Chairperson and hon members, let me welcome the detailed and comprehensive report before the House today. It was prepared and adopted by the portfolio committee and published in the Announcements, Tabling and Committee Reports. I believe a lot of very important work has gone into this and I want to welcome that very much.
Let me give a little bit of background to the exercise that we have been involved in. When this administration took office, we were bombarded with a proliferation of ad hoc proposals to expand gambling activities or introduce new gambling activities. They included proposals to increase the number of casinos in South Africa, to roll out and expand the operation of limited pay-out machines, to allow electronic bingo machines to operate in bingo halls, to introduce greyhound racing and to allow poker tournaments.
At the same time, there was a major change in technology - which has already been referred to. It meant that you could play online any gambling game available in a casino. There are also forms of online gambling, such as person-to-person betting, that allow divisions of different matches and different parts of matches to be the subject of betting between individuals or are mediated through an operator. All of this was taking place in the context of what the Gambling Review Committee told us on page 40 of their excellent report was a growth of 250% in the gross gambling product over a decade. Now, I did the maths. This comes to a growth rate of nearly 10% per annum in an economy that was growing at less than 4%.
Also, there has been a lot of research indicating that forms of gambling accessible to low-income people is being taken up to a considerable extent by low-income people in this country, who participate to a very considerable extent in accessible forms of gambling.
In this context, it seemed to us that what was needed was a new framework. This framework would have to tell us where the new activities would fit in; how they would relate to existing activities in such a way that the existing activities delivered to us - infrastructure in the form of hotels, conference centres and so on - would be sustainable; that the roll-out would not have a negative impact on low-income people; and how the new forms and technologies that would be around could best be regulated if, indeed, we decided that we should allow those activities to take place.
So, we commissioned the Report of the Gambling Review Commission. The Gambling Review Commission prepared its report. It was briefly discussed in the Gambling Policy Council and then we indicated that we would bring it to Parliament. The first part of the parliamentary process will be completed today when, hopefully, we adopt the report of the portfolio committee.
Of course, gambling is a concurrent function and provinces have powers and rights in terms of the regulation of the gambling industry and have provincial gambling boards. Therefore it is important that the process in Parliament will only be completed when the NCOP has done a similar exercise. At that point, I think, we will have what we hope will be a comprehensive and coherent view of Parliament, which we can then take back to engage with the various proposals in detail.
That being the case, I will not comment in detail on the proposals today. I do just want to make a few observations. First, I think it is significant that the portfolio committee has recommended that the interactive gambling legislation, which was put on hold by Parliament, should in fact be revived and that there should be a consideration of legalising on-line gambling in certain forms, subject to certain conditions, as outlined by the hon Gcwabaza, who spoke just before me. I think that is a highly significant recommendation and, certainly, if that becomes the consensus of both Houses of Parliament, we will, as the department, engage energetically in that process and look very closely at those recommendations. I think it is a particular matter of concern, as highlighted, that we should defend minors against exposure to this form of activity.
Another issue that we should consider if we permit this activity in our country is how we are going to ensure that there is a quid pro quo in terms of investment in other infrastructure. The casinos, as I've already said, are required to invest in hotels, conference centres and whatever. The on- line industry will be competing with them. How do we make sure that what we ask from the on-line industry is going to be equivalent, in some sense, to what we are asking from the casino industry?
I also welcome very much the observations that have been made about the need to review and amend the Lotteries Act. This is something we consider as being necessary. We already began a process in 2009 to try to address, through regulation, some important reforms, both to ensure that beneficiaries and broader groups of beneficiaries could receive funds without bureaucratic processes limiting their access but also to make sure that the distribution of funds is directed and focused on the needs of the poor. We have been working on this as a government and as a department. It's on our legislative programme, but I think we look forward to engaging with the particular recommendations coming from here.
The public hearings in the portfolio committee revealed the worryingly slow pace of transformation and allegations of abusive employees which, in our view, require urgent and immediate attention.
I want to conclude by thanking the committee and, particularly, the subcommittee led by the hon Gcwabaza, for their hard work. Let me say that, like the hon Oriani-Ambrosini, I personally do not enjoy gambling but I believe that gambling should be a form of activity that can be undertaken by those who have disposable income and are prepared to lose their stake. It should not become an activity that is promoted as something that will solve the problems of the poor. It never will, because the only consistent winners in gambling games are the operators of gambling activities themselves. If that were not the case, we wouldn't have so many of them scrambling for licences and so on.
Let me thank the portfolio committee and I hope the House adopts the report. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.