Crown Resorts stops political donations as money laundering fallout continues

As Victoria and WA prepare for royal commissions into Crown Resorts, the casino group has banned political donations.

Crown has been one of corporate Australia’s biggest donors to political parties in the past decade. Picture: AAP/ Michael Dodge.

Crown Resorts has imposed its own ban on political donations as royal commissions in Victoria and Western Australia are set to begin, following damning revelations in a NSW report that the gaming group facilitated money laundering at its flagship Melbourne casino.

Crown has been one of corporate Australia’s biggest donors to political parties in the past decade, drawing criticism that it allowed the company close access to politicians despite its links to organised crime.

In a one-sentence statement Crown released to the ASX, the company said it and its associated entities “will cease making monetary or in-kind political donations, effective immediately”.

It follows The Greens last month calling for a ban on the gaming sector’s donations to political parties to ensure its “proper regulation”.

“The gambling industry is just rife with conflicts of interest,” Australian Greens gambling spokeswoman Rachel Siewert said.

“We urgently need a national independent regulator, with gambling companies operating across the country we need a national body regulating them.

“States which rely heavily on the income gambling generates cannot be in charge of regulating the industry as there is a clear conflict of interest.”

Crown has donated vast sums to political parties in recent years and was the 13th largest doner to the nation’s politicians in 2020, handing over $184,000 in that year alone.

Over the past two decades, the gaming company has donated more than $2m to Australia’s political parties. The donations ramped up in the past decade, with Crown shelling out more than $1.6m in the past decade, compared with $383,000 in the 10 years prior.

The split between Liberal and Labor donations was fairly even over the past 20 years, with more than $900,000 pumped into the Labor party and a little over $1.1m sent to the Liberal party.

Among the states, Victoria and WA received the bulk of Crown’s donations, with the gaming company handing over more than $300,000 to the Victorian Labor Party (and a further $40,000 to its fundraising arm, Progressive Builders Association). It gave more than $390,000 to WA Labor over the same period.

Over the same period, the gaming company donated more than $570,000 to the WA Liberals and gave $330,000 to the Victorian Liberal Party.

Ahead of Crown announcing its ban on political donations going forward, Victorian premier Dan Andrews in February announced a royal commission into Crown, saying he was prepared to rip up its licence, despite the gaming company opening in Melbourne 26 years ago and the Andrews government now being well into its second term.

It took the NSW regulator and the explosive revelations in Patricia Bergin SC’s report into the gaming giant — which found it unfit to hold a licence for its new $2.2bn Barangaroo casino — to spark action into not only in Victoria but also Western Australia.

WA Racing and Gaming Minister Paul Papalia had previously announced an inquiry into Crown, but said last week it would instead be subject of a full royal commission — 17 years after Kerry Packer fully acquired Perth’s Burswood casino.

The royal commission will be chaired by former Supreme Court judge Neville Owen, who also headed the HIH Insurance royal commission in the early 2000s. That royal commission identified 56 breaches of the Corporations Act and other legislation, and set in motion the events that saw a number of HIH executives jailed and millions of dollars in fine and compensation paid.

The commission will draw heavily on the findings unearthed by the Bergin inquiry.

Originally published as Crown Resorts stops political donations as money laundering fallout continues