It’s an extraordinary move by one of the most powerful lobby groups in the country that could end up backfiring and raising attention about the problems it was hoping to hide.
ClubsNSW is today seeking a gag order against former employee and whistleblower Troy Stolz, who has spoken out against the “alarming” scale of money laundering in pokies rooms at local clubs and pubs across the state.
The lobby group is trying to stop him from speaking to journalists while it sues him for blowing the whistle on alleged money laundering through the state’s poker machines.
Xenophon Davis, the law firm run by former South Australian senator Nick Xenophon and ex-journo Mark Davis, is now taking on the case in a sign of the growing momentum behind the whistleblower’s cause.
“It’s an honour to represent Troy Stolz, a person of great courage, who is up against the power of gambling and lobbying behemoth that is ClubsNSW,” Xenophon told Crikey.
The legal battle between Stolz and ClubsNSW has been winding its way through the federal court for more than a year via multiple actions between both parties.
But the dramatic intervention risks elevating Stolz to a more prominent voice than when he initially spoke out last year.
Stolz worked for ClubsNSW as an anti-money laundering compliance auditor. Early last year he revealed the scale of money laundering in pokies rooms at local clubs and pubs.
In March 2020, Stolz took legal action against ClubsNSW alleging defamation, bullying, sham contracting, underpayment and other breaches of the Fair Work Act.
ClubsNSW took separate action against its former employee, accusing him of breaching a confidentiality agreement by giving a ClubsNSW board paper to independent MP Andrew Wilkie.
That paper suggested money laundering compliance rates were as low as 5-10% among ClubsNSW members.
A lot has changed since last year, when Stolz first raised the alarm. ClubsNSW is no doubt watching what has happened to the biggest name in Australian gambling, Crown, and pondering what additional scrutiny of its money laundering compliance might mean for its future.
It’s this level of scrutiny that Stolz claims has triggered the gag order.
“They want to shut down the communication because they are worried about what is happening in the casinos. It’s the same industry. They know they are exposed and will be looked at next,” he told Crikey.
A ClubsNSW spokesperson told Crikey: “Given the matter is currently before the court, it would be inappropriate for us to comment.” The lobby group has previously said Stolz had not made any whistleblower disclosures under the law. “While he has also previously raised a claim for parliamentary privilege in relation to some documents, he later withdrew this claim,” it previously said in a statement.
Either way, if ClubsNSW was hoping to get less attention over the case, it may have failed.
Three very significant issues now to be further debated in plain sight : a) poor whistle-blowing protection, b) work place safety (are employees safe in a ‘corrupted’ organisation) and c) the economic damage and distortion caused by a poorly supervised gambling ‘industry’.
A surprising outcome of this could well be seeing Clubs NSW, that organisation that operates as a charity, throw it’s support behind a player card for Pokies players, an issue they threatened to bring the Gillard government down over.
It’s great to see Nick Xenophon back in the gambling space and well done to Troy Stoltz for taking on Clubs NSW, which is Australia’s equivalent of the NRA with its ruthless tactics and lobbying on behalf of an extremely dangerous proud, addictive poker machines.
Agreed Stephen. Clubs NSW may be one of the most untouchable organisations in Australia. I’d pay good money to see their comeuppance, although that would be a gamble at very long odds.
It’s an extraordinary move …. that could end up backfiring and raising attention about the problems it was hoping to hide.
I have thought the same thing about defamation actions recently taken by prominent persons.
Big legal costs for those two now
A general comment. The presence of pokies in clubs and pubs has been described as a community resource giving people (especially the retired) ‘something to do’ with their apparently otherwise miserable existences, but it has never been anything other than a cynical profit gouging exercise. The money it brings into clubs to permit them to do whatever they do with it can never have been justified in the context of the misery and community harm it engenders. And how much has the taxpayer been forced to spend over the decades to subsequently support people who have frittered away whatever modest personal wealth they had? Was the life of retirees and others with plenty of time on their hands so utterly miserable prior to pokies in pubs and clubs? What happened to going to the library or a the movies or a show or any of the multitude of other ways by which people can occupy their spare time? Pokies are a scourge, and if businesses are unable to exist without them then they should not exist.