Lotto plan may be jeopardised

Press, 25 February 1986, Page 1

Lotto plan may be jeopardised

By

PATRICIA HERBERT

in Wellington

The introduction of Lotto to New Zealand may be jeopardised if the National Opposition chooses to vote against it on party lines.

This is because the Labour caucus decided when it met last week to treat the legislation as a conscience matter.

The bill will be sponsored by the Minister of Recreation and Sport, Mr Moore, in association with the Minister of Internal Affairs, Mr Tapsell. The role of sponsor will come easily to Mr Moore as one of Lotto’s most vehement supporters, but Mr Tapsell, who is involved because it affects his portfolio, is at best lukewarm about the proposal.

In the absence of Mr Moore, now overseas

heading a trade mission to India, Mr Tapsell announced yesterday that the Cabinet had decided in principle that Lotto be introduced and that voting on it would be free. Asked what the level of support was among Government members, he said it would be "fair to say” the majority but not all were in favour.

He said he did not know the numbers in each camp as he had not yet "gone round the traps to see” but he indicated the measure might heed some votes from the Opposition if it was to succeed.

“I expect it will be introduced with support from both sides of the House,” he said. National has yet to declare a policy position on Lotto.

In 1980 and again in

1982, however, it threw out proposals to establish the game because of the damage it might do the racing industry. Mr Tapsell said the legislation would take two months to prepare and that decisions had yet to be taken on a series of organisational questions. Most important of these, he indicated, was who should run Lotto and how. Plans were to have all the options “thoroughly reviewed” by April 1 and to have the bill before the House this year. New Zealand was fortunate in being able to draw on the Australian experience where all “the various sorts of systems” were in place; from Queensland where both the lotteries and Lotto were State-organised to Victoria where both were

run by Tattersalls — a privately owned organisation.

Asked what the New Zealand Government’s preference was, he said this had yet to be set out but there would be resistance to giving overseas companies a piece of the action.

Among Lotto’s strongest advocates is the Sports Foundation. Its chairman, Sir Ronald Scott, estimates it could raise as much as $36 million in the first year — twice the amount from the Golden Kiwi.

Public opinion seems also to be in favour as evidenced by a recent “Herald”-N.R.B. poll which showed 70 per cent support ; '. Leading opponents of the move, apart from the churches, are the racing

interests. Mr Tapsell hinted yesterday that their opposition might be bought off or at least softened if they were given some kind of spinoff.

He suggested, for example, that the Government might use the T.A.B. computer network for Lotto, thereby saving itself money and providing the T.A.B. with a source of revenue.

According to the secre-tary-general and manager of the New Zealand Racing Conference, Mr Haff Poland, this would not compensate for the amount of money the industry would lose to Lotto. He did not, however, reject the idea of a deal along the lines described by Mr Tapsell. ' Mr Tapsell said the main beneficiaries from the game’s introduction

would' be the welfare agencies and those arts, crafts, cultural, recreational and sports groups which stood to get funding from it.

All the evidence suggested Lotto would attract a wave of support when first introduced and that it would continue to command a good following because it would be drawn weekly so people could get the result within days of buying their tickets, he said.

His reservations about the proposal are motivated by social concerns and by the harm it might do racing and the Golden Kiwi. He said yesterday he thought it would have “a quite substantial effect” on both forms of gambling, but that no accurate information was available.