Ray Finkelstein taking broader view of Crown in royal commission

Commissioner Ray Finkelstein QC on the opening day of Victoria's royal commission into Crown Casino on Wednesday. Picture: AAP

Former Federal Court judge Ray Finkelstein QC made one thing clear when he opened the first day of his royal commission into the fitness of Crown Resorts to have a casino licence in Victoria.

If anyone has any issues to raise regarding Crown Melbourne or the issue of problem gambling in Victoria, they should speak up now before the inquiry finishes its work.

In a brief opening session of less than an hour, Finkelstein emerged as an experienced but practical royal commissioner, determined to cover the necessary issues on the suitability of Crown to have a casino licence in the state, while delivering his report to the Andrews government within the constraints of the ultra-tight deadline of August 1.

From the first day, it appears that when Finkelstein is reviewing the broader issue of the “public interest” of Crown’s casino business in Melbourne — as he is required to do under his terms of reference — he regards the issue of problem gambling as by far the biggest negative.

Expectations now are that the commission will focus on the issue of problem gambling and that, to pass muster, Crown will need to show that it is doing what it can to make sure that it has appropriate policies to minimise the incidence of problem gambling on its ­premises.

Finkelstein may well recommend other changes in Victoria designed to minimise the harm of problem gambling.

Outlining how he planned to proceed, Finkelstein said the public was free to make submissions to his inquiry, including on the issue of problem gambling.

But given its tight timetable, it is also clear that anyone with an issue to raise or a complaint to make needs to move fast to register their interest.

While it is clear that the commission will air issues around problem gambling, it was also clear from the opening day that if there are any new controversial ­issues to come out of left field against Crown, they most likely will come from the public.

The inquiry does not see its role as taking months to forensically go over the same issues already canvassed in NSW by former ­Supreme Court judge Patricia Bergin, who delivered her 800-plus page report on February 1.

While that is understandable in some sense, given the tight timetable, it seems the commission is happy enough to accept the findings of the Bergin commission — particularly if Crown also acknowledges them — rather than undertake any new substantial ­inquiries of its own into Crown’s behaviour.

Melbourne’s Crown Casino. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Luis Ascui

A little surprisingly perhaps, Finkelstein started his comments of the day by outlining the “benefits” of legalised casino gambling in Australia, pointing out how popular gambling was.

“Australians have always gambled — legally and illegally,” he said.

“The great historian Russel Ward, writing in 1958, said there is a wealth of testimony for the passion for gambling.”

He said this might explain why Australians had a “distinctly ­liberal and egalitarian gambling culture”.

Finkelstein said this might also explain why 40 per cent of adult Australians were regular gamblers and why Australians spend twice as much on legal gambling as do people in North America and Europe.

The Productivity Commission, he said, had “accepted” that many people gambled because of the ­enjoyment and the “thrill of ­winning”.

“Places of gambling such as ­casinos can provide a comfortable and safe place which many people find appealing,” he said.

Other benefits provided by legal gambling, he said, were the many jobs created and the fact that it generated 12 per cent of state-generated taxes in Victoria.

While he then went on to outline the “major adverse impacts” of legalised gambling — that it also could attract criminal elements and that there were issues with problem gambling in Australia — his opening remarks about the long history of gambling in Australia set a tone very different to that of commissioner Bergin in NSW.

Bergin’s inquiry at times saw clashes — and definitely tensions — between its team and Crown witnesses.

From the first day, at least, it appears that the approach of the Finkelstein inquiry is likely to be more pragmatic.

Counsel assisting, Adrian Fin­anzio SC, made the specific statement that the commission was “not adversarial litigation”.

The outcome of the inquiry, Finkelstein said, may well depend on how much Crown can show that it has, as it argues, begun a major reform program under the chairmanship of Helen Coonan — a reform program undertaken in response to a review by the NSW inquiry, despite the fact that its major operation was in ­Victoria.

One can understand there is little point reworking the events that led up to the arrest of Crown staff in China, in 2016, and major shareholder James Packer’s share sale to Lawrence Ho’s Melco, which raised specific issues for Crown’s restricted NSW licence.

But it is interesting that Finkelstein does not appear to want to probe deeper into possible issues of past money laundering at Crown’s casino in Melbourne.

While it is understandable that the commission does not want to waste time going over the same ­issues, its constraints only serve to highlight that the Finkelstein ­inquiry is being held in response to Victoria’s embarrassment about the findings of an inquiry in NSW that was commissioned 18 months ago.

Given that Victoria is going to the trouble and $10m in cost of ­actually having a royal commission into Crown, the challenge will be getting the job done in time while still appearing to have thrown a sufficient Victorian spotlight on sensitive issues that may have taken place in the state.

While royal commissions do have a habit of throwing up surprises as well, at this point it looks as if Coonan’s plans for reforming Crown, in response to the NSW inquiry, will play an important role in how her company is judged in its home state.