\u201cBut also these are sovereign entities with governance structures and management. They should have done better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cheer said the trusts were working to rectify the situation, with $11.5m recovered so far.<\/p>\n
Gaming Machine Association chairman Peter Dengate Thrush told RNZ that while mistakes were made in the accounts, it looked worse than it was because of the review\u2019s timeframe.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the total figure that the department is now saying needs accounting for is $28m, while that\u2019s a lot of money, spread out over the 10 years that the department has now gone back … it\u2019s only a very small proportion of the total flow.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said it was the regulator\u2019s job to keep the industry clean.<\/p>\n
Most trusts tried to comply with the rules, work closely with officials and operate transparently, he said.<\/p>\n
However, he believed there should be consequences for trusts that engaged in creative accounting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be some societies who are in deep trouble, for which this is not just an accounting readjustment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe department occasionally finds some people breaking the law. If there are any at that end of the scale, then they should be prosecuted,\u201d he told RNZ.<\/p>\n
On Friday, DIA director of gambling Vicki Scott said about three-quarters of the 32 trusts were non-compliant with the rules to some degree.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been investigating for two to three years now.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany were essentially prioritising their own growth and their own competitive advantage over the interests of the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were spending beyond their means on things like gaming machines.\u201d<\/p>\n
She believed about $20m could be recovered. Repayment plans have been devised with some trusts.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur role isn\u2019t to put a significant section of the industry out of business but we are really firm that the money needs to be back in the community\u2019s hands in a reasonable period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
About $1 billion is generated by pokie machines in New Zealand every year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cBut also these are sovereign entities with governance structures and management. They should have done better.\u201d Cheer said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[95,682,138,3470,36996,27135,18557,4380,295017,48016,111,139,69,1118,295018,312,61,9438],"class_list":["post-598583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-and","tag-being","tag-business","tag-clear","tag-guidance","tag-lack","tag-led","tag-millions","tag-misspent","tag-mistakes","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-pokie","tag-says","tag-to","tag-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}