Figures from the Office of Liquor,Gaming and Regulation showed Queenslanders lost $300 million through pub and club pokies in July this year alone.
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The amount lost to casino pokies was not public.
The reasoning behind the casino pokie increase is another in the long catalogue of secrets behind the $3.6 billion Queen’s Wharf Brisbane (QWB) development.
Queenslanders remain none the wiser about how much the developing consortium – which consists of Star and Hong Kong-based partners Chow Tai Fook and Far East Consortium – paid for the 10 per cent of public CBD land the precinct would occupy.
The government has refused to release a social impact study,business case,cost-benefit analysis,the terms relating to the 99-year lease,or any information as to the regular probity checks conducted by the Queensland regulator into the questionable international associations of Chow Tai Fook.
Neither has it explained what happened to the new Lyric Theatre that Star promised to build at South Bank’s Queensland Performing Arts Centre.
The new theatre existed in a 2015 “message to shareholders”,alongside other QWB elements then in the pipeline:restaurants,bars,luxury shopping,a riverfront cinema,premium hotels and the casino.
By November that year,the theatre had disappeared from the deal. Taxpayers wouldbuild it instead at a cost of $150 million.
Brisbane Times asked State Development Minister Steven Miles what happened. The response came from his department.
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“The state decided to expand QPAC through the construction of the New Performing Arts Venue,which is under construction,” it said.
Star would not comment on the pokies or the theatre “out of respect” for ongoing inquiries into its suitability to hold a casino licence in Queensland and NSW.
It is unlikely the Queensland investigation,which began in Brisbane on Tuesday,will explore any of the deals between the government and the Queen’s Wharf consortium.
State Greens MP Michael Berkman said the government continued to hide behind the excuse of “commercial in confidence”.
“If the Labor state government wants to retain any semblance of integrity,now would be the time to release the documents surrounding their secret deal with an organisation that is reportedly embroiled in the criminal underworld,” he said.
“Instead,they are allowing thousands of new pokies to be installed in Brisbane while Queenslanders lose hundreds of millions of dollars each month to these predatory machines.
“That doesn’t even include pokie losses in casinos. If the government insists on approving thousands of new pokies at Queen’s Wharf,I’m calling on them to at least tell us how much Queenslanders are losing there.”
The 2019-20,an Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation statistical report showed Queensland’s four casinos made up half of the $8.3 billion in revenue generated by annual gambling licence fees.
The department did not explain why a report did not exist for the 2021 financial year.