Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Since 18 October 2017, I have detailed in federal parliament whistleblower evidence of serious misconduct and criminality at Melbourne's Crown Casino and provided this evidence to Victoria's gambling regulator, the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation, as well as to Victoria Police. Everything I have detailed has been backed by witness statements and video evidence. In essence, the evidence exposed domestic violence, money laundering, drug use and trafficking, rigging of poker machines, the supply of so-called picks to allow gamblers to illegally make poker machines run continuously and the issuing of multiple loyalty cards to allow poker machine users to illegally operate multiple machines simultaneously. Crown denied the allegations and, in doing so, misled the community, shareholders and the Australian Stock Exchange.

Today I return to these matters and can reveal that the VCGLR and Victoria Police have responded so bizarrely to all of these allegations as to raise the very real possibility of corruption. For example, why did the VCGLR take six months to find that Crown had indeed modified poker machines illegally but only order a laughably tiny fine? Alarmingly, why did the VCGLR take 15 months to find that multiple loyalty cards were being issued to individual players but that the practice was not illegal and 17 months to investigate the picks and find that it was indeed an improper practice but impose no punitive measures?

Crucially these delays have pushed the VCGLR's findings to after Crown's five-year licence review even though the findings were material to the review process. The delays also ensured the findings were not made public before the 2018 state election in Victoria, protecting the Premier and the gaming minister from scrutiny over the issue during the campaign.

As for Victoria Police, they simply refused to properly investigate the allegations, raising the question: do they seriously believe domestic violence or the selling of drugs should be beyond investigation when they are alleged to have occurred in Crown? No wonder whistleblowers, including one current and one former police officer, refer to Crown as 'the Vatican' because of the attitude among Victorian politicians and the police that Crown is to be treated like an independent city state where the normal laws of the land do not apply.

I will not stand by and allow this apparent corruption to go unchallenged. Today I've written to Victorian's Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission, requesting it to investigate the peculiar power Crown has over the VCGLR and Victoria Police. I seek leave to table my letter to IBAC.

Leave granted.