In the meantime unsuitable Crown is able to keep on operating in Victoria while having been banned from opening its casino facility in NSW.
The need to conduct three separate independent and expensive inquiries is the best argument yet for creating a national casino regulator.
Like NSW,Victoria has appointed a highly credentialed judge (Ray Finkelstein) to conduct the inquiry and will doubtless draw on much of what was uncovered during the NSW hearings and what was contained in the NSW report by Commissioner Patricia Bergin.
When Victoria’s royal commission is completed there is a reasonable chance that Crown’s transformation to make itself suitable will be sufficiently progressed that it will be suitable enough to satisfy the Victorian government.
Andrews should have pursued the more appropriate course of action and announced a proper independent inquiry back in 2019 whenNine media outlets uncovered evidence of money laundering and the infiltration of organised crime at Crown’s operations.
If that wasn’t enough,the Tasmanian Independent Andrew Wilkie’s claims of money laundering at Crown Melbourne - complete with footage of freezer bags of cash being handed over inside a Crown casino high roller room - should have raised the alert within Victoria’s casino regulatory circles.