Hello Georgie
I believe you plan to end Greyhound Racing in Victoria through State Parliament.
The Greyhound Racing Industry Participants believe they need to remind you how the "POWER OF THE PEOPLE" ended the Political Career of Ex NSW Premier Mike Baird.

Georgie may we take the time to remind you of the benefits the Racing Industry brings to the State and National Economies.
Sales and Purchase of Rural Property, GST, Stamp Duty and Land Tax, Motor Vehicle sales, repairs, Registration, Road Tolls, Petrol sales, incl GST, and Fuel excise, Produce from Stores, Veterinarians, Trainers Kennel Staff Employed, Greyhound Racing Victoria employees, Race Venue employment, Catering, TAB Revenue to Government, Manufacturing.
The revenue to Victorian and National Economies is $Billions of dollars.
This revenue contributes to Victoria's Roads, Rail, Hospitals, Health system and contributes to MPs hefty incomes.

The affects of your proposed Ban on Local communities across Victoria would be devastating.

Georgie please explain how Cattle, Sheep, Horses, Alpacas in paddocks exposed to the elements, storms, heat waves, transport to market, Show dogs trained in Obedience to jump hurdles, and go through tunnels, Police Dogs trained to attack and bring down Criminals, Airport Drug sniffer dogs, Equestrian Horses Cross Country - Show jumping, Race Pigeons, Poultry Industry, Domestic Pets in cages, Pig Industry etc etc are in any way different than the Horse and Greyhound Racing Industry.
Greyhound Betting is $11 Billion alone Nationally, then consider Thoroughbred and Harness Racing Betting,

The unemployment that the Banning of this Industry would create would be Political suicide for a MP choosing to embark on the same path that ended the Political career of a NSW Premier.

I am interested to hear your reasoning behind your decision to embark on a Ban of Greyhound Racing through the Victorian Parliament.

Peter Bryce.

All of the reasons you're stating for greyhound racing to continue are the same reasons they say greyhound racing should end.

(and you're again confusing wagering turnover with economic impact)

Yes, the governments get a lot of revenue from wagering. But the anti racing crowd aren't going to be swayed by those numbers because they believe racing is commercial exploitation of animals.

If not what do you think the way fwd is ?

Has the industry done enough? There's a lot of layers to that! Short answer is the industry can always do more, and by that I don't just mean the governing bodies, but clubs and participants too.

I can really only speak to my experience in Victoria, but I think GRV has by and large done an excellent job keeping the government onside and the sport continues to have bipartisan support despite the issues of 2015. The fact we were able to keep racing through Covid showed they know that space well. They've also done well changing the perception of the greyhound itself, as evidenced by the popularity of breed as a pet particularly in inner urban areas that would never have seen a greyhound a decade or more ago.

But I don't think they have done enough to link the RACING greyhound or the RACES to broader community. Too much churn, too much focus (at times) on maximising turnover, not enough excitement around successes (however you measure it), too much of a 'small target' strategy when scrutiny is applied.

Clubs need to do a lot more - why would anyone go to the track now? - and participants need to do more to engage the people in their communities. Every part of the greyhound racing ecosystem is an ambassador for the sport and their presentation and conduct is representative of the sport as a whole.

If our strongest argument for being is that lots of people bet on greyhounds, we may as well hand over the keys. Ultimately, if we're not excited about our sport, why should anyone outside of it care?

It is a cleverly orchestrated and strategic campaign by anti-racing activists. The strategy is to 'influence by social media storm'
That is to put the cutest photo you can find then paint across it in big red dripping letters 'you bet - they die' or similar. Then twist statistics so that a 3 day spike wound is placed into the same basket as a hock fracture, and these statistics are being read out in our houses of Parliament.

Our enemies have also turned themselves into a voice of authority.
The Coalition for the Protection of Greyhounds are a registered charity that do no charitable works, neither have they ever rehomed a single greyhound. Yet we have Andrew Wilkie MP quoting statistics from this group in Federal Parliament. Unchallenged!

It's all very well to believe that GRV and the Government are onside, but that can all change in one election.
If enough ditzy 16yo's who blindly follow social media, turn 18 before the next election, then we have candidates who appeal, guess what, all of a sudden we have an elected airhead who stands up in Parliament spewing out false statistics provided by a false charity.
Unchallenged!

As passionate greyhound people, we need to understand that a growing number of people hate what we do. Hate it. We need to raise our presence on social media, we need to call out the lies and we need to find a candidate to be seated in the senate after the next election. In every state if possible.
We simply cannot put our faith in our admins to defend us. They have a big enough job to do already. It is up to us.

Emailing MP's is old style and futile.
Becoming an MP. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

Michael Floyd MP. Has a real nice ring to it.

That's been a bugbear of mine forever. We need to be honest and transparent, but listing 3/5/7 day certificates as 'injuries' is plain wrong and feeds into the anti's narrative.

EXTERNAL LINK

These morons load the gun and then hand it over to the antis to fire at the 99.9% of us doing the right thing.

Honestly these guys are brain dead fools

There should be no 2nd chances for any of these people if definitely found guilty

The game is far better off without them

Hi Michael, hope you are keeping well and always appreciate your thoughts.

It's interesting Governments attitudes.

We've got a Government in Vic who are anti-gambling with their constantly annoying adds on racing channels and oblivious to the fact the gambling industry turns over billions of dollars, or are they just being two faced ? i.e. Do they want the benefits of gambling AND want to be seen as doing the right thing in the eyes of the 'do gooders' ? I think so.

Yet if you look at the Hong Kong Govt's attitude and check out the HKJC website and the form they put out for the punter, it leaves Aus form websites and any other for dead.

They have everything from a horse's daily bodyweight, to every track gallop and every form factor you could think of.

Their principal is the more form they can arm the punter with the better their turnover, which is why big punting syndicates are betting on their racing with their massive pools.

They approach it from a totally different view to the Vic Gov't and are reaping the rewards.

Listening to people talk about gambling at a gathering I was at last week end, it appeared that your average person had moved on from the greens arguments, perhaps recognising their fanaticism from the bad publicity they had recently been receiving, and were now more anti-gambling, mainly due to the pressures gambling imposes upon family life and values.

I think it's a subtle but recognisable shift in the community, so whilst I agree with what you are saying, some those arguments especially relating to turnover may be a little dated, and it just may now be time to educate people as you've suggested from all platforms within the industry, about how much money gambling does generate to the economy, versus zero income to the economy from the 'do gooders' (and the greens) perspective. These people have to realise there's another really valid side to the argument, and it's not a hard one to make as they are generally uneducated about where the gambling dollar actually goes and how it benefits society.

I'm far from against family life and values, however don't we live in a society where we can decide what we want to do with our money and time, without Government interference with their political agenda's ? (as I let quite a few people know last weekend).

The Hong Kong example is a good one. Racing twice a week, can only bet on the tote, massive pools, lots of educated money because lots of information is available. Here, we've turned racing into four legged poker machines, filling every available second of air time on two dedicated racing channels with something you bet on. We've moved from punter vs bookmaker to, quite often, betting on numbers and colours.

And if that's what we're putting out there as our reason for surviving, then we're not going to survive.

Gambling on racing is all about finding a possible finishing order, or making a case for a finishing order before the race is run.

So I can't agree at all with the above Michael. I can understand that it may look like that to someone on the outside looking in, but that is how any form of gambling whether it be cards, racing or whatever it is, looks like to the 'cautious'.

People are attracted by the pools in HK if they aren't already involved, and it's the people who think they can beat the odds that these pools attract.

To punters betting here or in HK, it's about getting their form right and that's all worked out when they ability rate the horses or dogs. There's a lot of hrs put into that by many. Then that extra info provided to the punter by their website allows the punter to polish their betting strategy.

There is no correlation between that and walking up to a machine and pulling a handle either in Aus or in HK. Just from what I know.

But that's the point - it's not the people who like a punt that want to shut the sport down. They don't like the commercialisation if animals, especially if that means punting on them.

Here, authorities get rewarded for increasing turnover because that increases revenues when then goes back into the sport - which is great - but it means that every possible second is filled with something to bet on. The greyhound share of racing turnover has gone up a lot - around 25% now - but I doubt it's because more people enjoy the sport, it's because we've filled every possible slot with another meeting.

There are many that put hours into doing form, but the vast majority are betting off tipsters, colours, numbers, market moves on wherever and whatever is racing next - you only have to see how much money is bet late to see that.

That's a poor excuse. ban dog racing because people associate betting on it

Then lets ban Lotto, Powerball, pokies, casino's, card games

Lets ban the lot because they encourage gambling and loss of income and wealth and creates poverty in many families

I can tell you, we aren't in greyhounds because all of us can get wealthy out of it, that may apply to those with that 5% of dogs that win a Group race or multiple city wins.

Most of us have had way more money burners than money makers.

So why do we come back, not because we dream of winning the MDC but because we love the dogs, we love the sport. we love being involved

Any money we do make is churned back into our dogs anyway

So when Anti's tell me I am in it for the money then I definitely see red because thats not what most of us are in it for

Those who do rely on it for their living, need owners to stump up funds to keep supplying dogs

Greyhounds are becoming expensive, it can cost up to $13,000 from start to to finish to get one to the track with no guarantee of a return

The gambling side of it is only there to help us recover those costs, make a little bit if you have a decent dog, and to pay for the rehoming of it if you can't keep it yourself long term

If I want to make money, I will go to the stock market or the property market

Even better still, I will set up an Animal Rights Charity and hoodwink every unsuspecting member of the public that greyhound racing is an evil sport and is the devil incarnate , grab my donations, do nothing to help the welfare of greyhound and sail off into the sunset with all my ill-gotten gains

Fucking bunch of no hopers, charlatans and thieves they are

Its time our industry stood up publicly as a whole to to shut them down into their little box and throw away the key