WELLINGTON - The Hamilton casino battle continued in the Court of Appeal yesterday with claims that Casino Control Authority member Michael Cox dismissed evidence of church-goers because - like left-wing politicians - they carried a moral message.
Rhys Harrison, QC, said that at a hearing last October it appeared that Mr Cox, a former National Party MP, did not listen fairly and impartially to the opponents of the Riverside Casino project.
Following the hearing, the authority voted 3-2 in favour of granting the Riverside consortium a licence.
However, opponents challenged the decision and in the High Court at Hamilton in May, Justice Robert Fisher revoked the licence after ruling that Mr Cox was biased in his support of it.
Justice Fisher said it was not alleged that Mr Cox favoured one side because of a personal interest or relationship, but there was a real possibility that he had entered the hearing with a closed mind.
Mr Harrison, lawyer for casino opponents including the Anglican Bishop of Waikato, said yesterday that he supported Justice Fisher's judgment, but there was even more compelling evidence of bias.
On Monday, a lawyer for Riverside, Alan Galbraith, QC, told the court that Mr Cox had been grappling with two vastly different sets of evidence and made an informed vote.
However, Mr Harrison said Mr Cox had relied on his argument of freedom of choice to avoid the real issue of whether the project would have an undue social impact on the Waikato region under section 30 of the Casino Control Act.
He said Mr Cox had not been interested in the deeper social implications. During the hearing, Mr Cox dismissed his opponents if they did not agree with his freedom-of-choice philosophy. He marginalised evidence from the churches as coming from a moral viewpoint that gambling was a sin, and dismissed the Hamilton District Council as hypocritical and rabid.
Mr Harrison said Mr Cox's freedom-of-choice philosophy enabled him to actively support those who backed the casino.
To one submitter, a Ms Collett, who identified views of the Alliance Party's Hamilton West branch, Mr Cox commented that it was "Jim Anderton's lot."
Mr Cox said that although 3 to 5 per cent of casino-goers would have a gambling problem, most visited because it was their freedom of choice.
Mr Harrison said Mr Cox had not listened fairly and impartially to people who had a right to participate.
The Court of Appeal last night reserved its decision.
Cases of bias cited at Hamilton casino licence appeal
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