Caulfield Racecourse Reserve Bill 2017

Ms PENNICUIK (Southern Metropolitan) — It is with pleasure that I rise to speak on the Caulfield Racecourse Reserve Bill 2017. In saying that, I have to say that the first time I saw this bill the first thing that jumped out at me was the name of the bill, Caulfield Racecourse Reserve Bill, just perpetuating what that huge 54-hectare tract of Crown land in Glen Eira has been used for for more than 140 years pretty well exclusively, locking out the community. Mr Davis and Mr Mulino talked a bit about not enough attention having been paid to community access to the land and use of the land for recreation and as a public park. That is such an underestimation. What I would say is the Melbourne Racing Club and its predecessors, and the trustees in their earlier iteration, have run that huge amount of public land basically as a racing venue. They have completely locked out the community up until very recently, and even then they were dragged kicking and screaming into it. Let us put that on the record; that is actually what has been happening.

I was very, very disappointed to see the name of the bill and that the name of the reserve will continue to be Caulfield Racecourse Reserve. Interestingly the purposes clause of the bill is to establish a trust 'to manage the Caulfield Racecourse Reserve for racing, recreation and public park purposes'. The original Crown land deed back in the 1850s reserved the land for a racecourse, public recreation and a public park. It is interesting, and I will ask the minister when we are in committee as to the meaning of changing the terminology from 'racecourse' to 'racing', which is happening under this bill.

My major point — and my disappointment in reading the bill — is that here is an opportunity where we are actually going to make a major change to something which I believe has been an ongoing scandal really: the occupation of this massive tract of Crown land by the racing clubs and racing interests for 140 years, making I should say gazillions of dollars out of racing and the other commercial activities that the Melbourne Racing Club conducts on that site, including a Tabaret and commercial fairs. The examinations for Monash University students were mentioned, and Monash University has to pay for that; in fact I have sat a couple of exams there myself. It is operated as a commercial entity under the control of the Melbourne Racing Club, and nobody really knows to this day where all that money has gone. It has not gone back into the community.

I think it is good that we have this bill, but it has been a long time coming. It was in 2007 when the Select Committee on Public Land Development first looked into the issue of what was going on at the Caulfield Racecourse Reserve with regard to the Caulfield Racecourse Reserve Trust and how it was operating. It is about 10 years since the report was tabled in this place. I have to say — and people can look at the seat next to me — I have got probably half a filing cabinet full of files, reports, letters, minutes of the City of Glen Eira, submissions from members of the public and newspaper clippings about this issue going back to 2007. It has taken 10 years for this piece of legislation to get here, and that is because the Melbourne Racing Club has been resistant to letting the community have access and even to implementing actions that it actually had agreed to in memorandums of understanding with the council in particular. It has been a long time coming.

I think, given the purposes that the land has always been reserved for and the purposes that are outlined almost exactly in the purposes clause of the bill, that the name of the bill should reflect that. The name of the reserve should be changed from Caulfield Racecourse Reserve to Caulfield Racecourse Recreation and Public Park Reserve, because that is what it was always meant to be. I think that is very important because it signals to the community that things are not going to be the same as they were before and there is going to be a new governance arrangement. There is not going to be a secretive trust that holds meetings in secret once a year, does not publish its minutes, does not have proper governance arrangements and does not in any way make public the money that it has made or where that money goes to. A new era is coming into being with this bill, and I think the name of the bill should reflect that.

I am very familiar with this piece of land — it is only a couple of kilometres from where I live — and I have taken a lot of interest in going there over the years just to see whether public access has increased over time, and it has to a certain extent but it has not really to any intents and purposes increased that much. To that effect I have drawn up some amendments to change the name of the bill and the reserve. I will say, too, that the name was the first thing that struck me when I looked at the bill and it was the first thing that struck a lot of people in the community who have been working on this issue for a long time as well.

Before I get too far into my contribution and run out of time I would like to thank those people. For a start, it is the past and present councillors of the City of Glen Eira, so the councils as a whole and many of the councillors. Mr Davis mentioned Helen Whiteside, who was a mayor of the time; Cr Frank Penhalluriack; Cr Jim Magee, also a mayor; and Cr Neil Pilling, also a mayor of Glen Eira. These councillors led their council in its advocacy over many years to try to get access to this piece of land for the community and for the purposes that it was always set aside for. I should say anybody who has been involved in this issue would understand that it was set aside in its original deed for equal uses, so equal use as a racecourse, equal use as a public park and equal use for public recreation. It has never been that. It has always just been exclusively for racing, and I will go to that a bit more in my contribution.

I would like to thank the Glen Eira Residents Association, who have been tirelessly campaigning on this issue for many, many years, even before 2007 when the Select Committee on Public Land Development reported on the issue. I also thank the Glen Eira Environment Group, the Malvern East Group and so many members of the community, as I mentioned before, who have been active within these groups and just active themselves, writing to me and to others trying to get some action on this issue.

Greens amendments circulated by Ms PENNICUIK (Southern Metropolitan) pursuant to standing orders.

Ms PENNICUIK — As I was saying, the purposes of the bill are to manage the Caulfield Racecourse Reserve for racing, recreation and public park purposes. As I say, it is a perfect opportunity to signal that to the community. Many members of the community have made the same comments to me and have been working on this for a long time.

As I was saying, if you are familiar with the site and you go there to the Caulfield Racecourse recreation and public park reserve, you will see that the only thing you ever see a mention of is racing. There are lots of signs up about racing. There is meant to be signage up telling the public what days racing is on, because the public is not meant to be on there unless they are attending the races on a race day. So they cannot go there and walk their dog or fly their model aeroplane. It has been in the past a very popular venue for the flying of model aeroplanes, and the reason is that it is 54 hectares with a racecourse around the outside and a grandstand on the northern end and the other commercial buildings that I have mentioned. There is also a very, very large area of open space in the middle, and up until just recently hardly anyone went there because they did not know they were allowed to go there. They did not realise that it was in fact a public park and public land — Crown land owned by them — and that they should have had open access to it. That is why it was a good place to fly model aeroplanes — because there was hardly anyone there. That is exactly how the Melbourne Racing Club wanted it.

Recently a member of the public actually sent me a photograph of the signage that is meant to tell the members of the public what days the races are on, and there was nothing on there — it was blank — so members of the public could not see what the next race day was and what days they were meant to be on. The areas of access are very few and far between and are also not very well signed either. The signs that you get advertising that it is a racecourse are monstrously big signs; the signs that you get saying, 'Here is an entry to the park and recreation that you can use as a member of the public', are tiny things that you have to go right up close to to be able to read. This has been the ongoing behaviour of the Melbourne Racing Club over many, many years — virtually the whole time it has been there.

I just want to refer to the minister's second-reading speech, and I will say too that the two previous speakers started out their contributions talking about racing — about how wonderful the racecourse is and how it has had so many famous races on it, about people who own horses and all of that; just talking up the racing. It holds 22 race events a year. Out of 365 days, 22 are devoted to racing — so the whole of that area is basically taken over by racing, which happens on only 22 days out of 365. There is a lot of training, which I will go to in a moment. But the minister said:

The Caulfield Racecourse Reserve is one of Australia's most famous racecourses. It has been the venue for the Caulfield Cup and other premier racing events for more than 130 years and racing will continue as the primary use —

as the 'primary use' —

to make a critical contribution to Victoria's $2.1 billion thoroughbred racing industry and cultural life of the state.

Of course the $2.1 billion thoroughbred racing industry is based on gambling, which we should never forget, but for the minister to say in the first paragraph that it is going to be the primary use is very disappointing. He went on to say:

The reserve is also a significant public asset, and is used for walking, picnics and other public recreation activities.

Well, I will say it is not used very much. A lot more needs to be happening.

When the Select Committee on Public Land Development looked into this issue we also saw evidence of what goes on at other racetracks around the world, not so much in Australia — although I note that Flemington Racecourse is talking about holding markets in the middle and doing a whole lot of stuff in the middle of Flemington Racecourse. Just recently I noticed some of those articles in the press. Many of the racecourses around the world have lots of activities going on in the middle of the racecourse — sporting activities such as soccer, such as lacrosse and any number of other activities. Some of them are at night. These go on all the time — sometimes, and very often, at the same time as races are going on. We heard evidence at the Select Committee on Public Land Development that we could not possibly have any other activities going on in the racecourse while there was a race happening because the horses would not be able to run around if they saw people in the middle kicking a football — that would completely put them off. That is just plain not true, because it happens at racecourses all over the world.

One of the issues that has been raised by the community a lot and has been raised by me in this place with governments of various persuasions is that one of the recommendations of the Select Committee on Public Land Development was to remove the tin fencing, particularly along Queens Avenue, that blocks the public land from the view of people outside, and deliberately so.

But that is what the Melbourne Racing Club wants to do — it wants people to not know they can go there and it wants to keep them out with these big fences. There is a very small gate in that very extensive fence along Queens Avenue, but of course it is locked. What we were told is, 'We couldn't possibly get rid of the tin fence because the horses would be completely distracted by what is going on on the road and would not be able to run around' — again, completely untrue. Racecourses all over the world are right next to quite busy roads —

An honourable member interjected.

Ms PENNICUIK — I have seen footage of them racing around the racetrack with the road only a couple of metres away —

Mr Ondarchie interjected.

Ms PENNICUIK — A few metres away.

There has been hostility and resistance by Melbourne Racing Club to opening this Crown land that they have occupied — Crown land owned by the people of Victoria, set aside for their use and being used exclusively for racing and other commercial activities, the money being basically claimed by the Melbourne Racing Club or who knows? I have asked in Parliament for this to be looked into, and in fact the Select Committee on Public Land Development made that recommendation. One of its recommendations was that, 'the purpose to which money raised by horse racing has been used' should be investigated by the government — this is recommendation 5.8 — along with 'the history, membership structure … and current arrangement of the … board of trustees' and 'ways in which the government can ensure that the board of trustees operates in an open and transparent manner'. That was back in 2007, but I am not sure that that has ever been gotten to the bottom of.

After the select committee reported, nothing much happened — none of the recommendations were followed up. In 2009 we had a bill presented to this Parliament under the stewardship of the now Special Minister of State, Mr Jennings. It was one of those land revocation — land swap — bills that we see from time to time. In that was a proposal for the Melbourne Racing Club to acquire by way of a land swap a very valuable triangle of land which is now, years down the road, being built on, and a large development is being built next to it. That was back in the day when we were also looking at the issue of the St Kilda triangle, which is another ongoing issue. This was a triangle of land in between the racecourse and the railway line, and they wanted to swap that for this tiny little piece of land next to the roundabout at the corner of Glen Eira Road and Booran Road. One was worth millions of dollars and one was worth perhaps $1 million. I kicked up such a fuss about it that that part of the bill was —

Mr Dalidakis — I find that hard to believe!

Ms PENNICUIK — Well, actually what happened was that the minister — after we went into committee for a very long time on it, Mr Dalidakis — agreed for the first time that there would be recompense for the difference in the value of the land, so while one was worth more than the other that difference had to be paid for by the Melbourne Racing Club. But the land that they actually wanted to swap — the small piece of land which was freehold land — was actually bought with money that they had made by carrying out their commercial activities on the Crown land, so in fact for all intents and purposes it really did belong to the people of Victoria anyway. In my view what has been going on there over decades has been scandalous. Governments have just allowed it to happen, to the detriment of the people of Victoria.

One of the recommendations of the Select Committee on Public Land Development was that the government look into the operation of the board of trustees. The board of trustees at the time, for people who have read the second-reading speech or have read the report of the bipartisan working group, did a reasonable job, but of course that came after the Auditor-General's report in 2014. I know that the Glen Eira City Council wrote to the Auditor-General asking that the Auditor-General look into the oversight and management of the Caulfield Racecourse Reserve, as it was at the time.

Also, by way of a survey that the Auditor-General puts out asking what people would like the Auditor-General to look into, at the same time I said, 'You need to look at Caulfield Racecourse because it is certainly less than ideal in the way it is run'.

Of course the Auditor-General, as people would know, came to the conclusion that:

The trust has not been effective in its … management of the reserve.

The report states that the trust's decisions have:

 … disproportionately favoured racing interests with insufficient attention paid to … the community-related purposes …

It also says the trust:

… has not articulated its purpose, priorities and vision for the reserve

The report refers to the:

 … lack of adequate management systems and processes and the absence of a formal governance framework reflecting contemporary better practice …

It says:

The trust has not been able to address the conflicts of interest inherent in the make-up of its membership and competing responsibilities as set out in the Crown grant. Its composition — where trustees' personal and professional interests compete with their obligations as Crown land managers — makes decision-making intrinsically difficult. More recently, the current and former chairs of the trust have recognised the need to address this issue and introduce better standards …

The report concludes that:

DEPI has not effectively overseen the … management of the reserve. It has not worked proactively with the trustees to assist them to resolve significant governance and management issues when these matters have been brought to its attention in recent years.

Other findings were that the legal framework is neither clear nor comprehensive; governance arrangements do not reflect contemporary best practice; conflict of interest is not well managed; maintenance and development of the reserve is not adequately controlled by the trust; there is no departmental oversight — I do not have time to go through the whole of the report. I got so frustrated with raising this by way of adjournment and by way of constituency question: 'When are you going to do something about what is going on at Caulfield and the management of the reserve by the trustees?'.

I will go back to the trustees. They are appointed by the Governor in Council based on six nominees of the Melbourne Racing Club. There are 15 trustees, six of them nominated by the Melbourne Racing Club. There are also six nominees of the state government. Invariably they are people with racing interests. So we end up with 12 members of the trust with a racing background and then three members nominated by the City of Glen Eira. There was a period where there were no members of the council there because the other trust members did not tell them when the meetings were on et cetera, so what was going on was quite scandalous.

In this place I asked the former Minister for Planning about this. The Minister for Planning got involved with this even though this is actually within the remit of the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, as we call her now. The planning minister is the minister that appointed the trustees. I asked the former planning minister in this place if he would make sure that further appointments were not racing interests but were community members. That did not happen — it started to happen but a bit later. So it is a long history of co-option by racing interests of Crown land set aside for other purposes but never used for them.

I have referred to the purposes of the bill. It provides for a new governing body for the reserve and reporting requirements of that new trust, which will consist of between five and seven members to be appointed by the minister. The trust will have to prepare business plans and a strategic land management plan. Part 4 of the bill provides for the management of the reserve, including the power for a minister to make an order defining areas of the reserve that may be used for the purposes for which the land is permanently reserved. It provides for the trust to make event management declarations and enables the Melbourne Racing Club to control parts of the reserve additional to the land it occupies on major race days. It will be interesting to see how that actually pans out. It also provides powers for the trust to lease, license and grant permits in respect of the reserve.

Part 5 of the bill provides for the financial provisions of the trust under the Financial Management Act 1994. Part 6 enables the Governor to make regulations for the planning, development, care and best use of the reserve. Part 7 revokes the restricted Crown grant held by the trustee of the reserve and provides that the trustees under the Crown grant go out of office. It also enables the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change to issue a lease of 65 years to the Melbourne Racing Club. I have an amendment in the amendments I circulated earlier to reduce that term from 65 years to 21 years, which is the usual number of years for Crown land leases. I do not see any reason for issuing a lease for 65 years to the Melbourne Racing Club given their history in their occupation of this piece of land.

The minister, when I asked about that, mentioned where large-scale projects of regional and state significance are the case a longer term lease may be required. But I would say to that that the Melbourne Racing Club has been there for a long time. It has basically developed the site largely for its own purposes — it has got a grandstand, it has got a racetrack, it has got training facilities and various other buildings that it uses for its commercial activities — and I am really not sure why it needs a 65-year lease. I am particularly disturbed by the fact that under part 7 of the bill it could be getting a 65-year lease before the act comes to fruition. Part 7 of the bill comes into effect immediately and the rest of the act comes in afterwards, so in effect it is signing a lease with the Melbourne Racing Club before the bill comes into effect — a bill which enacts three purposes: racecourse, recreation and public park. This is another issue, like the name of the bill, that jumped out to members of the community, who raised it with me, and I agree with them. There is no need for a 65-year lease. A 21-year lease is fine.

Even though the bill looks to the Kardinia Park Stadium Trust and the Melbourne Cricket Ground Trust I would say, yes, in terms of those types of arrangements for those types of existing Crown land, to the extent that this bill is modelled on those, that is fine, but we are looking at a tract of land with a history that has not fulfilled what it was put aside for. To then, before enacting this bill, which is meant to change everything, put in place a new governance structure that extends a 65-year lease to the existing tenant, and as Mr Davis mentioned before — and this was also raised in the Select Committee of the Legislative Council on Public Land — peppercorn rent is being paid, given the amount of money that is made, I just do not see the point of it or the need for it. My amendment says that if there is a need to go into some sort of a lease arrangement, let us do that temporarily and then let us do it again after the bill comes into operation and you have the new trust in place. My amendment says 'temporarily' and 'not exceeding two years'. The latest this act could be implemented is August 2018, so that would give a bit more than a year — 14 months — after that for the trust to think about what type of lease it might want to grant to the Melbourne Racing Club.

I note the bipartisan working group, which includes Mr Ken Ry and Mr Steven Dimopoulos and Mr David Southwick from the Assembly, put that report together. It is a good report, but as I say it was basically initiated by a report of the Auditor-General as to what was going on there. They also mentioned the leases, but I think we need to wait until the bill comes into operation and then look at the leasing requirements. The report also made the observation that the Melbourne Racing Club has said that it wants to relocate training from the site. Well, the Melbourne Racing Club said that back in 2011 — that it was going to relocate training in five years. That has come and gone. It also said in 2011 that it would remove the fence from around the outside, but it has not.

Training there is a longstanding issue. There have been some incidents with horses getting onto the road et cetera, but it is not appropriate for horse training to be conducted there. Back in 2011 the memorandum of understanding between the council and the Melbourne Racing Club was that training would be removed and that part of the land which is on the south side, adjacent to Neerim Road, would be sort of blended in with Glen Huntly Park and used by the community as a park, which is what it was meant to be used for under the original deed. But still we are waiting and we are waiting, and nothing happens. As Mr Davis said, the City of Glen Eira has the lowest percentage of public open space in metropolitan Melbourne — and the adjoining City of Stonnington as well. It is not far from Caulfield Racecourse to Stonnington. It is just over Dandenong Road.

I think this bill is a good step forward. It is a major step forward from what was going on before — the archaic governance arrangements and the locking out of the community from the public land that they are entitled to use. I am glad to see that that will change under this bill, but I am very disappointed that an opportunity has not been taken to flag to the community and to the Melbourne Racing Club itself that this land is for a racecourse, public recreation and a public park. That is what it should be called. My vision for the public, when they drive past it or go to the venue — whether it be for racing events or for other events, just to walk their dog, to meet their friends and have a barbecue, to run around the jog track or any of those things — is that they see 'Caulfield Racecourse, Recreation and Public Park', not just Caulfield Racecourse. I think the days of it just being Caulfield Racecourse Reserve should be well and truly over.

The other issue is about the length of leases. I think given the history, as I said, it is different from Melbourne Cricket Ground or Kardinia Park Stadium, which are very purpose-built and are understood to be that but which do hold other sporting events. In terms of the use of this land and the way it is used for community benefit, there is still a very, very long way to go in comparison to other racecourses around the world and in how the community has been locked out of it for so long. Those are the amendments; I think they are very important. I think the inclusion of the 65-year lease is a mistake. It is not necessary, and as I say, I think it is a lost opportunity with the naming.

I do thank the government for bringing the bill forward. I have been pushing for it for a long, long time with both governments. I do thank them for doing it, and I think it will result in improvements — but we could only get improvements really. We need a lot more improvement. We need to look at the models overseas and the best use of that land for the public interest. I also flag to the minister that I will have questions on about 10 clauses of the bill in addition to the clauses that I have proposed amendments to. With those comments, the Greens will support the bill.

To read more in the committee stage, click here.