From:TheBahamasWeekly.com
Bahamas Gaming Bill Debate Contribution by Hon. Fred Mitchell
Sep 12, 2014 - 9:41:55 AM
Notes by Fred
Mitchell MP Fox Hill
On the Gaming Bills
House of Assembly
11 September 2014
Nassau
I wish to pay my
respects to the family of Stephanie Martin Mackey. She was the daughter of the late Elon Sonny
Martin and I want express my condolences
to Strech, to Sheila, April and Ricardo.
A former Miss Grand
Bahama; and good friend from my days in Freeport in the 1980s has passed. Gone too soon. May she rest in peace.
I wish to state that
I support these bills in their entirety and without exception or
equivocation. This matter is impatient
of debate. We are only here because the
enemies of progress have one philosophy that of stall delay and defer.
I asked the leaders
of the party that I speak near the back end of this debate because I wanted to
see what direction this would take. This
for me is a political matter; it is a rights issue.
It is political
because we need to get all of this stuff behind us and concentrate on the
campaign for 2017. The Progressive
Liberal Party needs another five years at the helm post 2017 to so shape the
values and ethos of this country; that it is reset firmly on the base on which
Bahamian nationalism was begun.
There is no question
in my mind that the governance of the Free National Movement for 15 years
represented a concerted effort by fair means or foul to de Bahamianize the
ethos of this country and that severe corrective action was needed. We are now on our way.
I believe that we can
more profitably spend the rest of our term trying to get to the issue that in
my view bedevils are success, the
inability for us to get the bureaucracy to do what we want it to do in a
timely, courteous and accurate fashion. If we can fix that at the end of this
term, we will have left a great legacy to this Bahamas.
The matters which are
before us: the tax bills, the amendments to constitution, the bills on gaming
are all impatient of debate. They are
simple. There is nothing complicated about
them. We have spent too much time trying
to get this done and it is simply time to put it behind us.
What I continue to
marvel at, and I have so much experience with it now that I should no longer
marvel at it, is the propensity for the opponents of these measures, the usual
suspects of anti PLPs, who are able to deflect and derail the public by the
injection into these campaigns of silliness.
We have only to look
at the recent debates as an example: sex which we have always known what it is,
has become same sex marriage. Left to
these naysayers, women would lose their right to equality, an historic wrong
going uncorrected, because of that foolishness.
With regard to these
bills some emotive words have been used. Some people have used the word: “Apartheid!”
Interesting! This is the system of organized racism by the Afrikaners of South
Africa of separateness or apartness that was used to keep the races separated
in South Africa and to oppress black people.
It is quite an emotive word. So
when someone compares this gaming bill and what it seeks to do, knowing that
the architects of the anti apartheid fight in The Bahamas are the designers of
the legislation on gaming that is very serious accusation indeed.
I would invite the
critics to re-examine that comparison and resile from that position.
The accusation is
that the comparison is apt because the bill continues the discrimination, so
the critics say, between Bahamians and non Bahamians and their ability to
gamble in the casinos.
Here are the facts on
this matter of who cannot gamble in casinos.
The prohibition first
of all is not against Bahamians but against those who are ordinarily resident
in The Bahamas. So for example, my
sister who is Bahamian but lives in the United States comes to Nassau and can
and has gambled in the casinos in The Bahamas without offending any law. So as
a fact, Bahamians are not excluded from the casinos, even though in most cases
being Bahamian and ordinarily resident may be coterminous.
Secondly, the bill
has in fact conceded the point of the young people of the country that the
provision in the law which would tend not to allow them to gamble in casinos is
now outdated and indefensible. The
Minister for gaming will tell you that I am among the libertarians in the
cabinet. I do not understand, nor do I accept these
nefarious arguments that people have
getting into matters which are people’s bedroom business, their faith, their
morals and their habits and seeking to impose their views on others. That in my respectful view is none of their
business. Yet people are all over the
place getting up on their moral high horse about gambling.
I agree with Bill Bennett,
the former Education Secretary of the United States, who said there is no moral
element to gambling. There is none of
course unless it offends your personal morals.
If it offends your personal morals then that is your business, not mine
and provided the issues of gambling do
not offend the public interest then
again the individual is free to do as he or she wishes. It is simply not my business.
This evolving of the
public policy on this matter is a textbook case for the students of public
administration at the College of The Bahamas.
First it is another warning that I gave when I spoke on
the bills to amend the constitution that when you pass a law you have to be
careful that it does not burden or tie the hands of your successors that makes
it impossible for them to administer or govern without difficulty.
Such are the
citizenship laws of The Bahamas in our constitution: a veritable nightmare of
arcane provisions.
When Pop Symonette
and his men put this law in place as a sop to the church way back in 1963 or
thereabouts, it may have been fine then. I was a boy then and I resented it
then. Judge now. However after 41 years of independence such a
proviso is not acceptable to the kids who we have been telling for 41 years
that this is their country and they are free to develop it and do as they wish
within its borders.
However, it is not
always that easy when you are in power to dismantle what has been established. These policies are compromises. I am from the school that says just do away with
it. But I also know that you have to know the consequences of what you
will do.
Yes some people will
be happy. But what if what we do results
in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs because we act too precipitously. What if what we do ends up killing the thing
we love, to paraphrase the words of Oscar Wilde; the very gambling sector we
seek to save.
What if what we end
up doing is throwing the baby out with the bath water.
So the bill now
provides for one simple thing: the minster can
with the stroke of pen remove the distinction between those who can now
gamble and who cannot gamble. It gives
the power to do so without coming back to the Parliament. The Parliament is saying by this act, you have
the authority to remove it when you feel that it is appropriate.
So no I do not think
that the bill perpetuates discrimination against Bahamians.
I am advised that
some are saying that the policy of restrictions on who can gamble in casinos is
a sign that the big casino operators are yanking our chains; that this makes us
therefore indistinguishable from the FNM.
With the greatest of respect, that is simply untrue. The casino operators care not one whit
whether the locals gamble or they do not.
They made no such insistence.
Secondly, this legislation was developed not as two regimes but one
regime with taxation and oversight being an equal opportunity. What you see here is the result of work both with
the domestic gaming sector and the traditional casinos.
No one got any
particular advantage and no one was excluded.
The opponents have
practiced the art of political sucker punching to a science but when you strike
back at them with the words that aptly describe their behavior: intolerant
bigoted and prejudiced, well you are called unfair.
Take the argument
advanced by the Leader of the Opposition in the public domain that this will
only assist a select few; the DNA is in
the press today saying that this is a political payback. Anything of course to make headlines. Yesterday, we were treated to a tour de force
of inaccuracies and half truths which
demonstrate more than adequately the maxim: don’t bore me with the facts, I
have my story and I am sticking to it.
The regime of the
bills is open, pellucid and transparent.
The criteria for applying are laid out specifically. The fees are laid out. Who can qualify is laid out.
Yes there will be
market limitations. But right now
there are limitations on the number of
taxi drivers we can licence. It’s been
so for years. Right now there are
limitations on who can open a port in New Providence and the last administration
picked select families and gave them that benefit and put a poison pill in it
to prevent the PLP or any of their successors from doing anything about it.
The last administration did the same thing with the sale of BTC.
They also plucked an obscure company out of Canada
and gave them a monopoly to run a Cable TV company for 15 years. They did not see anything wrong with that
either.
The argument isn’t
that because they did it we are doing
it. The argument is this: who the heck are you to come preaching about
a select few when that is the modus operandi of the FNM.
What the PLP is
saying is that it is time for a new group of people to share in the wealth, not
the same chosen few. This policy promotes
Bahamianization; it promotes spreading the wealth. It is an equitable solution to vexing issue.
Then I add this.
Let us say that the FNM succeeded with their no vote to stop the present
policy that we have established on gaming.
What would the result
be?
The local result will
be either the continuation of the unregulated, untaxed sector that we have
now which we all know cannot continue without
consequences both domestic and foreign.
Or alternatively, it
would mean that the police resources would have to be used to close the sector
down. We all know that is
impossible. We all know that that it would
be a serious misallocation of the finite resources of the country to engage in
such an exercise. Like Don Quixote
tilting at windmills. We also all know that thousands of people will be put out
of work.
So the result then of
the FNM's no vote if it were successful would be to drive money underground and
increase the criminality in the country; increase joblessness and all the
attendant problems that causes; and erode the already precarious financial
state of the country by the misallocation of valued resources into law
enforcement.
Why then should we
engage in such tomfoolery, when with the simple passage of this bill we can
have the best of both worlds. There will
be a strong well regulated, healthy domestic gaming sector with money in the
bank and people in work prospering, with the government getting its share. We will eliminate the potential for more
criminality. Sounds like a win win to
me.
For all of those
reasons then, I support this legislation.
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