For a quick demonstration of why the Scott Morrison/News Corp/Christian Porter model for a federal ICAC would have been useless, consider the Liquor and Gaming NSW inquiry into Star Casino.
The inquiry has seen multiple directors and senior executives, including the chair and CEO, leave the company as revelations have poured out of misconduct, deception and blithe indifference to good regulatory practice.
If the Star Casino board had its way, however, the inquiry, under Adam Bell SC, would have been nobbled from the get-go. On Monday, the inquiry heard that chairman John O’Neill had emailed another director last year saying there was a “power of overt and covert work” being undertaken to ensure the Bell inquiry was conducted out of the public eye.
The “covert work” involved “communicating with the appropriate minister” that the hearings should be conducted in camera. It seems that the then NSW minister Victor Dominello gave Star Casino short shrift. Dominello was later demoted at the behest of the poker machine industry.
Under pressure at the inquiry he tried to neuter, O’Neill struggled to explain himself, claiming there was “nothing sinister” about the attempt and “it was not a matter of trying to stop” the hearings.
Adam Bell quite rightly wondered exactly what he’d meant if it was not a matter of trying to stop them. The words were “in the heat of battle”, O’Neill said. There was “no bad intent”.
Oh, but there was, Mr O’Neill. The intent was to prevent the people of NSW from discovering just how extraordinary the misconduct and deception was at Star Casino over an extended period — misconduct that appears to have facilitated and enabled organised crime and money laundering.
O’Neill and the Star Casino board and executives would clearly have preferred to keep it all behind closed doors — just like Morrison wanted a federal ICAC to only operate behind closed doors, safely out of sight of the public, who would remain none the wiser about the misconduct revealed within.
Once seemingly impregnable, the power wielded by gambling giants Crown and Star Casino has been laid to waste by successive judicial or quasi-judicial inquiries that have overridden the mechanisms of state capture employed by the companies — political donations (Star gave over $620,000 to the major political parties between 2016-21), employment of former political figures, neutering of regulators, and exploitation of friendly media.
Independent public inquiries with powers of compulsion have instead put executives and board members in the dock, unable to evade questions, and have exposed how they have blocked the efforts of regulators, failed in their legal obligations, exploited their political influence, and misled investors and banks (the latter of course have their own game of state capture going on).
It is the fact that these behaviours have been exposed publicly that is crucial to changing the perceptions of the public, investors, the media and politicians toward these companies.
The power of the wider gambling industry, however, remains intact. It continues to be one of the biggest sources of political donations and, as the fate of Dominello illustrates, it can scare governments into removing ministers that threaten its interests — closely coordinated with friendly media, in this case News Corp, which is also entering the gambling industry.
It is only independent public inquiries that truly threaten these mechanisms of state capture. Indeed, it appears increasingly the case that public policy in Australia is led by independent inquiries, often in response to media reports, rather than by politicians and regulatory bodies that are either co-opted by powerful interests or cowed by them, or who are demoted if they try to do their jobs.
It’s a clumsy way to make policy — waiting for a mess to reach the point that the stench becomes too great and some form of special inquiry is called. But in the absence of serious action to smash the tools of state capture, it seems the only way to make progress.
Close the lot down. Yes there will be some unemployment but balanced against the continued criminal behaviour of casinos and its negative affects on society, the unemployment factor is way down on the scale. Because you can bet your last chip that if there was a major downturn that affected money, those casinos would dump excess staff without a thought.
Many of the older US casinos were built by and for criminals to launder money and try for a (very) thin veneer of respectability.
I’ve often thought that. We didn’t miss them before they existed.
Casinos / gambling has been around almost as long as mankind and will always exist. Prohibition and shutting it down just means it goes on underground with practices that are much worse than what the Bell inquiry is uncovering. And, unfortunately, it’s typical that when there is a downturn in the economy there’s an uplift in gambling as people look for a quick win solution to their woes.
Excellent article and I agree with all the point made, but there is one blunder:
“Independent public inquiries with powers of compulsion have instead put executives and board members in the dock, unable to evade questions…”
The dock is where the accused is placed in a criminal trial. Saying anyone in an inquiry is “in the dock” gives credence the absurd hysterics of Morrison and others about “kangaroo courts”. Keane also creates confusion by suggesting the one forced to be in the dock “cannot evade questions” which strongly implies those at the inquiry can be forced to incriminate themselves. This is completely wrong and again gives ammunition to those who want an end to these commissions.
These commissions hear from witnesses. Witnesses are not put in the dock. Witnesses can be compelled to give evidence, that has always been normal both in inquiries and in trials. The standard oath or affirmation taken by a witness makes it clear the witness must answer all questions, but witnesses are always protected from self-incrimination.
Keane has been confused about the status of witnesses, the difference between a witness and being accused, and the power of compulsion to answer questions for many years now.
Have a look at how ‘Senate Committees’ occasionally operate : remind yourselves about Christine Holgate’s treatment after she answered a ‘gotcha’ question from the late Senator KK.
Why is that relevant? She was not in any dock, she was not accused or convicted.
It’s true a witness can be discredited when giving evidence, (fairly or unfairly), but that is an entirely different matter. The point about a ‘dock’ is that is solely used for those accused of crimes, and nobody in the dock gives evidence. Even when a defendant chooses to give evidence, the defendant first leaves the dock and goes to the witness stand.
It is ludicrous that it is even debated whether inquiries ought to be public or in camera. What all commissions of inquiry demonstrate is that the revealed evil is much worse than the public could have imagined; eg The banking RC, Crown & Star etc etc. And the useful legacy each leave is not the recommendations (which are quickly forgotten by the public and often ignored by government) but indelibly the reams of evidence that can never be ignored albeit often not acted upon. And that is why they must be public. The price of a public life is that your reputation may be impugned by evidence of your wrongdoing or deliberate ignorance of wrongdoing on your watch. Imagine how more corrupt the Muppets could have been where the facility was enhanced to suppress the evidence of their corruption, incompetence and mendacity. At least the new Commonwealth Integrity Commission will not be without work do do on its inception. Just the last 4 years should occupy it for a decade.
$620,000 spread over at least two parties, maybe three and over six years sounds like chicken feed to me. Don’t you think corruption is more likely to be found in the big paying jobs for former poitical figures? The fasterTHAT is knocked on the head the better. Wasn’t there a group of independents at the last election who wanted that stopped?