Does a conference centre need a casino?

OPINION

Lots of stuff has been written about the dopey SkyCity [NZX: SKC] International Convention Centre deal that the prime minister has been flirting with for the past few years.

And lots of what has been written misses a couple of key points (no pun intended).

First, why involve a casino? I go to the annual mining conference in Toronto at which 32,000 delegates pay $500 to register.

That is $16 million in door money before you even think about food and accommodation.

Auckland couldn’t house this huge number but the point is this massive conference takes place in the total absence of any casino. Neither is there any flash architecture.

People go there because there is a great industry there with lots of information that this industry needs.

We could get that number of dairy farmers here if the information they sought was good enough and none of them would come because there was a casino. Conferences need quality reasons more than quality designs.

Pokie comparisons
Second, when you look into SkyCity’s domination of the government in the negotiations about the extra pokie licences they have been offered, none of the media have highlighted the already generous arrangements they have compared with pokies in pubs.

Pokies in pubs pay out around a third of gambling turnover to charitable trusts which support their various local areas.

SkyCity only pays out 2.5% or nearly 15 times less than other pokies. I would love to know if the miserable 2.5% that Sky City does pay out is before or after paying generous handouts to their apologists such as Mike Hosking.

The point is casinos are already treated too well by the government.

At this stage it appears obligatory for media to publish a few bleats from the problem gambling foundations, whose incomes depend on gambling more than any gambler’s does.

OK, so some of the money spent in pub pokies is probably not the wisest. But not even the dumbest gambler loses his house pursuing the $900 maximum jackpot in a pub.

If they have a really big gambling problem you will find them at SkyCity chasing the $90,000 jackpots.

Local charities really do benefit from their local pub pokies. Our local library and community building was greatly helped by Pub Charity.

Yet, when I asked some of the gamblers in the pub for a donation, I was told to shove off by the very same gamblers who unwittingly had donated to the library courtesy of their own gambling.

Dodgy process
Finally, the highly dodgy selection process that resulted in SkyCity’s sweetheart deal breaks every part of the Auditor General’s rules for competitive purchasing.

These are shoved down the throat of every elected local body representative and, in a country such as China where there is a crackdown on corruption, this sort of deal would undoubtedly have resulted in arrests – not just some report that the government has laughed off.

The deal stinks!

Wayne Brown has an engineering degree and is a fellow of the Institute of Professional Engineers and a former Far North Mayor