Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - Madam President, I will make a reasonably short contribution. At this stage I am still not satisfied as to whether or not I should support it. There are a number of issues that I have with it. In saying that, I appreciated the briefing that we were given this morning; it certainly clarified some points that I had been considering but, as I said then and I say again, when a gun is held at your head in relation to legislation to have it passed then it really does cause me some concern. I can recall that sort of situation in this House previously on a number of occasions and it has come back to haunt us on several occasions.

I can recall the Tasmania Tomorrow legislation where everything was put into place, all of the documentation was in place and the only thing that had not been put into place was the legislation to support it. We were told then that if we did not support the legislation it would all fall down and crumble around us and that we would be responsible for not moving education forward. We know what happened then, Madam President. We did support the legislation and not only did the sky fall in but the world crumbled as well. So when you consider issues like that you really do wonder what is going to happen.

I asked this morning what would happen if we did not support this legislation today. We were told that there is a clause in the deed that is in place that identifies with the bill today so if the bill does not get through then the deed is not in place and it will go back to where it was previously. Betfair would operate as it does today and pay similar taxation and licence fees; that is what it would go back to.

We were told that if we did that we run the risk, of course, of Betfair pulling up stumps - and that is probably not a good way to put it with the Pakistanis and their lay betting and so on -

Mr Aird - Bowling no balls.

Mr DEAN - It would mean that they might well pull up stumps, leave the State and go elsewhere where they might be offered a better deal. That might be so. I queried this morning and the area that I was interested in was the employment and the number of staff that are employed by Betfair. We were told originally when we debated this bill some three to four years ago or whenever it was now, that there would be up to 150 personnel employed by Betfair, FTEs, to my understanding. Now, I do not think that anybody really knows how many are employed there. The figure being bandied around it could be 130 or thereabouts. In another part of the second reading I think 100 was referred to. Surely to goodness, we must know how many people are employed here. I would have thought that a matter like this coming forward here today would clearly be able to identify that.

I will quote the Treasurer from Hansard on Wednesday 23 November 2005. He said that Betfair's investment would -

'directly employ up to 150 within two years; and require an investment of $7.5 million to $10 million over the first two years, with ongoing capital expenditure of approximately $2 million per year.'

This is under some of the conditions on which it was sold to us in the first place. If you go to the debate of Thursday 13 July 2006 on Betfair development in the State - the member for Rosevears was asking a number of questions in relation to Betfair and its operations - again I quote the Treasurer:

'The fact is that Betfair in Tasmania is a success story. It presently is employing about 50 employees. It is anticipated by the end of the year that there will be 75 employees and 12 months beyond that I think there will be 150 employees.'

It is not surprising that we raise these issues because it concerns me what is really happening. Will Betfair up stumps and move off? They could do that but they are entrenched here at this stage. They have had a reasonable position here in this State and I would be very surprised if that were going to happen.

When they say to us, 'But if you do not agree to these changes then we may well do that', to me it raises a number of issues and I am concerned about it.

The other point that I simply wanted to make was on the lay betting and the definition that has been included in the bill. I had concerns about this when the bill was being discussed initially. I believe that it is a system that can be easily rorted - lay betting. I jokingly mention the Pakistani cricket side and some of things that they have been up to. Very clearly they were lay betting, I would suggest. I am not quite sure who with but very clearly they were betting against themselves winning games of cricket and there were other things that they were doing in the game as well.

Mr Parkinson - Some of their compatriots at home have called for the death penalty.

Mr DEAN - It is not surprising because cricket is seen as a gentleman's sport, isn't it? It is far from that the way that it is going. It is bringing the game into disrepute. Lay betting, in my view, is an area that I have always had concerns with. Betting on somebody not to win to me leaves itself open to lots of skulduggery or rorting. I have raised it before and I raise it again.

Madam President, will I support the bill? I am not too sure at this stage. I will listen to any other comments that are made and I will make my decision at the end of the debate.