Crown profits from the hardship of problem gamblers, the banks refuse to stop credit cards for problem gamblers. Helen Coonan is chair of both Crown and bank ombudsman AFCA (Australian Financial Complaints Authority). It is a conflict that makes her position untenable.

Poor culture has been identified as themain culprit that permitted a slew of bad practices and in many cases arrogant indifference to regulatory and compliance risk, Crown Resorts chair Helen Coonan said in a speech. She noted that community trust in the sector had been shattered.

No, she wasnt talking about her extraordinary revelations regarding money-laundering at Crown casino last week in theNew South WalesIndependent Liquor and Gaming Authoritys inquiry into Crowns suitability to hold a Sydney casino licence.

She was, in fact, speaking in her role as chair of the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA, the financial ombudsman) in May 2019, referring to the banks and financial institutions that had caused despair and hopelessness in many broken lives and broken businesses.

Coonan could also just as easily have been talking about the despair and hopelessness felt every day by Australians suffering from gambling addiction.

In 2018,Crown Resortsfor the first time released its profit results from poker machine revenue, revealing that gamblers lost $450 million on Crowns 2,682 poker machines in Melbourne and a further $265 million on those in Perth in the 2017-18 financial year. Charles Livingstone, a professor of public health and gambling researcher, said the pokies profit from CrownMelbournemeant each machine made an average of $170,000 per year, 1.7 times higher than average for Victorias gambling machines.

Australians are the worldsmost prolific gamblers based on per capita spendingand have the highest gambling losses per capita in the world.

About one in six Australians who play regularly has a serious addiction and loses on average about $21,000 a year, according to government data. An estimated 400 Australians die by suicide each year, secondary to gambling-related problems. The social cost of gambling to the community is estimated to be at least$4.7 billion a year. And while Australia has less than 0.3% of the global population, the nation has 20% of the worlds poker machines.

That Coonan was ever appointed chairman of the financial ombudsman AFCA in light of her directorship of Crown is extraordinary.

Stories abound of the credit extended irresponsibly to people who gamble. Some of their stories were documented in asubmission to the Australian Banking Associations_Consultation Paper: Use of credit cards for gambling transactions_, written by consumer groups.

There wasRyan, a 25-year-old tradesman, who obtained 43 payday loans and three credit cards from 10 lenders to fund his gambling addiction. Then there wasCheryl, who despite earning just $692 a week and also having a mortgage, obtained credit cards and personal loans in the tens of thousands to gamble with. Cheryls husband only discovered the huge loans when Cheryl was being treated in hospital for serious mental heath issues. The family could now lose the house.

So Coonan chairs the very organisation that rules on whether financial institutions are behaving irresponsibly in handing out credit. But as chair of Crown Resorts, she is a director of a company that directly benefits from making sure those clients continue to have easy access to credit.

How is it OK to be the chair of both organisations?

Previously a minister in the Howard government, Coonan was appointed the inaugural chair of AFCA, which was set up in November 2018 to replace three ombudsman services the Financial Ombudsman Service, the Credit and Investments Ombudsman and the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal.

As AFCAs website states, AFCAs board, under the chairmanship of Coonan, is responsible for ensuring the independence, integrity and fairness of AFCAs decision-making process is maintained.

AFCA helps arbitrate complaints and financial disputes between borrowers (members of the public) and financial services companies. AFCA has stressed repeatedly that fairness is at the heart of its dispute resolution.

And as Coonan stated in her speech to the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia in May 2019: AFCA is playing an important part in restoringshattered community trustand confidence in the financial services sector.

But following her performance at the NSW gaming inquiry, will Coonans presence help, or hinder, the process of restoring trust in financial institutions?

In her evidence last Tuesday, Coonan admitted that Crowns failings had enabled money laundering and that Crown had dealt with junket partners who were not of good repute, including under her watch as a Crown director.

She denied Crown was turning a blind eye to criminal activity, instead blaming it on ineptitude.

Coonan was asked about Crowns relationship with SunCity, a high-roller junket partner with alleged criminal links and was challenged on why Crown did not shut down SunCitys private room in Melbourne after evidence emerged of money laundering.

Among the evidence presented to Coonan was an internal audit that found $5.6 million in cash was stored in a cupboard in a private room in 2018 in breach of the casinos $100,000 cash limit.

Moreover, Crowns directors also admitted that a newspaper advertisement it took out in July 2019 attacking coverage by Nines newspapers contained incorrect information. An investigation aired by Channel 9 and_The Age_and_Sydney Morning Herald_, linked Crown toAsian crime gangs, money laundering and fast-tracked visa applications. Crowns ad described the coverage as deceitful.

Not only does Coonan chair two organisations whose interests are frequently diametrically opposed, but in her own words has allowed ineptitude to enable criminal activity.

Her position at AFCA is surely untenable.