Leaked government documents have revealed massive discrepancies between the number of violent incidents at Sydney’s The Star Casino and the number of those incidents that are reported to the State Government.
According an internal government review which was obtained by the ABC, a staggering number of assaults between March and August weren’t even reported to police. Out of 111 incident reviews covered by the report, police were only called to 36, meaning official crime stats don’t reflect the true extent of violent incidences on-premises.
Among the incidents deemed too minor for police attendance: a scuffle resulting in a broken leg, a fight involving two blows to the head, and a slew of “forced removals.”
Extrapolating those figures reveals The Star could host around 250 violent incidences each year, making it a full ten times more dangerous than the state’s next-most violent pub. That take lends credence to last year’s
Bureau Of Crime Statistics and Research investigation which pegged The Star as
NSW‘s most violent venue.
What’s more is that a full 79% of violent incidences weren’t reported to the casino’s executives, meaning internal responses may have been affected, and that their official reports to the State Government may have provided significantly inaccurate information on the scale of violence at The Star.
The review states “this means that statistical violent incident trends for the casino are not necessarily accurate,” and the Deputy Secretary of Liquor, Gaming and Emergency Management Paul Newson told The Star’s managing director in a subsequent letter “the scale of the variation in this case is disturbing.”
The review suggests altering the casino’s licence with provisions forcing it to preserve crime scenes, and also it discusses penalties for not consistently reporting violent incidents to law enforcement.
This statistical fudgery isn’t only of significance to those directly affected by the assaults in question. Since the State Government announced The Star would be exempt from lockout laws intended to reduce late-night violence in the city, Mike Baird & Co. have faced near-constant criticism for letting the casino off scot-free.
Although The Star’s officials have responded to the documents by saying they don’t accurately represent the casino’s reporting process, the leak suggests what many detractors have said for yonks: only allowing nightlife in Sydney to exist in one place after a certain time is short-sighted at best, and outright dangerous at worst.
Source: ABC.
