The relationship was so close,Star’s former chairman John O’Neill,who has since resigned from his post following Star’s scandals in Sydney,evenhelped broker the meeting between Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and International Olympic Committee boss Thomas Bach that led to Brisbane’s successful 2032 Games bid.
Under the familiar guise of commercial-in-confidence,the government has kept hidden from the public any QWB social impact studies,business cases,terms of the 99-year lease,cost-benefit analysis or how much the developer consortium paid taxpayers for the land,if anything.
(From left) former MP Anthony Lynham,Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk,then-chief executive of Echo Entertainment (Star) Matthew Bekier,MP Grace Grace and former Echo Entertainment Queensland director Geoff Hogg look at a model of the Queen’s Wharf Brisbane development in 2015.Credit:Glenn Hunt
Given the money already invested and political spin expended,casting Star from a near-finished mega-project,which involved Hong Kong-based partners Far East Consortium and the dubious Chow Tai Fook,would be one almighty tangle.
A leading gambling researcher from Monash University,Dr Charles Livingstone,believed taxpayers would need to stump up billions of dollars to Star in compensation if the government was to follow through on the ultimate threat.
“If they said,‘no,you can’t run it’ - and they’re never going to say that in a million years - they’d have to renegotiate the whole deal,” he said.
“So,unless there’s some sort of get-out clause in relation to regulatory non-compliance or something,then they’d have a big problem,wouldn’t they?”
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In such a scenario,Queensland would have to find another operator to presumably finish and then run its Queen’s Wharf casino,but to whom would it turn? Crown Resorts has its own appalling track record probed,prodded and exposed at state inquiries in Victoria,Western Australia and NSW.
There would be no shortage of potential candidates from overseas,Livingstone said,particularly from the US and Singapore,but it would be unlikely to get that far.
One of the 12 recommendations contained in Thursday’s Gotterson review was for the government to amend the Casino Control Act to allow it to appoint a “special manager” to possibly run the Gold Coast and Treasury businesses while Star got its house in order.
Livingstone expected this to be the Queensland government’s way through the public relations ordeal.
He said it would probably be an oversight role but with full executive powers,handed to an eminent King’s Counsel or similar. This has been the approach of the Victorian government following its royal commission into Melbourne’s Crown casino.
Throw in some fines,easily absorbed by the casinos’ deep pockets,and “everyone says ooh ah,but it’s a get out of jail free card”.
Other inquiries into Crown in Sydney and Perth also found it was unsuitable to hold its licences,but the casinos continued to trade. So does Star in Sydney while it awaits news of its punishment,which is expected to be somewhere in line with those handed down to the others.
Star has 21 days to respond to the Gotterson review. Expect it to play a saving hand.