It wasn’t as bad as taking out the trash on, say, Christmas Eve, but the NSW Government and Opposition escaped relatively lightly this week by the state’s crime commission (NCC) expose of the pubs’n’clubs dirty billions dropping on the day after the federal budget.
The relief for Premier Dominic Perrottet and Opposition Leader Chris Minns is only temporary. The budget noise is already passing, but the price the crime commission put on the politicians’ right to remain in public life remains.
That price is throwing off the control of NSW politics long enjoyed by ClubsNSW and the Australian Hotels Association (AHA) by immediately backing the NCC’s No.1 recommendation: Forcing cashless gaming cards on the gaming industry.
Mr Perrottet and Mr Minns either quickly meet that price on a bipartisan basis or stand condemned as the tools of a corrupting gambling industry that presently owns both sides of politics in this, Australia’s most criminal state.
The Criminal State
(NSW has 31.5 per cent of Australia’s population, but 40 per cent of the nation’s serious and organised crime, says the NCC. Would make a nice line on NSW number plates – The Criminal State.)
The NCC’s report on money laundering via electronic gaming machines (EGMs, aka “the pokies”) in hotels and clubs is a dispiriting recital of gambling addiction, the proceeds and cause of crime, missing oversight, ineffective technology and billions of dirty dollars flushing through the machines each year into the pockets of the millionaire mini-casino operators, hotel owners and the NSW Treasury.
It says plenty about the determination of ClubsNSW and the AHA to hang on to the proceeds of crime that both tried to spin the NCC report as something positive for them, focusing entirely on one finding: That there isn’t as much straight money laundering going on via EGMs as previously reported in the media.
Using its coercive powers, the NCC obtained evidence from the criminal class that using EGMs is inefficient for cleaning large amounts – there are much better methods when you’re dealing in millions.
“The simplest method of cleaning involves the purchase of assets, such as real property,” the NCC stated, but that’s another story.
Misery, destitution, domestic violence
Make no mistake, the NCC confirmed pubs and clubs are being used for laundering.
And tax evasion.
And spending billions of dollars of dirty money, the proceeds of crime.
And causing crime as problem gamblers do whatever it takes to feed their pokies habit.
And never mind the simple misery, destitution and domestic violence that follows the scourge of addiction to pokies – that was outside the NCC’s remit.
Media reports of large-scale money laundering in pubs and clubs in the aftermath of the Crown and Star casino exposés sparked the NCC inquiry.
While the NCC found the straight “cleaning” of money is not large scale, it couldn’t determine how much was going on because of inadequate reporting and monitoring of EGM use.
Nonetheless, the NCC found pubs and clubs were being used for another type of “laundering” – the spending of the proceeds of crime. Turns out that criminals with vast amounts of cash like to put it through the machines.
Spending the proceeds of crime is illegal in its own right, which effectively makes clubs and pubs accomplices by providing the means for spending untraceable billions.
How many billions? Again, the NCC couldn’t determine exactly how much due to the inadequacies of the present system preferred by ClubsNSW and the AHA.
But it is “billions” – plural – a year.
Which is interesting to compare with the amount ClubsNSW last year claimed it would lose if cashless gaming cards were made mandatory – $1.8 billion a year.
The powerful lobby group also claimed 9000 jobs would be lost – a claim quickly rubbished as it would mean a quarter of all jobs in the NSW clubs industry would go.
Put another way in light of the NCC inquiry, ClubsNSW was claiming a quarter of the clubs’ workforce was dependent on the proceeds of crime.
The NCC, like the Crown inquiry before it, found the best way to clean up the criminal billions flowing through the EGMs would be to make them cashless.
Like ClubsNSW, the AHA doesn’t like that idea at all, claiming it is “unjustified overreach”, given the NCC found the use of poker machines to wash money was not widespread.
“We have an industry on its knees post-COVID now being told to introduce an unproven, untested, uncosted and unnecessary cashless system which treats every patron like a criminal,” AHA NSW CEO John Whelan said.
That would be the industry representing pubs changing hands for ever-vaster fortunes based on the billions flowing through their poker machine gold mines.
If a business depends on the proceeds of crime and human misery, the business has no right to survive anyway.
Embarrassing for ClubsNSW
More embarrassing for ClubsNSW (if the lobby is capable of being embarrassed) is that the NCC found the organisation’s suggested alternative to mandatory cashless gaming – a voluntary system – would actually make the situation worse.
“Introducing a voluntary system (where gamblers can opt to use either cash or a player card) will not address money laundering as criminals dealing with the proceeds of crime will simply use cash,” the NCC reported, stating the bleeding obvious.
“A hybrid/voluntary system will likely make pubs and clubs more attractive venues for money launderers as hybrid player card systems could be exploited to make ‘cleaning’ easier.”
The entirety of the report leaves the pokies pushers naked, whatever credibility they might have claimed in tatters, their reputational greenwashing through token community donations irrelevant.
How does gifting a few thousand dollars for sports uniforms compare with pandering to gambling addictions consuming millions of dollars’ worth of criminal proceeds?
Among the more pathetic case studies in the report are the stories of individuals making millions of dollars selling drugs but with nothing to show for it – they were committing crimes to get the cash to feed their insatiable pokies habit.
“It is not the inquiry’s role to address the issue of problem gambling, however, adoption of these recommendations are likely to have flow-on effects for harm minimisation,” the NCC states.
Cashless gaming wasn’t the NCC’s only recommendation, but it was the main one, the one that terrifies ClubsNSW and the AHA.
If there is a delay in implementing cashless gaming, the NCC wants to slash the amount of cash players are allowed to load into a machine at one time.
“A reduction in load‐up limits would reduce the capacity of people to deal with the proceeds of crime via EGMs and would also assist with harm minimisation.”
In Queensland, the present limit is $100. In Victoria, it is $1000. In NSW, 22 per cent of EGMs have a load-up limit of $5000, 56 per cent have a limit of $7500 and the remaining 22 per cent of machines can take $10,000 at a time.
The NCC hit on reducing the limit to $1000 simply to bring it into line with Victoria, not because it was the ideal number.
What did the pokies pushers think of that?
“ClubsNSW indicated that further information was required regarding any proposal before they could provide an informed answer,” the NCC stated.
“ClubsNSW indicated that the costs associated with a change to the load‐up limits would be ‘prohibitive’ for some venues, that the government should assist if the measure was introduced, and that clubs should no longer have AML/CTF (anti-money laundering counter terrorism financing) obligations. “
Yes, it does take enormous hide to expect the taxpayer to contribute to the nation’s biggest gaming organisation to take basic preventative steps.
“The collaboration of the partners participating in this inquiry has generated new insights that provide a sound evidence base for the recommendations contained in the report.
“The Government, the stakeholders, and the public can have confidence that if implemented, these recommendations will reduce the impact of serious and organised crime in NSW,” the report found.
ClubsNSW and the AHA are not interested in that. They want the dirty billions to keep flowing their way.
Which is where the politicians come in.
Independents force issue
There is no way Mr Perrottet or Mr Minns can duck this report and its key recommendations.
Since Wednesday, they have weaved which is disappointing and an indication of the power of the gaming lobby over our politicians.
The funniest immediate response came from a spokesperson for NSW Labor who reportedly said the recommendations “would be considered after consultation with law enforcement”.
I didn’t know ClubsNSW and the AHA were now considered law enforcement.
Thanks to the independent member for Sydney, Alex Greenwich, neither the Coalition or Labor will be able to hide for long.
Mr Greenwich has given notice he will amend a registered clubs bill already before parliament to make cashless cards mandatory in clubs.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports he will have the backing of other key crossbenchers, Greg Piper and Joe McGirr, as well as the Greens. (Independents enforcing integrity measures – it seems to be a bit of a thing.)
The government needs the cross bench – or Labor – to pass the bill.
If either of the major parties show they prefer the interests of the pokies pushers to the people of NSW, they will have declared themselves unfit for public office.
And, yes, this is just NSW, the Criminal State – but the pokie scourge has grabbed every government bar Western Australia and, perhaps, Tasmania if it sticks to its declared move to cashless gaming.
NSW only differs in the scale in its pokies problem. The bipartisan ethics, or lack thereof, is the same in Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, the ACT and Northern Territory.
