Potential reforms to Auckland's alcohol policy seen as setback
Potential reforms to Auckland's alcohol policy seen as a setback.
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RNZ News
3 hours ago
- RNZ News
West Coast council staff kept busy by information requests
File photo. Photo: 123rf Requests for official information are on the rise on the West Coast, including some described as 'vexatious'. A report to Tuesday's Operations Committee meeting shows the West Coast Regional Council handled 39 LGOIMA (Local Government Official Information and Meeting Act) requests in the June quarter. Nine involved the Taylorville Resource Park consent application. A resource consent hearing for the controversial private dump near Greymouth is set down for two days next month. Compliance visits to mining sites; council staff and contractor numbers; Buller plateau mining consents and all records on historic demolition waste also featured in the list of LGOIMA requests. All but two of the requests were processed in the statutory timeframe, the report said. The Ombudsman had contacted the council once over a report the council initially refused to release. The council had revised its decision but due to an 'internal error' still failed to release the report. That had been rectified, and an apology provided for the error, the report said. The majority of requests were granted in full or in part. The council withheld information on some requests involving the Taylorville Resource Park, on the grounds of protecting commercial information, legal privilege, privacy and free and frank expression of views by or to council staff. Chief executive Darryl Lew said the council had to be mindful of the Privacy Act and be meticulous with redactions in its responses. "It is an ever-increasing and concerning amount of time we put into this. But it's part of transparency (requirements for local government)." Some of the LGOIMA requests could be considered frivolous, he confirmed. "In the legislation, whether they are frivolous, vexatious, recidivist…we've still got to meet their requests. " Chair Peter Haddock said council had been criticised for having too many staff but dealing with 13 or 14 LGOIMA requests a month meant a massive amount of work. "Just looking through some of them, some are coming from the same people all the time, you can read it like a book, and it all comes at a cost to ratepayers. " The simpler requests were being handled in-house, but the more complex ones were still managed by a contractor, staff confirmed. LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Scoop
4 hours ago
- Scoop
Rotorua Lakes Council Calls For Fair Share Of Online Gambling Profits
Rotorua Lakes Council wants communities to get a share of the profits under the Government's Online Casino Gambling Bill. The controversial bill has sparked concerns from sporting organisations, who fear it will impact existing funding models. However, the minister presenting the bill has argued there is little evidence to support the case and warned that community funding provisions could do more harm than good. New Zealanders can currently gamble on offshore websites, but it is largely unregulated. The proposed bill, which passed its first reading in July, aims to regulate offshore online casino gambling and license up to 15 international operators. At present, the bill offers no obligation for operators to provide community funding. In its submission on Friday, Rotorua Lakes Council urged the select committee to consider adding a policy requiring a percentage of profit to be returned to communities. The council also wanted a proposed 12% online gambling duty to be reinvested into local problem gambling. 'It is only right that where possible, profits generated from gambling [are] reinvested into local communities through initiatives that aim to uplift and provide long-lasting change,' the council submission said. The submission also raised significant concerns around online and social media advertising and its impact on younger and inexperienced gamblers. At present, proceeds from Class 4 gaming machines, or pokies, are managed by community gaming trusts. Legislation requires they return at least 40% of net proceeds into the community in the form of grants, with more than $300 million distributed annually to community groups, including those involved in sport, education, health and the arts. Sporting organisations believe they are particularly vulnerable to the new bill, with gaming trust funding playing a huge role in grassroots activity. Last year, sport was by far the leading recipient of such grants in Rotorua, receiving $3.25m of the $7.4m available – more than double the next highest category received. Regional sport trust Sport Bay of Plenty received nearly $360,000 in grants from the Lion Foundation and the New Zealand Community Trust in the 2024 financial year. The trust is one of more than 50 sporting organisations nationwide that have formed a 'collective sport voice' urging the Government to ensure online casino profits return to communities. Sport Bay of Plenty said the organisation opposes the current form of the bill, which 'fails to uphold the long-standing principle that gambling profits should benefit the community'. It highlighted that roughly half of the funding from sport grants goes to clubs, covering expenses such as equipment, uniforms and coaching, with none going to high performance. Sport Bay of Plenty would not comment on the ethical concerns raised regarding gambling money largely funding community sport. A 2020 white paper by the Problem Gambling Foundation, Hāpai te Hauora and the Salvation Army warned that the current model is ethically and financially unstable, with funds disproportionately sourced from vulnerable, problem-gambling populations in deprived areas. Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden expressed concern this week in Parliament over repeating the same model with online gambling. 'When community groups are reliant on funding from the proceeds of gambling, there is an incentive to increase gambling in order to increase revenue for those organisations,' van Velden said. The Department of Internal Affairs had advised the minister that this model would make it harder to reduce gambling, because 'community organisations are dependent on the funding that they receive'. Van Velden also said there is 'no evidence' that regulation of online gambling will reduce the current funding pool, but remained 'open' to the idea of community returns. She will meet representatives from the sporting community this week. Rotorua has 24 Class 4 venues. This is higher than the national average by population proportion. The current Class 4 and TAB venue policy caps gaming machines at 350, but that is currently exceeded with 362, with 74% of pokies in the district's poorest areas. Annual gambling losses in Rotorua exceed $26m and in 2022-23, 5.33% of gambling interventions were in Rotorua, ranking third nationwide, above Wellington, Hamilton and Tauranga. Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell supported the council's submission but previously admitted deep concerns from the community 'around the morals' of the current model. 'Even though it benefits the community, we know it is being collected by an activity that causes significant harm in our community,' Tapsell said in a council meeting in late July. Submissions for the Online Casino Gambling Bill closed on Sunday, with a subsequent report due in November. Note: Mathew Nash was previously employed as communications manager at Sport Bay of Plenty.
RNZ News
4 hours ago
- RNZ News
The Panel with Ali Jones and Simon Pound Part 1
Tonight, on The Panel, Wallace Chapman is joined by panellists Ali Jones and Simon Pound. First up, thousands of secondary school teachers walked off the job today in a dispute over pay. The Panel talks to Paul Stevens, a teacher at Auckland's Rangitoto College and a PPTA representative. Then they hear from independant Cameron Bagrie about the Reserve Banks decision to whack 25 points off the OCR - what does it mean for mortgage holders looking to refix? To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
