Going to the dogs

Too many politicians are saying to low income and informally educated Australians, ‘why don’t you just shrivel up and die.’ You shall not race dogs, smoke, drink, gamble, tell jokes, or in any other way offend that small band of do-gooders who wish to punish the innocent for the sins of the guilty.

The Treasurer is lifting taxation on cigarettes by 12.5 per cent per year for the next four years, this in addition to the massive taxes already imposed on cigarette smokers. The Queensland Premier has imposed lockout laws on all drinkers, including responsible drinkers, in designated precincts. All Premiers tax gambling heavily and specific forms of gambling are banned. Eddie McGuire gets hit over the head for having a crack at a journalist, probably because she was a she.

A whole class is getting cranky

Take the latest dumb decision: The Premier of NSW is closing down the greyhound racing industry. This decision was driven by animal rights activists. In February 2015, the RSPCA conducted raids on greyhound properties and registered trial tracks in NSW, Victoria and Queensland after tip-offs by animal welfare organisations of live baiting. Shortly after, ABC Four Corners broadcast evidence of live baiting. Fair enough, do something about this abhorrent practice: but ban the entire industry? Across Australia, the Animal Justice Party won 1 per cent of the Senate vote, 0.6 per cent of the vote of the House of Representatives in non-metropolitan divisions and 0.8 per cent in metropolitan divisions. There are 35 greyhound racing clubs in NSW. Almost all are outside metropolitan Sydney.

It was predictable to see the Greens Lee Rhiannon, speak at a rally of odds and sods in favour of the ban. It was unpredictable to see the Leader of the Opposition, Luke Foley, opposing Baird: a rare decision by Labor in favour of the little Aussie battler.

I telephoned Rex Nairn, president of the Hastings River Greyhound Racing Club at Wauchope, to ask him what he felt about the ban. He, like so many others, was devastated. Rex has been in the game for 55 years, describing Greyhound racing as a ‘meeting place’ of friends, ‘a culture’ of shared interests. When one of his or his wife’s dogs wins ‘it’s priceless’. They don’t do it for the money. First prize at Wauchope is $350.

How to respond: not

Of course there are serious questions to be addressed, and they were being addressed. A 2014 NSW Select Committee on Greyhound Racing recommended increased scrutiny of the industry and noted it was not economically sustainable without restructure. The NSW Government supported almost all of the recommendations. Then came Four Corners. Initially, Baird did the right thing. He did not overreact, as did the Gillard government in banning live cattle exports to Indonesia, after a similar sensational ABC expose. Instead, Baird appointed former High Court Justice Michael McHugh to enquire whether the issues ‘were able to be appropriately addressed’.

McHugh recommended no more than that the Parliament consider whether the industry had ‘lost its social licence and should no longer be permitted to operate in NSW.’ He made a further 79 recommendations, none of which suggested closing the industry. He recommended, for example, disqualification for life for any person found to be involved in the practice of live baiting.

Mind you, the Commission found no firm evidence, beyond second-hand reports, that live baiting was continuing in the industry after February 2015.McHugh also concluded that ‘animal welfare outcomes are now the driving force behind Greyhound Racing NSW’s activities. No longer can it be argued that, under its present management, the commercial interests… trump animal welfare interests.’

McHugh regarded ‘wastage’ of greyhounds, the euthanasia of slow dogs, as ‘insuperable.’ He found that about 80 per cent of dogs whelped each year have to be retained as breeders or pets, find a home elsewhere, or be destroyed. This is a big problem, but the industry should have been given time to address it.

A weird ‘value judgment’

The Commission considered that animal welfare ‘must be given the greatest weight’ in making a value judgment about the industry. Why is animal welfare given ‘greatest weight’? Surely, this prejudges the answer. McHugh rabbits on about a social license to operate. This is the sort of crap that would come out of the mouth of Senator Penny Wong, not a sober judge.

McHugh argues that social institutions – industries, corporations, businesses or organised sports – must answer to the wider community for their behaviour to operate ‘only as long as they perform in accordance with public expectations’. This is a dangerous contrivance. Parliaments define ‘social license’ in a thousand different ways. It is called consensus. Ignoring this consensus, activists silence the assent of the majority and crush an entire industry.

McHugh admits that defining social licence to operate ‘has so far proved too difficult for the term to be used as a criterion of legal responsibility’. So, the judge, freed from the constraints of judicial office, gets all sociological.

Tabcorp indicated that greyhound racing was popular with punters in NSW and was the fastest growing of the three racing codes. In the previous year, it had attracted 100,000 customers and over $1 billion in wagers. Rex Nairn’s enjoyment is priceless.

The National Party and the Labor Party should get together and roll the Liberal Party in the New South Wales Parliament to save the sport of the little Aussie battler.