Revolving Doors

Mark Arbib

Mark Arbib

Gambling & Liquor | Labor | Revolving Doors

Former ALP Senator Mark Arbib joined forces with casino and media magnate James Packer, as a board member for Packer’s investment company Consolidated Press Holding in 2012, the same year he retired from the Senate.

Current Positions

Board member for the Packer Family Foundation since 2014.

Advisory Board Member of Precision Group since June 2020.

Advisory Board Member of Prezzee since May 2021

Chair of the Australian Olympic Committee since June 2022

Previous Positions

Director of Strategy and Business Development for Consolidated Press Holdings from July 2012 to Jun 2022.

Parliamentary service:
Elected to the Senate for New South Wales 2007. Resigned 05.03.2012.

Ministerial appointments:
Parliamentary Secretary for Government Service Delivery from 25.02.2009 to 09.06.2009.
Minister for Employment Participation from 2009 to 2010.
Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Government Service Delivery from 2009 to 2010.
Minister for Indigenous Employment and Economic Development from 2010 to 2011.
Minister for Sport from 2010 to 2012.
Minister for Social Housing and Homelessness from 2010 to 2011.
Assistant Treasurer from 2011 to 2012.
Minister for Small Business from 2011 to 2012.

Parliamentary party positions:
Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate from 2011 to 2012.

Party positions:
President, Young Labor (NSW) 1995-96
Member, ALP National Executive from 2004
Member, ALP National Executive Committee from 2007

Revolving Door

Mark Arbib was appointed Director of Strategy and Business Development for James Packer’s investment company Consolidated Press Holdings in 2012; the same year he retired from parliament.

One of several former politicians “recruited” by James Packer to further facilitate the push back against the call for a parliamentary inquiry into Crown Resorts Ltd led by Independent MP Andrew Wilkie.

Lobbied for the Opposition Leader John Robertson who in 2012 supported the development of James Packer’s hotel-casino at Barangaroo. Robertson argued “Sydney needed a six-star casino, and a high rollers room was the only way to pay for it”.

Related Items

Voted ‘very strongly against’ increasing restrictions on gambling, more specifically on implementing $1 bet limits on poker machines.

Hosted the secretary of the Hospitality Worker’s Union to an AFL match between the Sydney Swans and Hawthorne “after a memorandum of understanding was signed between the union and the Packer company Crown Ltd.”

During the same time “the Federal Government was being lobbied to slash license fees for free-to-air commercial television networks” in 2010, Arbib “spent a weekend with James Packer and his family at the billionaire’s Ellerston property, in the Hunter Valley”. He claimed it was a “purely social” event.

Luke Stacey was a contributing researcher and editor for the Secret Rich List and Revolving Doors series on Michael West Media. Luke studied journalism at University of Technology, Sydney, has worked in the film industry and studied screenwriting at the New York Film Academy in New York.

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