Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Speaker. Yes, standing orders must be suspended and we must deal with this motion immediately because so much evidence, including as recently as this morning in the New South Wales inquiry into Crown, has now accumulated that it is clear that Crown Resorts is a festering sore that needs to be dealt with in this place at a political level. We can not any more rely on other inquiries or other agencies. Not only do we have to deal with it politically in this place; we need to do it urgently. We can't let this rot go on any longer. Every day we allow Crown Resorts to keep trading the way it's been trading for umpteen years is another day that it is breaking the law. It's another day that directors are not doing their duty. It's another day the community is not being protected from that lawbreaking. So it is patently clear, I suggest, that we need to suspend standing orders to deal with this.

We need to clean up Crown. We need to show immediately that we in this place believe in the rule of law and understand that a gross misconduct is going on at Crown casino, that we in this place understand that Crown is not a fit and proper organisation to be given a third casino licence, to operate at Barangaroo in Sydney. Unless honourable members back this motion, they will show again that they are part of the problem and not prepared to be part of the solution.

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