The Queenstown-based trustee at the centre of a gaming machine funding row has broken his silence, maintaining he did nothing wrong.
Last week, the Gambling Commission upheld a Department of Internal Affairs decision involving charitable gaming trust, The Trusts Charitable Foundation, which paid $468,000 in fees to Queenstown businessman Murray Acklin.
The commission found the trust rejected the department's challenges and calls for restraint in favour of seizing competitive advantage over its rivals.
As part of the ruling, the Levin-based foundation, which operates 893 gaming machines at 74 venues, had its gaming licence suspended for six days.
Yesterday, Mr Acklin told the Otago Daily Times he and the trust had not done anything wrong, and were the victims of a "grey area" of policy.
On April 10, 2006, Mr Acklin was appointed the foundation's business development trustee, a role commanding an annual of fee $120,000.
The role required him to increase the number of gaming machine venues aligned to the gaming society.
Mr Acklin, a former president of the New Zealand Racing Conference and current director of New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing, said the amount, which totalled $468,00 over a three-year period, was not excessive.
It was in keeping with someone of his business background - he had served on boards in New Zealand and overseas.
Mr Acklin rejected claims he offered $10,000 TAB upgrades for venues not aligned with the foundation, and that any approach was made on behalf of The New Zealand Racing Board, of which he was a former member.
"It is illegal to offer incentives," he said.
Last week the racing board, which administers the TAB, distanced itself from Mr Acklin, who it said approached venues with a TAB business development manager, later cleared of any wrongdoing.
Mr Acklin said the pair had not worked together, but happened to be at the same place at the same time.
He said many publicans were not happy with the level of service they were getting from their gaming machine trusts, and were attracted to the foundation, which returned a higher percentage of proceeds to the community.
The foundation regularly returned more than half of its revenue, making it one of the more efficient charitable gaming trusts in the country, he said.
By securing more venues, it was able to increase its returns, and since April 2006 had distributed $66 million to the community and authorised purposes, $30 million to the Government in gaming machine levies, $11 million in GST, and $2.1 million in Problem Gambling levies.
He defended funds being redistributed to the racing industry, which was an authorised purpose under the Gambling Act.
Since stepping down from his business development role, the trust had lost 10% of its venues to other trusts which continued to employ people in a similar position.
Mr Acklin said as a result of the Gambling Commission decision he hoped the "grey area" of the role had now been defined and the area would be properly policed by the Department of Internal Affairs.
