A steering committee of greyhound industry stakeholders met with Premier Mike Baird and Deputy Premier and racing minister Troy Grant on Thursday, but failed to change the government’s stance on the racing ban.
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Bob Whitelaw – who owns Abernethy Greyhound Education Centre – said the committee’s aim is, ultimately, to save greyhound racing in NSW.
“We are hoping with enough pressure that this will be overturned,” he said.
“We won’t give up.”
Mr Whitelaw said he was “gutted” by Mr Baird’s announcement last Thursday that the sport would be banned in NSW from July 1 next year.
The decision came after a damning report into the industry found widespread illegal activity including the unnecessary slaughtering of at least 48,000 dogs, and the practice of live-baiting.
Mr Whitelaw said the majority of greyhound owners did the right thing.
“How can you sacrifice 90-odd percent of the industry for a few bad eggs?” he said.
If the industry is shut down, Mr Whitelaw, 66, will have to lay off his three staff – two young men who had struggled to find work, the other a single mother with a son in university.
His trial track – which he paid for using his super – will be worthless.
And it’s not just those directly involved in the industry who will be affected – Mr Whitelaw said many pet food and produce stories in regional towns around the state make a living from supplying to local greyhound owners.
Cessnock MP Clayton Barr echoed Mr Whitelaw’s sentiments, saying it will have a huge impact on the state’s regional economy.
“Towns like Dapto, where they have had Thursday night racing for 80 years, they fill their motels with people coming to town for the dogs, and it’s a revenue stream for their showgrounds,” he said.
Mr Barr said said there is no doubt the greyhound industry needed to be reformed.
“After the terrible things that were found, it had to be cleaned up – but does cleaning it up mean it needs to be shut down?” he said.
Mr Barr said Labor will be voting against its the ban.
“It’s a livelihood, a hobby, a culture for tens of thousands of people across NSW,” he said.
Mr Barr said the horse racing industry should be concerned that they will be next.
“If you apply the same logic (about animal welfare), if it’s greyhounds today, it’s thoroughbreds tomorrow,” he said.
“And if greyhounds is the king tide, (banning) thoroughbreds would be an absolutely tsunami to the NSW economy.”
A mass meeting will be held at Parliament House in Sydney on August 2.
