After NSW Premier Mike Baird made the shock announcement to completely close the NSW greyhound racing industry from July 2017 there has been some alarming questions as to what will happen to the welfare of the retired greyhounds amongst other problems the industry now faces.
This came about after Four Corners last year aired the inside leak into The Greyhound Live Baiting scandal that has now tainted an industry enjoyed by so many people, many of whom do the right thing and now they too are being punished for the actions of a few bad apples. Let us look at it this way for a minute. What about show dogs? A lot of these dogs never make it as show dogs and are euthanised or let’s not forget the rodeos and the treatment of some of those horses. What about the ones that end up at the nakery and turned into dog food later on.
The bigger picture for greyhound racing in Australia is massive. There are now calls from the RSPCA and other animal rights groups to ban the sport altogether. This is a lot of lost revenue that will have to be made up through other avenues that our government will tax the shit out of us for. Where do we draw the line? Yes I understand that animal welfare has to be taken into consideration but most greyhound owner/trainers do the right thing and are now unfairly punished with this new ruling.
Mike Baird has announced the closure of the following greyhound race tracks:
Albury Greyhound Racing Track, Appin Way Greyhound Racing Track, Bathurst Greyhound Racing Track, Border Park Greyhound Racing Track, Broken Hill, Casino Greyhound Racing Track, Cessnock, Coonobarabran, Coonamble, Cowra, Dapto Greyhound Racing Track, Forbes, Gosford Greyhound Racing Track, Goulburn, Grafton Greyhound Racing Track, Gunnedah, Kempsey, Lismore, Lithgow, Maitlane, Moree, Mudgee, Muswelbrook, Nowra Greyhound Track, Orange, Potts Park Greyhound Track (Yagoona), Richmond, Singleton, South Coast, Tamworth, Taree and the City Wentworth Park Greyhound Track.
Now the big one there is Wentworth Park Greyhound Track which is rumoured to be proposed for future development, although at this stage Mike Baird has taken to Facebook to assure the public that it will not be used to high rise development but we all know politicians in Australia don’t often keep their word.
Australia in total has around 4,000 active greyhound breeders, these people are made up of breeders but also owner/trainers. While some of these do it for a hobby there are others that do this for their livelyhood. We are talking about taking away thousands of jobs from the NSW economy including all the people that work in and around these greyhound racing tracks, food stores, maintenance workers, security, the list goes on.
I find it funny that the findings from this greyhound racing live baiting scandal come out the week after we hold a national election. And why you might ask? Well the Liberal government have what it looks like got back into government by the skin of their teeth. Malcolm Turnbull nearly lossed that election to Bill Shorten and if this would of come out a week before then the election result could have been very different.
So what can we do?
There is a petition to save NSW Greyhound Racing from being banned. We don’t have a lot of time but it is looking like we have grounds for a strong defence against the closure of this industry in the court room. I ask you to share this page on Facebook, Twitter and any other social media you are currently using to share the word that there is something that can done and that it isn’t too late yet.
Visit our FB Page and click on the Save the Greyhound Racing Petition Cause to put your name to it today. You can sign it and help Overturn Mike Bairds decision to ban Greyhound Racing in the state of New South Wales.