Published
Wed, Nov 2, 2016, 19:33
- Allegations that The Star casino has attempted to skew assault statistics have sparked fresh concerns about its exemption from the city's nightlife curfew.
Sydney casino The Star has allegedly neglected to report dozens of violent incidents to police, potentially influencing a fresh study of the city's lockout laws.
As Fairfax Media report, a leaked internal report from Liquor and Gaming NSW has uncovered a discrepancy between instances of violence at The Star and the number of times police were contacted about violent incidents, which they say can lead to inaccurate crime statistics for the venue and the city. Out of 111 incidents which occurred at The Star between February and September 2015, 75 "did not result in police attendance despite the severity of the incident." One of these incidents, a five-person brawl in the casino's Marquee nightclub, resulted in a patron's leg being broken. The Star has responded to the claims, saying that it "rejects the report as it contains inaccurate information and a misunderstanding of the incident reporting process" at the venue.
The casino has been a controversial subject in the ongoing Sydney lockouts debate, as it has continued to be exempt from lockouts and many other licensing restrictions that impact the rest of the city. This is despite claims that violent incidents have increased substantially there since lockout laws were introduced in February 2014, making it likely to be the most violent venue in the state. Assault statistics in Pyrmont (the suburb in which the casino lies) have continued to be a point of contention between pro- and anti-lockout parties.
Director of BOCSAR (the NSW Bureau Of Crime Statistics And Research) Dr. Don Weatherburn has announced a fresh analysis of the laws is already underway, expected to be completed in mid-2017. "We think that until the situation fully stabilises we should be adding new data and repeating the analysis." he said. "We have to keep taking snapshots as to what's going on to get a fuller appreciation of the effects of the lockouts."
Anti-lockouts group Keep Sydney Open took to Facebook to comment on the situation, saying that "the lockout laws haven't stopped violence. The NSW government has only shuffled and hidden the problem, and failed the community. Even before the ABC's report on Star Casino yesterday, we knew that alcohol-fueled assaults in Pyrmont are more than twice as high today under the lockout laws relative to trend. But the true extent of the violence revealed by yesterday's ABC report is horrendous. Under lockouts, alcohol-fueled violence in Pyrmont is 5.5 times higher than if the 2014 reforms lockout had never been introduced."
The allegations come soon after the delivery of the long-anticipatedCallinan review, a 151-page document prepared by High Court Judge Ian Callinan QC over the course of seven months. The independent review was intended to investigate all effects of Sydney's lockout laws and ultimately suggest to the State Government what changes, if any, should be made. Callinan's review concluded that lockout and last drinks times could be pushed back by half an hour each: to 2 AM and 3:30 AM respectively. Keep Sydney Open spokesperson Tyson Koh reacted negatively at the time, saying "will half an hour make a difference to venues and punters? Yes it will. But not enough."
The NSW government is yet to indicate whether or not they will adopt Callinan's suggestions, but they are expected to make a decision by the end of 2016. In the interim, a second Keep Sydney Open rally drew 10,000 protesters onto the streets to march against the laws' ill-effects on the city's nightlife.