The Racing Industry's long wait for amendments to the Racing Act finally made some progress when Bennett introduced the Bill to the house last week.
Part of the Act's amendment will tax overseas bookmakers who take bets on New Zealand racing at a rate set by the racing minister.
The money which will be collected has been labelled by industry leaders as vital to the future of racing, but an Internal Affairs regulatory impact statement throws doubt on whether any of it will make it back to New Zealand.
The statement said that despite the amended Racing Act meaning corporate bookmakers would face $50,000 fines, it would leave New Zealand authorities with few tools to enforce the legislation fees and so the tax would effectively be a voluntarily payment.
However, the impact statement also gives the New Zealand racing industry hope it will cash in because it notes similar legislation in other countries, most notably Australia, can be successful in what it calls ''certain circumstances''.
Bennett is confident overseas bookmakers will front up.
''We expect there would be good compliance because of good corporate governance.
''If you look at the companies involved they want to be good corporate citizens and the fee isn't massively high and they will probably see it as something they can afford.''
The New Zealand Racing Board, headed by chief executive John Allan, is taking a similar line to the minister.
''We are obviously optimistic that offshore bookmakers will pay the charges. Most of these bookmakers are subject to similar charges in other jurisdictions and meet those obligations.
''There is no reason to think New Zealand will be any different,'' a spokesperson said.
What gives Bennett more hope is that bookmakers based in Australia, who make up most of the overseas agencies taking bets on New Zealand racing, are used to having to pay some kind of fee for the use of a racing product, he said.
''They see it very much as part of doing business.''
There, most of the states and territories have introduced legislation which requires bookmakers to pay fees of from 1.5% to 3% to racing authorities.
The Australian betting landscape is much different from New Zealand's, as its market is dominated by betting agencies that are registered in and operate from inside Australia so it is not applying those fees on another country as the New Zealand legislation intends to do.
Internal Affairs found that when it came to overseas book- makers paying their share for bets on Australian races there has been a willingness to pay.
The ''certain circumstances'' the report refers to may refer to Australia collecting fees on its racing product being used by overseas bookmakers.
However, most examples of those organisations paying voluntarily were from the horse racing authorities in each country, rather than corporate bookmakers who were effectively detached from the racing industry.
According to Bennett, rather than hiding from their responsibilities, some overseas book- makers are taking a proactive approach to see how the amended New Zealand legislation will apply to them.
Bennett indicated he hoped the Bill would be read in Parliament early next week.
