casino’s
charitable trust seem small,
especially when compared to the
requirements placed on other
forms of gambling.”
Anderson said it is unfair to
compare donation requirements
for the casino, which has many
purposes other than gambling,
to TABs, where the main purpose
is gambling.
“Casinos are a legitimate
business and they were not set
up to, I suppose, provide funds
to charities or to the community,
they were set up for the economy,
tourism, to create jobs, different
factors and be a thriving
business.
“We contribute a lot more than
what we’re, legally, under our
license conditions, committed to
contribute.
“We have a far-reaching
community reach. Yes, it’s not
as high as your pubs, clubs and
sports venues [and] not as high
as Lotto or anything else, but in
terms of our business, I think the
key word is that it is a business.”
The submission recommends
the amount of money won at New
Zealand casinos should be used
to determine the amount each
contributes to its charitable trust.
This would mean casinos
where wins happen more often
would give more to charity and
vice versa.
Anderson said Christchurch
Casino’s profits already have
an influence on how much it
donates to the community.
City councillors are set to
decide whether to approve the
draft submission at
today’s meeting.