“The Greens had an opportunity to demonstrate that their concern about the ACT’s finances was serious enough to sit across the table from people they disagreed with and find common ground. And they chose not to,” writes GWYN REES.

With Shane Rattenbury gone from the Legislative Assembly, new Greens leader Jo Clay has apparently decided that what the party needs is some old material.

Following the release of the Select Committee’s final report into the ACT’s fiscal sustainability, Clay declared that gambling tax in the ACT sits below the national average and suggested there is more revenue to be extracted from the industry.

I confess to a sense of déjà vu.

I spent plenty of time challenging versions of this argument when I was CEO of ClubsACT. Whether from the Greens or other industry critics, the approach was often the same, they start with the number that supports the argument and leave the inconvenient bits elsewhere.

So, if we are going to resurrect the debate about whether clubs pay enough tax, let’s at least compare apples with apples.

Saul Eslake’s analysis does show the ACT collects a lower proportion of total gambling expenditure through gambling taxes than most jurisdictions. But it isn’t a club-to-club comparison. It takes total gambling tax revenue in each jurisdiction and compares it with total gambling expenditure across very different gambling markets and tax structures.

In NSW alone, hotels and registered clubs operate under completely different gaming tax scales. Hotels can face rates reaching 50 per cent, while community clubs are taxed progressively according to gaming machine profits. The NSW club scale doesn’t reach its highest bracket until gaming profits exceed $20 million at a club premises.

Even separate premises operated by the same registered club are treated separately for gaming tax purposes. No ACT club venue reaches that threshold.

So before an aggregate comparison of gambling taxation is turned into evidence that ACT community clubs are undertaxed, perhaps we should compare like with like. And even then, gaming tax is only part of the story.

ACT clubs don’t simply pay gaming tax and pocket the rest. They are required to contribute a minimum 8.8 per cent of net gaming machine revenue through the community contribution scheme.

That includes 8 per cent for approved community purposes, 0.4 per cent to the Gambling Harm Prevention and Mitigation Fund and 0.4 per cent to the Chief Minister’s Charitable Fund. On top of that sits a separate 0.75 per cent gambling harm levy.

We can have an entertaining semantic argument about whether these are taxes, levies or mandatory contributions. Economically, I am not sure the club writing the cheque cares terribly much. If government requires you to hand over or spend the money as a condition of operating, it forms part of the compulsory burden imposed on the business.

My sense of déjà vu goes back further.

Ten years ago, I wrote an opinion piece arguing that you couldn’t understand the burden on ACT clubs by looking at gaming tax in isolation. I pointed to community contributions, gambling harm levies, commercial rates, liquor licensing and water charges.

A decade later, here we are again.

If the Greens have discovered that the solution to the ACT’s fiscal problems is ensuring businesses pay their “fair share”, terrific. Let’s do it properly. Let’s compare commercial rates with other jurisdictions. Let’s compare liquor licensing costs and the cost of water for businesses. Let’s talk portable long service leave, regulatory charges, statutory levies and the cumulative cost of operating a business in the ACT.

Let’s put all of it on the table. Because you cannot credibly argue for tax fairness while cherry-picking the tax you happen to like increasing.

There is also a credibility problem with the Greens’ new-found enthusiasm for fiscal responsibility.

When presented with perhaps their best opportunity in years to actually do something about the ACT’s finances, they walked away from negotiations with the Canberra Liberals, citing fundamental differences in values and concerns about commentary on the LGBTIQA+ community and Muslim Australians.

The Greens had an opportunity to demonstrate that their concern about the ACT’s finances was serious enough to sit across the table from people they disagreed with and find common ground. And they chose not to.

Fiscal responsibility is easy when it involves taxing someone else. It becomes considerably harder when it requires compromise with people you don’t agree with.

And let’s not forget that for 12 years, until the last election, the Greens chose to share power with Labor. They weren’t innocent bystanders. They sat in Cabinet, signed governing agreements, supported budgets and shared responsibility for the expenditure growth and accumulated commitments that helped get us here.

The Select Committee didn’t conclude that the ACT’s finances became unsustainable because community clubs weren’t taxed enough. It found that the deterioration in the Budget had been driven by government policy decisions. Now the fiscal consequences have arrived and, somehow, the Greens are talking about whether the local club should hand over some more money.

I’ve kept quiet about clubs since leaving the industry. But if Jo Clay wants to argue that ACT clubs aren’t contributing enough, compare them with equivalent interstate clubs, count everything they are compelled to contribute and then make the case.

But don’t take an aggregate gambling figure, exclude the mandatory contributions and levies sitting around it and pretend you have measured the burden on ACT clubs.

Clubs have played that game before.

Gwyn Rees is a former CEO of ClubsACT and a Canberra-based business and social advocate.

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