The saga over the secrecy surrounding James Packer's proposed Barangaroo casino has exposed the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority as apparently more interested in pursuing the interests of a commercial organisation it is charged with monitoring than the public's right to be fully informed.

Sadly, it's not the first time. It happened as recently as 2012, when news broke that the managing director of the Star casino, Sid Vaikunta, had been sacked for sexually harassing a female staff member.

A subsequent flood of claims by current and former employees that suggested a statutory review of the casino's licence handed to the government just months earlier was deeply flawed led the authority to hold a public inquiry to examine the claims.

But ILGA chairman Chris Sidoti initially proposed to conduct hearings in private to protect the privacy of the individuals involved. Media pressure led him to change his mind and public hearings were held.

The authority also felt it appropriate to appoint as the inquiry head barrister Gail Furness, SC – the same person who had been paid to conduct a five-yearly review of the casino licence, aspects of which were being questioned by the whistleblowers.

It decided there was no perceived or actual conflict of interest in doing so.

The Furness inquiry eventually found that most of the claims of the whistleblowers were adequately dealt with in the five-yearly review Furness handed to the government in December 2011.

Sidoti hopped into the media – including this newspaper - for the way the claims were reported. He suggested grievances had been aired without being properly interrogated.

Which brings us to today. Two years later, the ILGA has again been confronted with a public interest issue while deciding whether Packer is a fit and proper person to be granted a lucrative Sydney casino licence.

Once again, the authority has shown its willingness to back the interests of commercial entity over the NSW public's right to know. Only this time, its approach has been trumped by the supremacy of the parliament.

First, despite the extraordinary level of public interest attached to the proposal, the authority did not hold public hearings during its statutory probity review.

This was despite the 1994 investigation into the awarding of Sydney's first casino licence to Showboat being held in public.

Peter McClellan, QC, who conducted the inquiry, stated in his final report the inquiry was run "on the basis that it should be as open as possible so that the public could hear as much of the oral evidence and gain access to as much of the documentary exhibits as possible".

ILGA, though, took the opposite approach. Once it had awarded the licence, the agreements between itself and Crown were heavily censored at the request of the company.

Challenged on this, the authority stated it had decided the potential commercial damage to Crown of releasing certain information outweighed the public interest.

As it turned out - thanks to the parliament demanding release of the information after pressure from Fairfax Media and the Greens - the information being suppressed was very significant indeed.

It was revealed Crown had been ordered to undertake extraordinary measures to assure the authority it would not get into business with Hong Kong casino billionaire Stanley Ho, who has been widely linked to organised crime.

Quite how the NSW authority could in good faith argue that there is not an overwhelming public interest argument in favour of the release of this information is deeply puzzling.

What does this all say about how the state's liquor and gaming authority is being run?

Well, for one it gives the unfortunate impression it is too close to the organisations it is supposed to be regulating, which include not only the gambling industries also the liquor industry.

It is true that government regulators are asked to tread a sometimes difficult line between dealing fairly with businesses and the potential social harm those businesses can cause.

But the ILGA is also empowered to make decisions about what is and what is not in the public interest.

Sidoti and the authority's chief executive Micheil Brodie need to keep in mind that when it comes to regulating these industries an important part of their role is to keep the public informed.

Only then is it possible to have an open and informed debate about how their decisions are made and their merit.

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