Cheap tricks over John O’Neill’s resignation shows how Star Entertainment collapsed into a blackhole

It looked like bin night at the Pyrmont RSL last Friday when Star waited until well after market close to announce John O’Neill’s resignation.

The Star Entertainment executive chairman John O'Neill has resigned from Star after more than a decade at the helm. Picture Glenn Hampson

Adam Bell SC’s job in determining the suitability of Star Entertainment to hold a casino licence in NSW has just got harder.

Most of the company’s executive team is out the door, with its directors following quickly.

The place is a mess.

Part of Bell’s job is assessing the suitability of the close associates of Star’s licence, which comprise mostly its senior management and the board, and hardly anyone is left.

If anyone is wondering how Star – which put itself on the morality pedestal during the bruising inquisitions into rival Crown Resorts – came to this, all they need to do is to look at the events of last Friday night.

About two hours after the share market closed – and 13 hours before Australians began lining up at polling booths – Star issued an ASX statement noting its executive chairman, John O’Neill, would resign after more than a decade helming the company.

At the very least it looked like bin night at what is frequently dubbed the Pyrmont RSL – delivering bad news when people are distracted, settling into the weekend, and the media is working itself into a lather over the election.

At worst, it’s an example of poor corporate governance and culture, underlining the work Star – like Crown – needs to do to show it is a suitable licence holder.

Casinos, by their nature and vast sums of cash that flow through their doors, are constantly the targets of organised criminals looking to launder ill gotten funds, and other seedy individuals. Management, and the board – which can delegate but not defer to its executive – must therefore be alert at all times.

It’s a hands on job to ensure Australia’s casinos remain free from criminal influence and, crucially, aren’t financial drains on some of the most vulnerable members of the community, those suffering gambling addictions.

The board therefore must be of impeccable repute, diligent, transparent and in the case of the Casino Act, act with honesty and integrity. In many respects, they must function at a higher level than directors at other public companies. Cheap behaviour – like making a material announcement on a Friday evening and days before O’Neill is set to appear as a witness at the Bell inquiry – does Star an enormous disservice.

O’Neill had ample opportunity to inform his fellow directors of his intention to resign.

A week earlier, his board colleague Sally Pitkin said there was “a recognition that a new board needs to lead the company through the reform process”.

“There is a shared understanding of that at board level,” she said.

Katie Lahey, another director, also said that the board had engaged a search company to find new directors and acknowledged Star needs to change.

“We’ve had a them and us relationship with the regulators. We need to have a positive relationship with our regulators,” she said.

“Our objectives and their objectives are the same.

“We should be able to work together to address the problem that this review identified for us.”

But O’Neill – instead of immediately providing the market an update on Star’s renewal process after Pitkin and Lahey’s evidence – waited a week, late on a Friday evening, revealing one of the many ways Star has collapsed into a massive blackhole.