[3.36 p.m.]
Ms O’CONNOR (Hobart) – Madam Deputy President, I thought it was important that the council be given the opportunity to consider and note the Tasracing Annual Report of 2024 because it raises some serious questions about the viability of the racing industries. It confirms what animal advocates and we have been saying for a long time: horse racing, dog racing, the exploitation and cruelty that goes with those pursuits are loss making, brutal industries that are losing their social licence and public support. These industries – just on the data in the Tasracing report – are in decline. They are losing revenue.
They are much more closely scrutinised and rightly so. There is a much higher level of community awareness about the cruelty at the heart of the modern racing industries in the modern age. This has come about in part through investigative journalism and particularly, the work of Cara Meldrum-Hanna (Ok) in 2015 in her ground-breaking investigative report that revealed the grotesque underbelly of the greyhound racing industry and what happens to those dogs; the obscenely high injury rate; appalling and unacceptable death and euthanasia rates.
We saw evidence on that program of live baiting. We know here in Tasmania there are still bull rings even though live baiting has been prohibited. Then in 2019, I think it was, Cara Meldrum-Hanna again undertook an investigative report into what happens to horses in the horse racing industry. The focus in part of that investigative report was an abattoir in Caboolture in Queensland, where ex-harness and thoroughbred race horses, named horses, were being fed into the blades of the slaughterhouse in abject terror. It really woke people up to what is the truth behind these industries. Most of us grew up putting money on the Melbourne Cup. I always thought it was great fun. I took part in the office sweep or whatever because I had not really thought deeply about what happens to animals in this industry.
I know I have said it before. Of course there are some terrific people who work with animals in the racing industries, but there are also the Anthony Bullocks and the Ben Yoles of this world, who, on the evidence, should not have custody of blameless animals. A very significant part of the reason that the industry is losing its social licence and revenue is because of the work of organisations like Animal Liberation Tasmania, Let Greyhounds Run Free, Greyhound Rehabilitation Enthusiasts Association.
There is also the really important rehoming and advocacy work of the RSPCA, the Dogs’ Home and Brightside Farm Sanctuary. I warmly thank those relentless and passionate advocates for animals.
Today I will also talk about a high‑quality body of investigative work undertaken by Animal Liberation Tasmania, particularly Kristy Alger (ok), and all members have now received a copy of this work called A Few Bad Apples: Findings into the Tasmanian Greyhound Racing Industry between August 1, 2023 and July 31, 2024.
I seek leave of the House to table this report.
Madam DEPUTY PRESIDENT – I will seek some advice.
Leave granted.
Ms O’CONNOR – Thank you. It is not fun reading, but it is certainly informative. I do recommend to members –
Madam DEPUTY PRESIDENT – Member, now you have been –
Ms O’CONNOR – Now I wander over.
The SPEAKER – Now you provide and move that it be –
Ms O’CONNOR – I move that it be? I do not need it read into Hansard.
Madam DEPUTY PRESIDENT – The member moves that the report be tabled.
No, we move to receive it.
Ms O’CONNOR – It is agreed.
Madam DEPUTY PRESIDENT – It is agreed.
Ms O’CONNOR – Thank you.
If we go now to some of the lowlights in the Tasracing annual report. We have here a statement from the Chief Executive Officer about animal welfare saying the same things that we hear so often, that animal welfare is of critical importance to Tasracing across the three codes of racing. It is one of the reasons there has been a massive restructure of the governance arrangements on the racing industries and that we now have a new Tasmanian Racing Integrity Commissioner, who is the former Victorian Racing Integrity Commissioner, Sean Carroll. I certainly look forward to seeing how Mr Carroll helps to improve standards and welfare outcomes in these industries. GAP, for example, has found homes for 83 greyhounds. That is significantly less than half of the animals that are bred in any given year.
In one part of the report here it says that two greyhounds were euthanised. I challenge that word. A euthanasia is a mercy killing. Most of the animals, overwhelmingly the greyhounds and horses that are euthanised by this industry are killed before their time. There are any number of occasions where a dog is injured, certainly in the past this has been the case, where an injury which a pet owner might have taken their dog to the vet to have dealt with led to that dog being killed before its time. In one part of the Tasracing report, it says that two dogs were euthanised and in another part of the Tasracing report, it says only one was euthanised. That is an interesting numerical anomaly. You might say it is only one dog. It is one dog’s life that cannot be adequately accounted for in the Tasracing annual report.
We have here the number of euthanasias which, somewhat pleasingly I have to say, particularly since all the work that the parliament put into the inquiry into greyhound racing to try to tighten up the industry. Even though I did not have support for a ban on the industry, there were some significant changes made. In 2017‑18 period, 16 dogs were euthanised and 18 were euthanised the following year, but we have seen the numbers drop ever since, down to the stated two in the previous year as a result of injury.
When you get to the greyhound retirement data, in 2019‑20 period 90 of these beautiful dogs were euthanised. That means they were discarded. They were disposed of because they had run their last profitable race, and they cost more to feed than their owners or trainers thought they were worth. In the following year, 2020‑21, we saw 40 dogs euthanised, the year after that 43 dogs; 17 dogs in 2022‑23 – this is the retirement data – and 43 dogs in 2023‑24. I might just add the qualifier that this data is self‑reported by industry participants and it needs to be viewed through that lens.
We also, of course, in this state, perversely pay people to breed animals for exploitation. In 2017‑18 there were 48 litters with 330 pups whelped and in 2023‑24 there were 19 litters with 110 pups whelped. That is a data point that indicates that the industry is on the slide. It is in decline and it is clearly in decline because we are seeing that in the revenue that is made by the greyhound racing industry.
We have the winnings here somewhere. On page 36 of Tasracing’s annual report, the wagering turnover for thoroughbreds, for example, has fallen from $343 million in 2020‑21 to $333 million this year. This year there were fewer people attending and watching the Melbourne Cup. Less money spent on the Melbourne Cup, more people taking part in Nup to the Cup, as I and a number of other people did. If we go to the wagering for harness racing, it’s also on the slide. On page 40 of the annual report, it went from $121.4 million in wagering turnover in 2020‑21 to a $111.4 million in 2023‑24 and that is a very significant drop from last year of more than $15 million.
We are seeing across the industry real slides in wagering turnover because people are voting with their feet and their wallets. On page 44, greyhound racing wagering turnover has fallen from $335 million in 2020‑21 to $266.6 million. Again, what you are seeing here is evidence of an industry in decline. It is declining to the extent that we have seen multiple jurisdictions around the world ban greyhound racing. It is banned in the US, except in, I think, two states. We have seen a renewed focus, as the industry must, on high animal welfare standards. If you look at New Zealand, for example, when we are talking about thoroughbred and harness racing, they actually have best practice horse‑care standards in place, that apply the Five Domains Model. We know in New Zealand, for example, to the greatest extent possible, the horses that participate in the industry – unwillingly though it may be, we cannot ask them, so we do not know – have all their fundamental physical, and to a significant extent emotional, needs met. There is a recognition in the Five Domains that horses and animals need connection, play, space, and exercise. It is an implicit recognition of the sentience of animals that are in these industries.
Have a look at the income, the massive subsidies that are coming into Tasracing. We have racing revenue from last year that was sitting at a bit over $26 million. It has fallen in this financial year to $24.9 million. That is a loss of $1.2 million to Tasracing. They received a subsidy of close to $37 million.
Parliament has a decision to make soon. We are going to give parliament the opportunity to have a debate about the Racing Deed. As members will know, the Racing Deed was inked in 2009 after the then treasurer Michael Aird, as a result of a cabinet decision, decided to sell the totalisator betting agency. It was always odd that government should be a bookie. There was an argument for selling TOTE Tasmania. As a consequence of that, the government entered into an agreement with the industry, which prior to that did not require such a massive subsidy, because it had TOTE.
Since the deed was first signed, more than half a billion dollars in public money has subsidised the racing industries. The Tasmanian people subsidise bets. We subsidise paying breeders to overbreed animals. By extension, we subsidise cruelty.
My final area of discussion is the report A Few Bad Apples. Even if you do not read the report, I encourage members to have a look at the pictures. This footage, these images, were gained in significant part through drone footage over the properties of, for example, number one, Anthony Bullock, who gives everyone involved in greyhound racing a very bad name. There is an explanation in A Few Bad Apples of drone flight over Anthony Bullock’s place, and what it saw. Referring members to page 4 of the report, there was:
… anonymous drone footage from the Exeter property of then leading greyhound trainer Anthony Bullock, obtained over a five-day period from 16/7 to the 20/7/2023.
The footage showed greyhounds kept in freezing conditions (at a time of year when temperatures reached -3 degrees) –
Remember it is the depth of winter –
with the barest minimum protections. Some were deprived of coats or blankets, kept in sparse tin sheds of which only some had shredded paper for bedding. A pair of horses were seen, one in an emaciated condition.
I pause here for a minute. We received pictures of some of those poor, terrified horses, who end up at Anthony Bullock’s property. We have had it confirmed that some of them, at least, came from Ben Yole’s property. Those horses on Anthony Bullock’s property are invariably there to be shot to feed his dogs. Back to the report:
Over the course of filming, it appears that a ute tray parked on the property was being gradually filled with the body parts of slaughtered horses and a pademelon carcass. At one point someone chose to attempt to cover this with cardboard. Two further pademelon carcasses, badly decayed, were shown, one inside a long run and another just outside. What appeared to be small animal cages were also shown, one alongside a greyhound pen and another atop a shed in a run. Their purpose remains unknown.
We have a long explanation here of some of the history of Anthony Bullock, who I note that in Tasracing’s annual report again received the award of being the state’s top greyhound trainer. This is a trainer who did not have a licence to operate, has been subject to numerous Office of Racing Integrity investigations, was witnessed dragging a terrified, injured greyhound out of the Mowbray Races that needed a vet’s attention and that dog did not survive. He was fined in 2017 for presenting a greyhound with arsenic in their system. Between August and October 2020, he was issued with 20 stewards’ penalties and fines, three of which related to dogs presenting with serious illnesses or injury. The dog I was talking about before, the witness who saw Bullock bringing the injured greyhound Tar Bernard to a vet, confronted him, whereupon he refused to remain to see the dog treated and roughly returned the greyhound to the trainer. Tar Bernard was destroyed the next day at 10 a.m. by a visiting veterinary surgeon.
We found out, of course, in February 2022 that Bullock had been operating without a kennel licence from the West Tamar Council. Despite having a kennel licence being a requirement for having a trainer’s licence renewed, Anthony Bullock operated for a decade or so, from memory, without having one and kept being awarded the Tasracing Greyhound Trainer of the Year.
No wonder, Madam Deputy Speaker, the public regards greyhound racing particularly as odious when you have characters like Anthony Bullock in it. In October last year, it was announced that the Office of Racing Integrity had handed Bullock a lifetime disqualification from ever owning, training, or nominating a greyhound for racing; he was charged and found guilty of possessing an animal part being used as bait, quarry or lure. This was reported on the ABC in October last year. He exercised his right to appeal and he is back at it.
He went back to the track in January of this year. At that meet, one of his dogs, according to this report, Joyful Juggler, fell on the track, did not finish the race, having sustained fractures to his right tibia and was stood down from racing for 90 days. Since then, of course, numerous Bullock dogs have sustained serious injuries.
But on page 8 of the report, A Few Bad Apples, is a really interesting image. It is an image of a bull ring. There are bull rings still to this day at numerous greyhound trainers’ properties. Now, this picture has two cars parked outside Anthony Bullock’s bull ring. What are bull rings used for? They are used to train dogs to chase.
As we saw on the Four Corners report and as we heard in testimony to the joint‑select inquiry, it is live animals that are put in those bull rings in – well, historically live animals were regularly, routinely used to train greyhounds. The animal we saw in the Four Corners story was a squealing baby possum. But why is it? Why do we accept that Anthony Bullock should have a bull ring on his property, when we know he has got form. We know this man is cruel. We know that for a fact. The evidence is clear about that.
There are numerous – I mean, the pages on Bullock – amazing. He had 14 dogs scratched for parasites, sorry, nine dogs scratched from a race for parasites. It is very clear, and I hope this is not the case with the Yole stable, that Anthony Bullock is far too big to fail.
We go through images of dogs in corrugated ‑
The sitting suspended from 4 p.m. to 4.30 p.m.
Resumed from above.
Mr PRESIDENT – As you make your way to the lectern, I welcome the former member for Hobart, who’s here to watch proceedings.
Ms O’CONNOR (Hobart) – Mr President, it is lovely to have the former member for Hobart in the Chamber with us today.
Before we went to the break, I was talking about some of the characters who populate the A Few Bad Apples investigative report undertaken by Animal Liberation Tasmania. Of course, in some ways, it is slightly unfair to single out Anthony Bullock, because he is not the only trainer who has had serious animal welfare and integrity issues raised about him.
We have here Gary and Robyn Johnson of Leith, and there is a story about the dog, Buckle Up Adelyn, on 29 August last year. This dog was trained and bred by Johnson. It fell over in race six at the Launceston track, sustained a right humeral comminuted fracture, which is one that breaks into three or more pieces and is commonly seen in severe trauma cases. Johnson delisted himself as Buckle Up Adelyn’s trainer the following day, and she died in surgery on 31 August last year, so two days later. It was the first track death for the 2023-24 racing season. She was just three years old.
That is the tragic truth of what happens to the overwhelming majority of animals in the racing industries. They do not live out the term of their natural lives because, by their very nature, they have been bred to make money and to exploit. Once that opportunity is over, many of these animals are discarded, particularly for the horse racing industry where there is no life tracking of horses. Horses are being sent across Bass Strait to abattoirs; horses are being sent to Zoodoo to be fed to the lions. They are being sent to Anthony Bullock’s property to be fed to his dogs. It is a vicious and irredeemably cruel cycle.
In July of this year, Johnson was found guilty of a charge under the greyhound racing rules that the owner, trainer or other person in charge of a greyhound nominated to compete in an event must present the greyhound free of any prohibited substances. There was a post‑urine sample which showed levels of arsenic well over a threshold considered anywhere close to normal. As this report points out, arsenic use has been widespread in the horse and greyhound racing industries as it is believed to enhance performance. In excessive amounts it causes swelling and bleeding in the organs. That is from the Coalition for the Protection of Greyhounds 2024.
We have Lynden Nichols and Carol Nash property at Birralee. The drone footage of how their dogs are kept is dispiriting, to say the least. There was a representation made to the Office of Racing Integrity about a number of dogs that were in the custody of Nichols and Nash. The then‑director of the Office of Racing Integrity in response to these pictures of dogs kept in corrugated sheds in grassless runs, obviously appalling housing for these dogs – and remember that under the rules that the greyhound industry operates, it is only necessary to give these dogs two 10-minute exercise sessions every 24 hours. For most of their lives, these dogs are kept in depressing, loveless environments. Now, if there is one thing dogs deserve it is love. Mr Helmich replied to the concerns that were raised that stewards who regularly inspected the property identified conditions are consistent with prescriptions in the rules of racing and legislation. This is on page 19 and 20 of the A Few Bad Apples report and it is an indication of the failure to properly regulate, to apply best practice standards, to make sure there is compliance, and to bring greyhounds into the Animal Welfare Act. We see the consequence of that is that the Office of Racing Integrity can look at clearly substandard greyhound accommodation and say, ‘Well, that is by the rules’.
The rules have changed. This place passed the Racing Regulation and Integrity Bill about six weeks ago. It is imperfect. It is still very industry driven, but it makes some important structural changes. One of them is the establishment of the Office of Racing Integrity and an advisory body to that statutory office, which as I said earlier, the government has announced that Mr Sean Carroll from the Victorian Office of Racing Integrity will take up that position. So, there is an advisory body to that office on animal welfare issues and there is also a requirement that the Tasmania Racing Integrity Commission establishes, as a result of an amendment put forward by the Greens in this place and accepted, best practice standards for animals in the racing industries.
It is still highly regrettable that we narrowly lost the amendment to require Tasracing to not only operate efficiently and effectively, but that it also needs to operate humanely. But that is the community expectation. Even if we could not have that amendment passed through this House, the community expectation is that the industry will operate humanely. The Greens and advocates for animals in this industry believe that, by its very nature and the exploitative nature of this industry, treating animals humanely will always be to a standard that is acceptable to industry. We have seen what industry was prepared to accept and perpetuate in the past.
However, we do have a new structure here. Regrettably, the disgraced Office of Racing Integrity will be a thing of the past. We will be keeping a close eye on these standards that parliament has asked the Racing Integrity Commissioner to develop in consultation with the industry and with his advisory committee, and anyone else he wants to talk to under the act. There is an expectation that there will be best practice standards because the days of treating these animals as commodities should be over and they are ending. It is only a matter of time.
I think it will start with a ban on greyhound racing because it is a shrinking social world as the industry ages out. It is an area of very high public concern because of the spotlight that has been shone on what happens in the greyhound racing industries. So, I think it is only a matter of time because community expectations and standards are changing.
Finally, I encourage members to have a very good look at the Tasracing annual report. The numbers do not lie. These codes of racing are on the nose, increasingly so: less wagering turnover, subsidy keeps going up, and that is a point that parliament needs to deal with. We have the racing deed that was signed between the then Labor government and the industry in 2009. It expires in 2029. By the time that deed expires, the industry will have received close to $700 million, if not more, of public money as a subsidy. There are members here who were asking questions at the Estimates table. There are obviously members here from the major parties who want to see that deed automatically re‑signed and rolled over. That would be a very irresponsible thing to do. This is an agreement that involves hundreds of millions of dollars of public funding for an industry which is having increasing public scrutiny upon it. I do not think we should just accept the notion that the deed is renegotiated and re‑signed without recourse back to parliament.
The risk here is we end up with something a bit like the old gambling deed where it is secretly renegotiated, re‑signed and then locked in for another 20 years. Not that we have that situation here anymore because of the Liberal and Labor parties: we have no end to any gambling deed insight. We have neverending suffering under the model.
Ms Webb – We actually got an amendment through this place to bring them all to a close in 2043.
Ms O’CONNOR – Thank you. 2043.
We should not accept that a deed with the industry is secretly renegotiated and re‑signed. Even if your position is that the deed should be re‑signed, it is our responsibility as parliamentarians to have a good look at the social consequences, the social impacts, and the economic cost benefit of the deed needs to be very carefully looked at. We do not need to accept the industry’s pet consultant, IER, that multiplies benefit by a factor of 10. We need a very clear‑eyed, preferably independent, but it is the sort of work that Treasury could do really well. A clear‑eyed look at the economic cost benefits of the deed. We would like to see an examination of animal welfare implications of an extension of the deed.
We believe parliament has a responsibility here to examine that deed before this government locks in all future governments for the next 20 years or for however long that deed is re‑signed. We should not accept that we would have a deed in place under the same terms that it is now when you can see that the industry itself is shrinking. It is shrinking across the codes.
We are working up a notice of motion to have the deed examined by a joint select committee, or a select one House committee, or referring it to the committee, it would be Government Administration Committee B because that is where Tasracing sits. We are not fixed on what that path may be, but it should be a standalone joint select committee that has the task of examining that deed. Get all the industry participants in. Get the animal welfare advocates in, ask the minister in, ask, for example, TasCOSS in. There is a cost benefit, is there not? There is a lost opportunity. There is an opportunity cost of government tipping $37 million a year into subsidising the racing industries. That is what the annual report says the industry received this year. Tasracing still operated at a $1.2 million loss.
There are so many things that we could do with $37 million a year. We could properly fund the Integrity Commission. We could make sure that the National Preventative Mechanism Ombudsman has sufficient funding to protect people from cruel, degrading, and inhumane treatment in places of detention. We could significantly increase the supply of social and affordable housing. We could invest more in preventative health. There are so many things we could do with nearly $40 million a year that have substantial public good attached to them.
I ask members to consider how they might approach an establishment of an inquiry into the deed. We will not be bringing that on for debate this year. I want people to have a think about it over summer. Remind yourselves that there is only one of me, so even if there is a Green on this inquiry, I cannot stitch it up. It is the responsible thing to do, to examine the deed. I would probably give it a try.
It is the right thing to do by the Tasmanian people. It is the right thing to do by the industry. It would give industry participants an opportunity to come in and have a say about the state of the industry. It is certainly the right thing to do by animal welfare advocates, who are absolutely adamant that the deed should be extinguished. As are we. That is a debate for another day.
In closing, I again want to sincerely thank Animal Liberation Tasmania, and Kristy Alger, Fran Chambers, Deb Fleming, Andrea Dawkins from RSPCA, Mark Wild[TBC] from the Dogs’ Homes[TBC], Lianne Salerno – all these wonderful people who provide advice, insight, information, and support to all of us who work in this place, in the interests of animal welfare. It is not just the Greens anymore. That is such a good thing. It is a really good thing. I want to thank everyone who advocates relentlessly for the wellbeing of animals in Tasmania. I commend A Few Bad Apples to honourable members. I hope you have a look at the copy that was left on your desks. I ask my honourable colleagues to have a good look at the Tasracing annual report and make up your own mind about the viability and the future of this industry. I note the report.
[5.20 p.m.]
Ms O’CONNOR (Hobart) – Mr President, I want to thank all members who have contributed to the noting of the Tasracing report. To be clear, I brought this on in my capacity as Animal Justice spokesperson for the Greens. Obviously, there will be heavy scrutiny of Tasracing at GBEs by the Greens in the other place but it was an important opportunity, I thought, for the House to debate these matters given that we subsidised Tasracing to the tune of up to $40 million in any given year.
I do not know the source of the numbers the Leader was referring to in terms of wagering? I was simply reading out to this council the numbers on wagering that are in the annual report that show a decline since 2019-20. Just one little note because it does irritate me because it is untrue to say we are post COVID. If we could just avoid using that language it would be quite helpful. I know of two people in this building in the last fortnight who have been made very sick by COVID. There are still people being infected –
Ms Forrest – It is never going away.
Ms O’CONNOR – and reinfected, being disabled and dying and to your interjection, member for Murchison, it is never going away because as a society we made a choice to allow a biosafety hazard level 3 pathogen – which requires researchers in labs to wear full body clothing and masks – just to let it go. There are children now who have had an infection four, five and six times from a virus and we do not know what the long-term consequences of that will be. We certainly know it is degrading the health of people who catch it and catch it repeatedly.
We had to put up just then again with the false claim the government keeps making that the industry employs 6400 people and provides $280 million in economic activity. Even the Department of Treasury and Finance says that is crock. The IER consultancy is the consultancy of choice for the horse and dog racing industries in Australia and New Zealand because they will provide to government a narrative that supports continued public subsidies of the industry. They use unaudited data, bad economic methodology, inflated job numbers that exaggerate the benefits of the racing industry. According to the IER report, the full-time equivalent, if you do not take their false multipliers of people working in the industry today, is 993.
According to the census, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which asks people what employment field they work in or volunteer in, it is not 993 full-time jobs it is 160 full-time jobs in the industry. That is because there is double counting. Inflated employment numbers are due to double counting. The IER itself acknowledges this duplication. The consultant itself states there is some level of duplication in some of the participation categories resulting from an inability to de-duplicate individual databases. There is a confession there already the job numbers are falsely inflated. If you go to what the Department of Treasury and Finance says about the multiplier claims and multiplying as a general principle to cook up a figure of indirect jobs, which is the figure that the Leader of Government Business put to us, Treasury and Finance Tasmania says, put simply, if a multiplier effect was included for all existing industries in Tasmania when estimating their economic contribution to the state, the combined effect would be that Tasmania’s economy would be two or three times its current size. Treasury and Finance has directly criticised the IER consultant’s approach, stating: ‘Reports with strong reliance on economic multipliers can be inherently unreliable and problematic.’ The Productivity Commission noted that, despite the limitations, multiplier analysis is mistakenly used to ‘justify or support calls for injections of taxpayer funding’.
We challenge the government on these claims repeatedly. We have been taking them to task in parliament and in Estimates over the IER false claims. I just ask honourable members in this place, all of whom are thoughtful and considerate people: think twice before you quote those numbers, because they have been criticised by our own department of Treasury and Finance itself. As well as being, on the history, dubious because of the work that IER does for industries in other jurisdictions, which is always heavily pro‑industry and has cooked‑up numbers in it – confirmed by our own department of Treasury.
Mr President, I appreciate the member for Elwick’s frankness about her support for and participation in the racing industry, and note that she has shares in racehorses. I am certain, because of the quality of you, honourable member, that you would know what happens to those racehorses at the end of their racing life. Most of them we do not know, and that is the problem. We are not blaming and shaming an entire industry here. What we are doing is recognising that the nature of the industry requires overbreeding and exploitation and the deprivation of the rights of animals. We see that in the ‘A Few Bad Apples’ report. Just have a look at the pictures of how those dogs are kept.
I refer the member for Elwick to the tragic tale of the horse Alone Again that ended up being taken to Zoodoo and shot in the dark of night, from the track. This is what is happening to racehorses. There were racehorses – thoroughbreds, harness racers – who were being fed into the abattoir at the Caboolture slaughterhouse. They were alive when they were being shoved into the blades. Racehorses that had been identified could be tracked back to their last race at Flemington, for example. The industry is irredeemably problematic.
It is honestly depressing to hear the Leader of government business say that an industry like racing is a big part of our 2030 Strong Plan for Tasmania’s Future. It is a very small part of our economy, and it is a different industry from what it was 20 or 30 years ago, before it was so heavily commercialised. There is big, big money in racing now. There are big networks, you know, who count on the revenue from wagering. Because the industry has become so industrialised, it is not the niche recreational racing sector that it was before. It is big, big money now, which is why it is being overbred and you have such an issue with animals once they get past their racing life and they are too expensive to feed.
I will simply say this in closing: 150 to 200 years ago, whaling was legal in the River Derwent, in Timtumili minanya. As a society, obviously, we do not think anymore that killing the whales that come into the Derwent to calve is acceptable, but it was acceptable before. It was a really important part of Tasmania’s economy before. It was considered the norm, and now we look back at that in horror. I feel racing is the same. Over time and, particularly at this point in time, the greyhound racing industry is fast losing support, fast losing money, and the wagering numbers for this industry in the Tasracing annual report speak for themselves. Sure, a little bit higher now than they were before the pandemic arrived, but still in decline.
I do look forward to having another conversation about the deed. I encourage the government to see a potential inquiry into the deed as an actual opportunity, as well as exercising our responsibility to make sure we are overseeing or enacting or approving, at some level, the expenditure of vast sums of money. If we are going to do that for the racing industry, we need to have a look at that money and what it buys.
I note the report.
Motion agreed to; report noted.
