The Queen’s Wharf Brisbane development will open next year without the Palaszczuk government having completed or commissioned a full and independent community impact study.
The absence of state-backed research about how Star Entertainment’s new casino might affect Brisbane’s gambling habits, crime or vulnerable people has been labelled “disgraceful” by leading gambling researcher Dr Charles Livingstone of Monash University.
“It’s an attempt by the government, I suspect, to avoid unpleasant news,” he said.
The Queensland University of Technology was given more than $2 million by the state for baseline reports on topics such as tourism, connectivity, safety and gambling impacts, against which future data, once Queen’s Wharf opened, could be compared.
