Stoking the flames of a casino conundrum

Opprobrium was dumped on Crown by Seven West Media WA chief Maryna Fewster, seen above as she heads into the Perth Casino Royal Commission. Picture: Colin Murty / The Australian

Separately, the three big moments from this week’s royal commission in Crown’s Perth casino – Monday’s disclosure by chief commissioner Neville Owen of his friendship with billionaire Kerry Stokes, Wednesday’s excoriation of former Crown director John Poynton, and the buckets of opprobrium dumped on Crown by Seven West Media WA chief Maryna Fewster on Thursday – were all very interesting.

Combined together, those moments are prompting some to imagine that Stokes may well be laying the groundwork to purchase the Perth casino out of the wreckage of Crown.

While she remains a director of the Crown’s WA subsidiary Burswood Ltd, Fewster’s testimony was scathing of Crown, its structure, and its new executive team. Pointedly and repeatedly, she said Crown Perth should be run by an independent board of West Australians who would put Crown Perth and WA first. In other circumstances, it would have sounded like a pitch for a WA-led acquisition of the casino.

To be clear: a spokesman for Mr Stokes on Friday emphatically denied that the billionaire had any plans for or interest in acquiring the casino. The Weekend Australian has no reason to suggest otherwise. Fresh from its multi-billion dollar purchase of Boral, another big ticket acquisition would be quite the stretch.

While farfetched, the Stokes acquisition theory does provide an answer to some of the questions that John Poynton would be entitled to ask about his treatment by both the Royal Commission and Stokes’ The West Australian newspaper.

John Poynton arrives at the Perth Royal Commission. Picture: Colin Murty/The Australian

It seems odd that Poynton was the first put on the stand, enduring a tense and at times hostile line of questioning from counsel assisting Patricia Cahill SC, when there are other more senior figures, who had greater authority and control over the Perth casino and Crown itself, who have not yet been called – and who may well not appear at all.

The NSW Bergin inquiry, which triggered the WA royal commission, found that hundreds of millions of dollars had been laundered through the Perth casino since at least 2014.

Poynton was a director of Burswood Ltd during that time, but wouldn’t it have been more logical to start with the personnel who had ultimate responsibility for the Perth casino and Crown, and who had far more influence over the decisions and directions of the business? James Packer was such a man, up until he resigned as the executive chairman of Crown Resorts in March 2018.

And John Alexander, the CEO and chairman of Crown from 2017 to 2020, and the deputy chairman with a focus on the casino business for a decade before that, was arguably even more so. Packer and then Alexander were the chairmen of Burswood Ltd, before Poynton took on the role in 2019.

Packer and Stokes had a deep, long-running and well-publicised friendship. Alexander has been a director of Stokes’ Seven West Media since 2013.

Not calling Alexander and Packer as the opening witnesses – indeed, not yet indicating that they will be called at all – seemed a curious decision from the outset. Alexander and Packer’s strong ties to Stokes, and Owen’s declared relationship with the WA billionaire, make that decision seem all the more strange.

Owen is undoubtedly a man of the utmost integrity.

The unlikely theory that Stokes may be eyeing off Crown Perth also provides an answer to another question that has been raised by many in WA. Stokes’ The West Australian newspaper – which typically venerates Perth’s leading business figures – has run several highly negative articles about Poynton in recent months.

Some have been asking why The West seems to be so critical of Poynton, who as a member the board of guardians of the Future Fund and a former Reserve Bank of Australia board member is one of the best-credentialed business figures to come out of the state.

The theories raised have ranged from the petty – Poynton’s wife, Di Bain, running against Seven’s favourite son Basil Zempilas for Perth Lord Mayor – to the ridiculous: that Poynton’s father supposedly blackballed a young up-and-coming Stokes from becoming a member of Perth’s men-only Weld Club decades ago.

But asking questions of Poynton starts to make sense if viewed through the prism of a Stokes purchase of Crown Perth.

Putting Poynton’s head on a stick would satisfy three objectives – one, it would deliver the scalp that the Royal Commission and the state government needs to show it is tough on impropriety; two, it would help justify a break-up of Crown and the fire sale of the Perth casino; and three, it would kill off any acquisition hopes that Poynton himself may have for the venue.

While Poynton made clear this week that he was not working on a consortium bid, his investment banking pedigree and deep connections across the corporate world would make him an obvious focal point for any rival Perth consortium interested in the casino should a sale process arise in the future.

If, despite his clear denial, Stokes is working towards a play for Crown Perth, Neville Owen’s disclosures about his relationship with Stokes will take on an increasingly dark hue.

The takeover theory does sound far-fetched. But it is important to remember that, in recent years, Stokes has succeeded in winning WA government funding for a new Westrac training centre in Collie, struck a deal to potentially acquire a prime riverfront site valued by the state at a solitary dollar (with potentially $60m of government assistance thrown in), and won a lucrative gas export exemption for the Waitsia project of the Stokes-backed Beach Energy.

The most likely outcome of the commission would still seem to be some sort of adverse finding against Crown, followed by slap-on-the-wrist penalty, the imposition of new conditions and an angrier, better-resourced regulator.

But the prospect of more dramatic findings cannot be ruled out.