By Kishor Napier-Raman and Stephen Brook
Sydney’s casinos have a long history of being associated with dirty laundry.
Traditionally, that’s been the billions of dollars in filthy money funnelled through the glittering gaming rooms of Crown and the Star, the subject of dozens of high-profile investigations, public inquiries and regulatory slaps on the wrist.
Staff at Crown’s Barangaroo casino will vote on whether to take protected industrial action. Credit: Sam Mooy
But now, Crown could be grappling with dirty laundry of the more literal kind, unless an agreement is reached in pay negotiations with the United Workers Union. The union, which represents gaming room staff at Crown’s imposing (and rather phallic) Barangaroo tower, has been busy negotiating with management for a new pay deal.
Those negotiations reached enough of an impasse that, on Friday, the union successfully applied for a protected action ballot in the Fair Work Commission, effectively the first step towards going on strike – though it’s still early days, as negotiations continue and the ballot closes on July 16.
Union members will vote on whether to take several forms of protected industrial action, including strikes and work stoppages, but also refusing to wash sheets, pillow cases and towels for an indefinite time, or to move playing cards onto the gaming room floor.
CBD understands the current offer from Crown is a pay rise of 2.75 per cent in the next financial year, followed by successive 3 per cent annual pay rises, an offer deemed inadequate by union members. Their comrades at Star’s Brisbane casino are set to go on strike over a 4 per cent pay offer.
For its part, Crown says the proposed enterprise agreement is “reasonable and sustainable” with wage increases above inflation.
It’s a big few days for Crown, which this week will learn whether its Perth operation is suitable to hold a casino licence. Hell, it’s been a big few years for Crown, which continues to loom ominously over the Sydney skyline despite so much reputational battering and an increasingly tough regulatory framework.
In 2021, following this masthead’s revelations of Crown’s inadequate anti-money laundering controls, the casino company was lashed in separate state inquiries into its Sydney, Melbourne and Perth operations.
Eventually, Crown’s billionaire boss James Packer was forced out on a $3.29 billion golden parachute as the company was flogged off to American private equity behemoth Blackstone as part of the clean-up operation.
It wasn’t until last year that Crown was deemed suitable to hold a casino gaming licence, after getting conditional approval to open its gaming floors in 2022. With that kind of history, we reckon Crown should be able to handle a couple of days of soiled bedsheets.
To the bank
What a time to be alive it has been for Labor’s True Believers, still celebrating Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s crushing election victory in May.
It’s an even better time for party operatives looking for new jobs, with ministerial offices on a hiring blitz, and the private sector paying top coin to poach people with connections in Canberra.
Last week, CBD revealed a change of the guard in Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek’s office, with veteran politico Matthew Chesher, husband of former state Labor minister Verity Firth, joining as chief of staff.
Chesher replaces Dan Doran, leaving Plibersek’s office after a 14-year stint, and who we hear is headed for the Commonwealth Bank, where he’s set to take up the gig of general manager of government affairs.
Meanwhile, CommBank’s corporate affairs team is led by former ABC news director Gaven Morris.
Doran’s gig was recently vacated by Euan Robertson, who left the bank after more than a decade to take up a job as managing director of government relations at private equity giant Blackstone. The American firm has been growing its presence in the region, recently acquiring local data centre operator AirTrunk in a $24 billion deal, a few years after picking up embattled Crown Resorts.
Lampe On
Speaking of Laborites moving on to work with the big end of town, Julia Gillard’s one-time chief of staff Amanda Lampe kicked off her new job as chief executive of Business Events NSW a couple of weeks ago.
Lampe left Gillard’s office in 2011 after copping a whole lot of blame for Labor’s plodding performance at the previous year’s election, where months after entering The Lodge after getting rid of some other bloke, the new prime minister was forced to cobble together a minority government.
Despite being held responsible for Gillard’s “the real Julia” schtick – a winner if there ever was one – Lampe garnered support from the NSW Right to take over as Labor’s all-powerful national secretary after leaving the prime minister’s office.
But when the faction couldn’t agree to back her, former unionist George Wright was brought in. He ended up working at BHP after a five-year stint running the party.
Lampe, meanwhile, comes to her circa $500,000-a-year events management gig after a six-year stint as director of corporate relations at British multinational boozemaker Diageo, where some of her work lobbying against the Albanese government ruffled a few feathers in the Labor-verse.
But in reality, such is the life for most Labor apparatchiks. Unless you’re one of the lucky few with the sauce to get preselected, you work yourself to the bone in the Canberra bubble, and then head off to the private sector and collect your bag.
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