Crown chair Helen Coonan has plenty of cards on the table

Crown chairman Helen Coonan fronts the Victorian Royal Commission in Melbourne.

He said, she said. Old Crown, new Crown.

Helen Coonan’s time before the Victorian royal commission into Crown Resorts was a binary affair on Thursday as the 73-year-old executive chair tried to convince Ray Finkelstein that the $7.6bn gaming den really had changed its ways.

But the more counsel assisting Adrian Finanzio scratched the surface of Crown’s reforms – most prompted by the findings of the Bergin inquiry or seeking to pre-empt the Fink’s yet-to-be-penned conclusions – you couldn’t help but wonder how much of it was window dressing now that Crown realises its ­licence is actually on the line.

Former Howard minister Coonan is the face of reform at Crown, despite the fact that the Sydney-based chair has been on the board of the James Packer-dominated company since December 2011, having got to know the scion and his late media proprietor father Kerry Packer in her role as communications minister.

Despite that, when Coonan joined Crown she had no gaming industry or public directorship experience, a decade on she is now running the whole Crown loss-making show, named as a director of more than 60 Crown corporate vehicles.

“You’ve got a lot on your plate,” Finanzio noted of the also Minerals Council of Australia and GRACosway chair.

He wasn’t kidding.

-

Who to believe

But who will former Federal Court judge Ray Finkelstein believe – executive Crown chair Helen Coonan or her newly appointed chief executive of Crown’s engine room Melbourne resort, Xavier Walsh?

The commission has heard conflicting evidence from the pair over Walsh’s disclosure to Coonan during a phone call (their first meeting after she was made executive chair) in which they discussed what we now know to be Crown’s underpayment of gaming tax to the Victorian government.

In the February 23 call, which came the day after the Victorian royal commission was announced, Coonan says Walsh told her there was a “legacy issue” he was worried about as a “transparency issue”.

Coonan recalled Walsh told her the issue wasn’t a problem and had been fixed and cleared by the Victorian gaming regulator.

Coonan said she told Walsh material relating to the matter should be sent to Crown’s lawyers for their review on whether it should be sent to Finkelstein’s commission.

“Clearly Mr Walsh was troubled by it … he obviously wanted to unburden himself … he didn’t do it fulsomely,” Coonan said on Thursday.

Inside the Crown Royal Commission in Melbourne on Thursday where Crown Resorts executive chairman Helen Coonan appeared via video link. Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Crosling

But while Coonan was relying on memory, Walsh at the time had made a file note of the call (CFO Alan McGregor had made a file note on the issue, too), in which Walsh wrote “Helen to consider”, pointing to further action to be taken by his chair.

By the end of the day, Finkelstein was keen to get to the bottom of the differing recollections about what has emerged as a key issue and potential flag that the “new” Crown dedicated to openness and transparency is actually just the “old” Crown in a new dress.

“Is it possible your recollection is not perfect?” Finkelstein asked Coonan.

“I just want to make sure you aren’t possibly mistaken.”

But Crown’s chair wasn’t prepared to concede.

“It is always possible when you are recollecting something that it is not always precise,” she said.

“The note that Mr Walsh made about me reviewing it … there was nothing to review, he never asked me to review.

“I just don’t think that’s right.”

So who will the commission believe and should Coonan have followed up on Walsh’s so-called “legacy issue” beyond what she did, and to what extent will that affect Finkelstein’s recommendations concerning Coonan and Walsh’s enduring tenure at the gaming group?

We won’t have to wait long for answers.

-

Barton’s check-out

Evidence unearthed on the penultimate day of The Fink’s Crown royal commission has revealed former chief Ken Barton’s “Hotel California” moment.

Unlike the narrative put to shareholders at his departure in early February, Helen Coonan confirmed Barton was not just “assisting the executive chairman in coming weeks to ensure a smooth handover” but rather on a $1.5m, six-month consultancy agreement to boot.

Illustration: Rod Clement

A consultancy agreement signed just three days after he stepped down from the role stipulated that Barton receive $250,000 a month until mid-August, paid into a freshly established entity in the name of his wife Linda Chung, who also owns their Double Bay property.

Seems like all of Barton’s digging his heels in, and threats of legal action, paid off.

Coonan revealed she had been campaigning for Barton’s removal from the company for months before his eventual (official) exit, putting to the board at several instances that, based on the evidence of Patricia Bergin’s inquiry, he was no longer fit to serve.

“I asked Mr Barton to stand aside and I wasn’t supported,” she told counsel assisting Adrian Finanzio, alluding also to another disagreement about getting independent advice from Arnold Bloch Leibler, the legal firm and its Mr Fix-it Leon Zwier, whom she ultimately tapped on her own accord late last year.

Turns out only fellow boardmates Jane Halton and John Horvath voted with her to give Barton the boot, setting up what sounds like a terse several months to follow.

“I had to deal with Mr Barton the best I could. He had directed himself to the sorts of operational changes we could make all through 2020,” Coonan noted, by her own admission adding that “he wasn’t all bad”.

“Litigation with executives was about the last thing Crown wanted at that moment … Barton was not prepared to go voluntarily.”

Far from a glowing endorsement.

Gongs on show

Oh, the irony!

Catherine Myers, head of the under-the-pump Victorian gaming regulator, launching a new set of awards from the International Association of Gaming Regulators to recognise the industry’s hot shots on the beat.

Myers has been head of the VCGLR for more than six years and a couple of years ago became a “trustee” of the IAGR, which seeks to advance the effectiveness and efficiency of gaming regulation around the world.

Ian Freckelton. Picture: AAP

While any physical casino visits have been rendered off limits for the past year, Myers has only recently been appointed as one of eight judges set to preside over the association’s inaugural awards, taking to YouTube recently to call for nominations.

It comes as the regulator on Thursday announced it had put in motion a new independent investigation to be led by Ian Freckelton, after the Victorian opposition criticised the body and what it says are failures in relation to regulation at Crown Melbourne, and against the backdrop of the unfolding Victorian royal commission into Crown.

Among the accolades up for grabs are awards for “international regulator of the year”, “regulatory rising star” and “regulatory excellence” – we can’t wait to see if Myers and her team actually throw their hats into the ring.

The gongs are to be handed out at IAGR’s annual conference in September in Boston, where the theme of proceedings will be Disrupting the Regulator – Sparking Innovation in Regulatory Practice.

Plenty for the Victorian regulator to soak up there.

Helen Coonan

Ray Finkelstein

Ken Barton

Ian Freckelton