Speech on the Greyhound Racing Industry

Dr MEHREEN FARUQI ( 16:12 :39 ): One year ago this week the greyhound racing ban in New South Wales was overturned; just eight months after being introduced. It was a pitiful demonstration of just how cynical politicians can be and a reminder that their convictions can be as changeable as the daily headline of a newspaper. It is an episode in history that has irreparably damaged peoples trust in politicians. It was total political opportunism from the Labor Party and complete political cowardice from the Liberal-Nationals Government. A few short months prior the Government had argued effusively that the greyhound industry could not change and must be shut down. It then changed its tune.

While giving the industry yet another chance it did not deserve, the racing Minister declared, there can be no return to the status quo. Live baiting, cruel treatment and unnecessary killing of healthy dogs will not be tolerated. He also gave the greyhound racing industry $41 million of taxpayer funds, against the advice of his own expert panel, because the industry would not pay to meet even the low standards of animal welfare that the Government now required of it. In exchange the greyhound racing industry promised that, No greyhound will be unnecessarily euthanised. But one year on not much has changed.

The much vaunted Greyhound Racing Integrity Commission has not even started work and the code of practice that was meant to end the cruelty and the deaths has not yet surfaced. Trainers continue to get caught drugging their dogs with methamphetamine, amphetamine, human growth hormones and arsenic. If the industry thought we would forget and abandon these animals, they are sorely mistaken. I have been busy submitting freedom of information requests for information from Greyhound Racing NSW. More than 700 greyhounds were killed in the nine months following the backflip. That is almost three dogs each and every day, the same rate as the year prior to all the promises made by the Minister and the industry. More than half of them were put down as unsuitable for rehominga polite industry term for the disposal of dogs that no longer turn a profit.

In October 2017, Greyhound Racing NSW charged greyhound racing participants Mark Farrugia, Stephen Farrugia, and Donna Farrugia for exporting 166 greyhounds to Shanghai and Macau, which is against greyhound racing rules due to the abysmal animal welfare conditions in these jurisdictions. In Shanghai, greyhounds are raced against cheetahs and Macau is home to the infamous Canidrome, which Grey2K has described as a death camp for dogs. I was quite curious why Greyhound Racing NSW did not release the names of the dogs, as was customary with other investigations. I placed another freedom of information request for the names and then cross referenced those names and ear brands against greyhound racing websites. One name that stood out was Wandering Mija who was exported to Macau at some point in 2015. The Greyhound Recorder website listed Michael Eberand as the trainer of Wandering Mija. The greyhound was owned by a syndicate called Ebering-Cortis. In April 2017 Mr Eberand was appointed by racing Minister Paul Toole as a director of the reconstituted Greyhound Racing NSW board. Mr Eberand was a vocal critic of the greyhound racing ban.

The simple fact is that the business of greyhound racing cannot survive without the deaths of hundreds of dogs. That is the fundamental maths problem which cannot be overcome. With no breeding cap thousands of dogs bred each year need homes. The industry only rehomed 498 greyhounds in 2016-17. The bulk of the heavy lifting in rehoming the greyhounds that do survive is done by volunteer rescue groups who are often given an ultimatum: take the dog or it will be put down. But their efforts can only go so far, which means hundreds of dogs continue to be euthanised.

Despite the backflip and the wholesale betrayal of the community by the major parties, animal lovers have not given up. There has never been greater awareness of the cruelty in greyhound racing. This growing momentum is unstoppable. The industry is in a downward spiral because it simply cannot meet even the most basic of animal welfare demands: an end to deaths, drugging and cruelty. The community has learnt an important lessonthe Labor, Liberal and National parties stand not on principle, but for self-preservation, no matter the cost.

The fact that GRNSW prosecuted Paul Wheeler and now Michael Eberand over something that happened 3 years ago is a blight on the management of this industry....they want blood to appease the Greens and in doing so, giving them more ammunition to fire back at us....the fact that there have been no exports in recent times seems to have been ignored by the authorities.

As usual I think savegreyhoundracing nailed the response.

Sydney Morning Herald Misleads Over Greyhound Drugging
Posted on May 7, 2018 by savegreyhoundracing

The Sydney Morning Herald continues to spread disinformation about the welfare of greyhounds with this article, making sensational claims that greyhounds are being drugged at a higher rate than that of horses.

What is particularly odd about this claim is that it is made while there are several inquiries regarding the use of bicarbonate in horses that were not detected by stewards.

But who cares about facts when you can quote the ever-unreliable Greens MP, Mehreen Faruqi.

The article quotes the drugs from inquiries from 2017 to the present and finds there has been a spike of positive swabs.

And, indeed there has been a spike in positive swabs, but this does not mean that 100 greyhound trainers have been recently caught drugging their greyhounds with substances such as amphetamines.

Of course, here at savegreyhoundracing we have no sympathy for such individuals who should not be doing such a thing, and even a dozen people in a few years is a dozen too many.

But the truth is that the spike in positive swabs comes entirely from rule changes for two substances, with positives to arsenic and cobalt accounting for just shy of 50%, or half, of those positive swabs.

While the resident Greens MP, Mehreen Faruqi, claims that these results show there is an epidemic of dog drugging a journalist that has passed the two courses Commonsense 101 and Googling for morons would have explained to their audience that other, more rational explanations have been advanced.

Over the border at Greyhound Racing Victoria, they too found a spike in arsenic and cobalt positive swabs. When trying to determine the cause of spikes in arsenic, they identified two culprits.

The first was treated timber in kennels that contained arsenic. Greyhounds that had chewed these timbers and then been tested positive for arsenic were removed to a different environment and their arsenic levels reduced.

Secondly, people were using a natural substance, seaweed, for the nutritional value it contains. Unfortunately it also contains high levels of arsenic and can push greyhounds over the limit.

Over the time period the Herald looked at, around a quarter of positive swabs were for arsenic. Insinuating that these positive swabs are evidence of an epidemic of dog drugging is simply wrong. It is simply an abuse of statistics that is the same that participants had to endure from Mike Baird and his cronies from the Special Commission of Inquiry.

Cobalt is an obviously controversial subject, just ask one of the greatest horse trainers of all time, Peter Moody. The assertion that a quarter of the positive swabs that are for increased levels of cobalt, when the science is so uncertain, is evidence of an epidemic of dog drugging, rather than trainers having difficulty in adhering to new procedures that cut cobalt and vitamins out of the diet of a greyhound is absurd.

But this is what happens when you take the word of a Greens MP that has an agenda and is known to distort the facts and exaggerate for her own base political purposes. This is an MP that went into the Upper House and voted against money that was earned by greyhound racing going into adoption programs. This is an MP that journalists keep taking at face value, and all they do is con their audience.

Maybe one day journalists at the SMH might ask the ever-reliable administrators of savegreyhoundracing to lend their expertise before they publish? It certainly would be the right thing to do if they are interested in informing the public, rather than campaigning for a second-rate MP that represents a third-rate political party.

A public company of which I am a director successfully initiated such a complaint.

I can help with the process if a contact is provided, being an entity adversely affected by such reporting.

Ha Ha thats funny Ross & it does fk all if you think it does any good Go & Get Mike Baird Troy Grant & all the others That used misleading reports to put the Greyhound industry where it is now.

Mick
Its called "Parliamentary Privilege"
Saved many from Libel Suits - Defamation etc.

parliamentary privilage is the lowest type of reporting one can imagine,

Say what you like about who you like or in this case dislike and you are protected by this ridiculous law,

Can we get M; Borsak to use this privilage in our defence and highlite what is going on in the trotting and horse racing industries and why are they so protected while we are hounded by this idiot on a daily basis,

Action for misreporting is against the publisher ie the press, which was the point I was making.

Getting a retraction probably means nothing to most. But at least it gets the public record corrected. Otherwise, misleading reporting remains on the record as unchallenged.

Politicians making decisions based on dodgy information or for political purposes is different. The ultimate action is the ballot box, which isn't effective when decisions are made that are hard to unwind.

Free speech does have its limitations.

"Can we get M; Borsak to use this privilage in our defence and highlite what is going on in the trotting and horse racing industries and why are they so protected while we are hounded by this idiot on a daily basis".

Essentially, that is what he did in the report of the Parliamentary Inquiry. A good job.

Following that, the government did nothing much (Grant and later Baird). The only decision government made was to allow the Inquiry to take place at all. That could be due to some related deal or to just allowing people to let off steam. Government had no intention of altering the status quo, except for the worse - as shown by subsequent events.

The message is simple. Get to government or don't bother. That can be done in three ways; getting the public onside, getting more MPs onside or getting the Minister onside. Or all three.

Interesting article in last sundays SYDNEY MORNING HERALD,

GREYHOUND POSITIVE SWABS BY FAR OUTNUMBER THE HORSES.
the article contains a graph and numbers of swabs taken,

I am sure that no reporter from the herald would have looked up these figures which were printed only to make us look bad and of course this is all published after the swabbing of horses in vic was made public last week.

Now I just wonder who supplied the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD with this info be it right or wrong, 1 or 2 persons come to mind instantly when you read this article and I AM SURE THAT MOST OF US KNOW THE CULPRITS,
DO NOT make the mistake that the horses WILL EVER DO US ANY FAVOURS THEY WANT US OUT OF THE WAY AS BADLY AS THE DO GOODERS DO.

Why cant GRNSW promote & pay for a positive social media presence as well? Its left to the long suffering participants to form greyhound Facebook pages, adoption pages, good promo stories.
Now that grnsw is in charge of actively promoting the sport it has no excuses for not putting out as many good stories on the greyhound industry as the antis put out bad.