Bunkle wants inquiry into casino-bid bias

By CATHY ARONSON

HAMILTON - The Minister of Consumer Affairs has called on Casino Control Authority member Michael Cox to resign after a judge found that he showed apparent bias in supporting the stalled Hamilton Casino.

Phillida Bunkle said yesterday that she wanted an investigation into the authority's operations and membership.

She had asked Mr Cox to resign because "the authority's credibility is now seriously undermined" and she wanted a review of the six casino licence rulings the former MP had voted on.

The authority's chief executive, Trevor Garrett, said Mr Cox had already decided not to renew his membership when it expired in April last year. He had kept his position only until the Hamilton casino proceedings were completed.

Mr Cox could not be reached for comment, but in a written statement he compared the judgment to a disputed lbw ruling in cricket.

"I accept the umpire's ruling, but walk from the field shaking my head. If the casino does not proceed, my only sorrow is for the 300 or so young people of Hamilton who will not get jobs."

In his ruling in the High Court at Hamilton on Wednesday, Justice Fisher found that Mr Cox, a former National Party finance spokesman, showed apparent bias as one of the three authority members who backed the casino licence last year.

"In my view there is a real possibility that Mr Cox entered upon the hearing with a closed mind and was never able to escape from it," the judge said.

The decision has left the developers - Riverside Casino, Sky City, the Tainui tribe and the Hamilton-based Perry Group - with a bill of more than $5 million and no licence.

The chairman of Riverside Casino, Evan Davies, said the application's merits had not been questioned. "It is disappointing that a publicly appointed authority that we paid a non-refundable fee to has tripped up the process and we had no control over it."

Mr Cox has faced bias claims before. In 1995, an unsuccessful applicant for the Auckland licence, Auckland Casino, said he had been biased in granting the licence to Sky City because he held 880 residual shares in Brierley Investments, an 80 per cent shareholder in the successful company.

Auckland Casino failed in its application for a judicial review of the licence decision because it had known of the alleged bias before the licence hearings.

Yesterday, MP Willie Jackson introduced to Parliament a Casino Control (Poll Demand) Amendment Bill, earlier mooted by Ms Bunkle. Under the legislation, licence applicants would need the approval of local communities through a referendum.

The Gaming Law Reform Bill is due to be reported back to the House in July and may extend the moratorium on casinos that expires on October 15.

Meanwhile, the lawyer for the Hamilton casino opponents, Thomas Sutcliffe, said Riverside Casino's only chance of proceeding was for the Court of Appeal to overturn Justice Fisher's decision.

The Casino Control Authority and Riverside Casino are seeking legal advice on whether the latter's application is still valid, as it was filed before the moratorium was imposed. Building work has halted until Riverside decides its next step.

Waikato Anglican Bishop David Moxon said that if the application went to the Court of Appeal, Waikato churches would seriously consider challenging it once more.

The Anglican Church had party status - giving it the right to make submissions during last year's hearing before the authority - as it owned land next to the casino site in Victoria St.

Bishop Moxon said a Hamilton casino would increase gambling addiction and harm the community.

The chairman of the Waikato Casino Opposition Action Committee, Tony McKenna, said Sky City's partners, Tainui and the Perry Group, "had lost a huge amount of mana in the community for their selfish support of the plan."