BARKING MAD 

The NSW Premier, Michael Baird, seems to be emulating characters from American history in his divisive banning of greyhound racing in NSW, effective as from July 1 next year.

On the eve of his departure from office, after being defeated at the polls, John Adams, the nation’s second president, signed a number of judicial commissions most of which favoured his fellow Federalists.

Baird’s arrogant ‘midnight legislation,’ pushed through the upper house at that unholy hour, should ensure his defeat at the next election.

While no one condones animal cruelty the vile antics of a few does not an industry cover. Baird had many more options open to him rather than the wrecking ball approach but the drama of being a latter day Lionel Murphy, apparently, was irresistible.

Not only did Baird fail to consult with the industry but the McHugh report was described by a former federal opposition leader Mark Latham as the worst one of the many thousands he had read.

Baird has acted on the knee jerk reactions of the Twitterati and Facebookers. After the Four Corners expose, 18 months ago, that attitude was summed up by one over heated respondent, on Facebook, who wrote that as greyhounds led “a life of slavery and servitude the whole industry should be shut down.”

That is the manic and maniacal policy of Baird. It is simply the prelude by left wing and animal rights activists to go after all three of the racing codes….you know the sports that employs a quarter of a million people, Australia’s third largest industry.

Ray Hadley’s warning about this, on Sky TV (while deputising for Alan Jones), is in fact a couple of years too late.

After the 2014 Melbourne Cup, in which Admiral Rakti died of a heart attack, Senator Scott Ludlum (Greens WA) tweeted, ‘we raced another horse to death. Hope there’s plenty of champagne.’ Even by Ludlum’s submerged standards that plumbed a new low, enough for him to be called ‘a right tweet,’ by  the Executive officer of the WA Racehorse Owners Association, Darren McAullay, also the State’s premier race caller over the past 16 years.

Writing in Winners Circle (Summer 2014) McAullay asked whether Ludlum was serious in making such a remark. Unfortunately the extremist senator was, not that he should be treated seriously. He is a modern day Luddite who, like the original model, is a wrecker. However, the Luddites of old fought to maintain their jobs whereas this activist, now supported by the NSW Government, fights to smash employment.

Ludlum’s tripe is the sort that goes on every time an animal dies in racing from those who have never thrown a leg over a horse or trained a canine.

There would be no such sports, including show jumping, eventing and dressage if the crazies have their way.

Further, media blowhards like Derryn Hinch and Patrick Smith were also involved in the campaign against jumps racing when that sport came under pressure.

Smith demanded that jumps racing be banned immediately because ‘the community has stopped jumping for joy.’ This was the forerunner of the broadbrush stroke used by McHugh, in his report, and Baird later, about what is the appropriate ‘social licence.’ Of course, no evidence is given as to why the community atttitude has shifted to claim how animal welfare completely trumps jobs, taxes and enjoyment.

If this nonsense is taken to its illogical conclusion then why not ban Christmas festivities too, a la Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans of the 1650s. That way we could save thousands of chooks, ducks, turkeys and pigs by destroying the jobs of those engaged in such industries.

Smith, instead of being the spokesman for the valley of the loons, may do well to reflect on the words of the great American racing writer, Joe H. Palmer who once wrote a horse cannot pile up boxes on a platform to get a banana on a ceiling. Why? Because he has no hands with which to pick up the box and he doesn’t like bananas anyway.

Instead what horses (and dogs) like to do is run, jump and swim, as anyone who has ever had anything to do with animal activities can testify. They cannot be forced, or trained, to do things that are not natural.

As for Hinch, his hysterical claims were that jumps racing was on a par with blood ‘sports,’ such as bull and cock fighting, thus equating equestrian activities with those where the death of animals are constantly assured.  In reference to slower or older racehorses sometimes moving successfully to a jumps racing career, Hinch chirped sarcastically, “think how many old roosters are being put down because they can’t get a second career in the cock fighting ring.”

Some of them, however, end up in the Senate where only Hansard reporters are compelled to listen to their crowing!

Fortunately, for Victoria, in that period (2010-14), Denis Napthine was Minister for Racing, then Premier as well, and was able to resist the latter day Goths with reforms, not destruction, to jumps racing.

The NSW greyhound ban is an admission of failure on the part of the Baird Government that it cannot get its ‘kennels in order,’ over matters such as live baiting.

In WA, Carlos Martins the Chief Greyhound Steward is the longest serving ‘chief stipe’ in the nation. Early in his career the ex-Zimbabwean acted promptly to close down the sort of activity, now bedevilling the sport in NSW.

In 1990, Martins carried out surveillance on the Bushmead training track and acting in concert with WA Police, he got the same sort of result that the Four Corners team achieved with their television expose in February last year.

Some thought at the time he was too hard and that he should have warned off the offenders by informing them they were being watched. That was as mad a suggestion as saying police should tip off drug dealers before a raid.

Martins tough approach has paid off in WA and it is time that NSW followed suit, restructuring with appropriate integrity and policing policies, coupled with strong legal penalties. Running up a white flag is cowardice, not a solution.

The only aggressive action Baird took was to give the NSW upper house 10 minutes to read the bill, instead of the normal five days notice, and to destroy the livelihood of an overwhelming number of law abiding citizens, many of them in regional areas.

Thus 15,000 jobs, including 2700 full time positions, will be shed, based on ‘rubbery’ figures and the demands of barking mad activists.

In pandering to militant activists and political extremists Baird should realise such people will never be satisfied in claiming just the Sudetenland! 

An edited version of this story appeared in The Spectator (23/8/16).

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