‘I had full backing of the board,’ says ex-Star Entertainment CEO Robbie Cooke
The confidential submission of former casino boss Robbie Cooke shines a light on the difficult path that needed to be walked with NSW’s powerful casino regulator.
Former Star Entertainment boss Robbie Cooke has hit out at suggestions he acted without the full authority of the board and says he always put the interests of the business ahead of himself, a confidential submission says.
He also said it was not the role of a leader of a large and complex organisation to agree with everything the regulator asserts “without question”.
The comments are contained in Mr Cooke’s explosive confidential written submission to NSW’s Bell inquiry into Star and seen by The Australian. It is understood Mr Cooke’s closing submission has been seen by several senior NSW government officials.
The 55-page closing submission marks the first time Mr Cooke has put his case directly and with the full context of the events leading up to his dramatic resignation in late March.
The former chief executive appeared at the Bell inquiry in late April, although at the time he was given limited scope from the inquiry’s lead to outline his version of events.
Mr Cooke’s submission paints an entirely different light to the narrative constructed during the Bell inquiry that the former CEO was acting alone and without authority of Star’s board when he rebuffed independent manager Nick Weeks’ highly critical assessment of the casino’s reform efforts. During the Bell inquiry, Star’s directors distanced themselves from the criticism of the Weeks report that was largely prepared by Mr Cooke.
Mr Cooke’s submission also shines a light on the difficult path that needed to be walked with NSW’s powerful casino regulator.
Through the Bell inquiry it was repeatedly suggested that the NSW Independent Casino Commission and its boss Philip Crawford had viewed Mr Cooke as one of the barriers to Star’s efforts to reform the casino’s culture.
Mr Cooke, an experienced gaming boss who had run Brisbane-based Tatts and several other ASX-listed companies, joined Star in late 2022 to oversee its turnaround.
“Mr Cooke does not accept that the only way to respectfully engage with a regulator is to agree with everything that the regulator asserts without question; much less to accept that a manager (or administrator or monitor) reports to the regulator without question,” the submission says.
“If an organisation forms a view that the regulator may have been misinformed or given an incomplete picture upon which to base its decision making, or is exceeding its powers, it is appropriate to seek to correct that view.”
Adam Bell SC, who oversaw the second inquiry into Star Entertainment, handed his final report to the NSW casino regulator this week. The NICC has said it intends to consider the recommendations of the report before releasing it publicly.
Star on Thursday issued a statement saying it had yet to see a copy of the final report.
The Australian this week revealed the lead counsel of the inquiry, Casper Conde, had advised Mr Bell that the Star was not ready to be found suitable to regain its licence. Mr Conde recommended the NICC indefinitely extend the current appointment of the independent manager overseeing the casino. Mr Conde also said Star needed three to five years to overhaul its corporate culture, to better combat the potential criminal risks the casino faces.
While Mr Conde’s findings do not form the final view of the Bell inquiry, they are expected to form the blueprint of any recommendations. Significantly there was no finding of wrongdoing by Mr Cooke in Mr Conde’s submission, nor was there any conclusions that Star had breached NSW’s casino laws since Mr Cooke took charge.
Mr Cooke’s closing submission says the CEO had the full backing of the board when he set about rejecting Mr Weeks’ annual assessment of Star. Among criticisms made by Star and submitted to the NICC in late January, Mr Weeks’ managers report lacked balance, contained errors and was “selective” and “incomplete”.
“Mr Cooke repeatedly sought their (the board’s) input and comments, including expressly with respect to tone, and received clear approval of the final form of the documents (including an acknowledgment of their likely or at least possible effect),” the Cooke closing submission says.
The closing submission also noted that Mr Cooke immediately offered to resign from Star on two occasions after the state’s casino regulator had expressed to the board it had lost confidence in him. But the Star board had insisted Mr Cooke remain “in what amounted to a repeated vote of confidence in him”.
The submission also says the Bell inquiry wasn’t in a position to make any findings about Mr Cooke’s management style or whether it “was optimal or not”.
The former Star CEO hit back over his determination to keep longer-term senior staffers at Star – a deep source of friction with the regulator. The Weeks report had previously raised concerns that a number of senior staffers stayed on at the casino. Even though they had not been found to have been involved or done anything wrong, keeping these staff on would make the task of culture reform more difficult, the Weeks report says.
But Mr Cooke refused to play ball, his submission says he “did not consider it appropriate or fair to terminate employees with no evidence of misconduct”.
Mr Cooke said a string of controversial text messages sent between himself and former Star chairman David Foster and revealed at the inquiry do not show at any time that he acted inappropriately or was disingenuous about the Star’s public statements of co-operation with the regulator.
Most of the messages were in response to texts from his chairman, Mr Cooke noted. One, from Cooke, that the “fireworks will be bright and loud” was in reference to the report signed off by the board. Another “we are meeting Monday to get ready for war” related to how to respond to Mr Weeks’ report.
Do you know more? eric.johnston@news.com.au
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