Submission alert: Online Casino Gambling Bill
Last week, Museums Aotearoa made a submission on the Online Casino Gambling Bill.
You might have heard about the bill through your own sporting or charitable circles.
It’s been widely discussed because, as written, it will undermine the current pokie grants scheme on which many community organisations and charitable organisations rely.
The MA submission takes a systemic view of the proposed changes.
Our primary ask is that parliamentarians provide for a levy that has a ring-fenced contribution for prescribed charitable and community services including museums and galleries.
This is a slightly more nuanced position than simply asking that the current grants system is upheld.
Right now, many of us acknowledge the perverse dependencies between charitable organisations and the proceeds of gambling.
Our ask is that the Government (with its myriad systems levers) looks at the return on investment delivered by museums and galleries including but not limited to education, tourism and international diplomacy and resolve to provide a levy within this bill with a ring-fenced contribution for us.
Viewed in isolation, this bill has a moderate impact on museums and galleries. In 2024, Arts and Cultural organisations received some $20m in ‘pokie’ grants. This amount could easily be diminished if gambling spending is spread more thinly across online gambling platforms.
Class 4 funding is already oversubscribed, as are many of the grants available to museums and galleries. This indicates that the need far outweighs the funding availability and there are likely many missed opportunities for beneficial investment which would deliver economic and community participation.
At a sector-wide level, it is single pieces of legislation like this that can dismantle the foundations of museums and gallery funding.
This Bill, alongside FENZ levies, the Privacy Act, copyright amendments, tax reform for charities and wildlife reform is yet another example of legislation written with unintended consequences for museums and galleries – often with burdensome financial implications.
We conclude that New Zealand needs a systemic overhaul in the way it funds museums and galleries. These are systemic problems, proliferated by an assumption that the services we provide are secure. They are not.
This bill provides a unique opportunity for the Government to set the sector up for success, while also ensuring better mechanisms for measuring return on investment.
