Crown’s big Covid announcement

The gaming giant said both casinos were already complying with public health orders in Victoria and NSW, but the move “confirms the company’s position on mandatory vaccination for its properties until further notice”.

Crown Perth will have until January 31 to implement the policy, which will be in line with West Australian public health directions.

“Perth continues to enjoy an almost Covid-free environment and government policy is still evolving, so we are not quite as advanced in our consultation,” Crown Resorts chief executive Steve McCann said on Monday.

“We need to finalise the methodology but our aim will be to achieve alignment across all of our resorts.”

He said there had been overwhelming support for the plan.

“The mood has shifted in Australia over the last few months, and people are recognising that we all have a part to play,” Mr McCann said.

Crown announced a vaccine incentive scheme in September, with all employees entitled to three hours paid leave for each vaccination they receive and an extra day of paid sick leave to all employees who need it after a jab.

“Employees that are already vaccinated or are currently stood down will receive a $50 gift voucher,” the company said.

“Crown is now driving an extensive vaccine awareness and uptake campaign across all its properties.”

Meanwhile, the sole survivor of Crown’s board purge, Jane Halton, gave evidence at the Perth royal commission on Monday.

Ms Halton, who has a full plate as an ANZ director and chair of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, said Crown was improving its professional development programs for all board members, including induction, ethics and anti-money laundering (AML) training, plus refreshers.

It comes after former chair James Packer told the probe last week that he did not recall there being anyone on Crown Perth’s Burswood Ltd board with AML expertise and that was among “many oversights, things that should have been done differently”.

The reclusive billionaire also admitted he did not attend a single board meeting while at the helm of Burswood Ltd between 2013 to 2016 after moving overseas – and should have either quit or attended them.

At that time, criminal junkets were infiltrating the venue, laundering ill-gotten money.

Ms Halton was asked by counsel assisting Michael Feutrill if the earlier boards did not do enough to test management.

“In reflection … even when those tests were applied later, there probably wasn’t enough third party validation,” she replied.

A director’s role was “very much” about being sceptical about what management provided to the board.

“I think you would describe me as being always relatively sceptical – it didn’t make me a lot of friends among some of the former management,” Ms Halton said.

“I am very much at the moment hands-on, trying to guide, steer and engage … talking to staff, looking to drive change.”

The board was now “inquiring, examining and testing the material put in front of us, including for completeness”, Ms Halton said.

“It’s not sufficient to just deal with matters that are served up to the board and say whether they are adequate or not or in between but also to think broadly about whether we have covered enough matters and domains to actually put us on the path that we need to be on.

“Not just assuming its done … actually making sure.”

While Crown’s new Sydney venue was denied a gaming licence in light of the money laundering scandal, its bars, restaurants and the like have been operating since opening in December, notwithstanding lockdowns.

The Melbourne casino was last week put on two years’ “probation” when it must prove it has redeemed itself, while the findings of the Perth investigation are due in March.

Originally published as Vaccinations ‘immediately’ mandated for all Crown Melbourne, Sydney punters, staff and contractors