In a wide-ranging interview, billionaire James Packer has slammed former Victorian premier Dan Andrews and has taken aim at gambling regulators in Australia for trying to bankrupt the local casino industry.
The former casino mogul was scathing about Andrews in an interview with his friend Joe Aston, published by the latter’s media site Rampart, saying that the former premier had blindsided Crown with a fresh tax in 2022 that cost the business tens of millions of dollars.
James Packer slammed regulation of Australia’s casino sector and former Victorian Premier Dan Andrews. Credit: Seven News
“I couldn’t think more lowly of Daniel Andrews, I think he is human filth … I hope he sues me,” Packer says in the interview with Aston.
He said the additional tax impost might have derailed the $8.9 billion sale of Crown to Blackstone, which eventually went ahead to give Packer a lucrative exit from the casino industry. Packer was the major owner of Crown, which operates casinos in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth.
“Daniel Andrews is about my least favourite person in the world. I think Daniel Andrews not only ruined Victoria. He almost ruined my life,” Packer said. Andrews was contacted for comment.
He has a similar level of contempt for some of the regulators that were instrumental in removing the casino licences of both Crown and its Sydney rival Star Entertainment, saying they should have looked a lot earlier at Star.
“It’s one of the miracles of life that Philip Crawford’s got a job,” Packer said of the NSW Independent Casino Commission’s chief regulator.
A series of inquiries, triggered by investigations by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, found both Crown and Star guilty of multiple money-laundering failures and alleged associations with criminal groups. It also led to the stricter regulations on gaming, and poker machines specifically, that has affected both Crown and Star’s revenue.
“Star was behaving far worse than Crown ever behaved, and that’s been proven out by the fact that [the Australian Securities and Investments Commission] never laid any charges” against Crown’s board.
