Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

It is important to make the distinction, Senator Abetz. On the issue of bet limits, let us remember that the Productivity Commission has found there is only a limited capacity for the redesigning of existing gaming machines, so the immediate rollout of bet limits would be very difficult, because of the limitations in machine design. The PC itself says a dollar bet limit would not be feasible until 2016, so it is not practically possible to do it immediately. I point to the PC report itself, which expresses that the best way forward is to ensure precommitment, and we backed that today. We will be discussing all the details with the stakeholders for a precommitment regime, but I note the PC’s view on precommitment is that it could be up and running even sooner than bet limits.