2016-11-09
09 November 2016 COUNCIL Statements on reports and papers
Ms PENNICUIK (Southern Metropolitan) —
I would like to make a statement tonight on the Greyhound Racing Victoria (GRV) annual report for 2015–16 and particularly on pages 12 and 13 of the report. Page 12 has the heading 'Every Greyhound Comes First'. It starts by saying:
GRV's reform program was very much focused on animal welfare in 2015–16 …
I wonder why that focus on animal welfare came about in 2015–16, after the live baiting scandals that were revealed in 2015! It goes on to say:
… a range of initiatives were implemented which are beginning to deliver positive outcomes. However, the biggest and most important challenge is to ensure that every greyhound enjoys a full life on the track and in the community.
The very next sentence says:
In 2015–16, 3012 greyhounds registered in Victoria were euthanased in the state and interstate according to euthanasia certificates supplied by veterinarians.
Apart from 3000 greyhounds being an unacceptable figure, it is completely at odds with the estimate that was made by the Victorian racing integrity commissioner in 2015. He estimated that as many as 4000 greyhounds are killed every year in Victoria before their fifth birthday. Others say the figure is higher. This throws a cloud of doubt over the figure published in this report. It says:
Reasons provided included injury, illness, aggressive behaviour, owners unable to find homes and end-of-career decisions by owners.
It says:
GRV considers this figure completely unacceptable …
That is the first time that it has done that.
If you turn over to page 13, table C lists the number of injury incidents, injury rates and severity in Victorian race meetings between 1 July 2014 and 30 June 2016. The table presents a number of categories of injury, but if you add them up per 1000 starters — and Greyhound Racing Victoria is saying around 4000 pups are whelped — it comes to a total of 73 injuries in that period, which firstly is unbelievable and, secondly, means that if you were to take the figures that are presented in this report as accurate, of those 3000 greyhounds that Greyhound Racing Victoria say were euthanased in the last year only 73 of them — or less than 73 of them, because the table goes for a longer period — were actually as a result of injury.
I would suggest that most of them were a result of end-of-career decisions by owners or that the dog was not winning races or competitive in races. This is really the fundamental problem with greyhound racing.
The Special Commission of Inquiry into the Greyhound Racing Industry in New South Wales found the following problems: the overbreeding of dogs, the inability to rehome them and the extensive rate of injury on the track cannot be overcome in the industry and for the industry to remain 'sustainable'.
At the bottom of page 12 the annual reports states:
Finding homes for greyhounds that have finished racing or never made it to the track —
'Never made it on the track', that is my emphasis —
is also critical in ensuring every greyhound is rehomed.
Then there is table B, which shows the number of Greyhound Adoption Program (GAP) adoptions in 2011–12 to 2015–16 — that is, over a four-year period — was 895. Again, the special commission of inquiry found that even with the best will in the world by the greyhound racing industry and the greyhound adoption programs, be they the GAP or other programs, greyhound racing would be unable to rehome greyhounds to the extent that is required to reduce the number of dogs that are euthanased by the industry.
This report is very interesting reading. It is at odds with a lot of other information that is out there in the community. The racing integrity commissioner, when he estimated up to 4000 greyhounds are killed in the industry a year, called for an independent review and inquiry into the number of dogs euthanased. I for one do not want to take the word of Greyhound Racing Victoria on its figures. I think this report in fact emphasises why we do need that independent review.