Stolz is terminally ill with bone cancer but he will spend his last months defending a legal action ClubsNSW has launched against him.
Stolz’s transgression was that in 2020,after eight years as senior officer with responsibility for fighting money laundering,he leaked an internal ClubsNSW report which suggested that its members were flouting the law.
The report handed to theHerald,the ABC and federal MP Andrew Wilkie showed that 90 to 95 per cent of clubs were not taking the most basic precautions against money laundering.
Since then ClubsNSW has tried to silence him for breaching confidentiality agreements. Stolz has been forced to sell his family home to pay the mounting costs.
While ClubsNSW said on Wednesday that Stolz was not a real whistleblower and was trying to extract money from his former employer,the pursuit of a terminally ill man for his last pennies says a lot about ClubsNSW ethics.
Stolz was not a thief. He was acting in the interest of the same communities ClubsNSW says it wants to strengthen.
The evidence is mounting that clubs are not doing enough to fight. While small local clubs play a valuable role in many communities,the people at the top seem unwilling to take any action that threatens the revenues from the $85 billion a year pumped through NSW poker machines.
Last November,a senior gaming regulator told theHeraldthat he believed about $1 billion is laundered each year through clubs in Australia,much of it through NSW’s 85,000 poker machines.The Daily Telegraph this year leaked details of a confidential state government report which said investigators suspected organised crime had laundered $5.5 million though 178 Sydney venues in one seven-week period.
ClubsNSW’s regular denials of the scale of the problem are reminiscent of the denials by casino operators Star Entertainment and Crown Resorts before numerous inquiries showed they were facilitating systematic money laundering through their gaming tables.
ClubsNSW has made noises about fighting both money laundering and the equally serious problem of harmful gambling but in reality it has dragged the chain.
Its lobbyists seem to have hamstrung a NSW government proposal for a cashless gaming card which could have all but ended the risk of money laundering.
On problem gambling,ClubsNSW forestalled legislation by proposing a voluntary code of conduct. The Alliance for Gambling Reform’s Tim Costello described it as a “cynical move designed to avoid real reform”.
TheHeraldcalls on both sides of politics to take a stand against the lobbying power of ClubsNSW.
Before the past three elections,both parties signed memorandums of understanding with ClubsNSW pledging the boundaries of any reform in the next term of parliament.
No other special interest group is given such a veto on government policy.
Both Opposition Leader Chris Minns and Premier Dominic Perrottet should break that tradition and refuse to kowtow to ClubsNSW ahead of the March election.
They should give equal weight to all voices in this debate,especially on money laundering.
For example,the NSW Crime Commission is about to release the results of a joint inquiry with the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority into money laundering at NSW licensed premises.
The government must maintain complete freedom of action to implement all of its recommendations.
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