Hidden in Wednesday’s racing policy was Felix Ellis finally admitting the Liberals are abandoning the north west track project.
The policy claims the Liberals will deliver a ‘solution’ for North-West harness and greyhound racing, which is only training facility upgrades with no detail. The solution appears to be to kill off greyhound racing in the northwest forever.
This means abandoning of the northwest track project and the harness and greyhound participants who were relying on it being built.
Felix Ellis now has the same policy on greyhound racing in the north west as the Greens. Shut it down.
Jeremy Rockliff claims to support racing – yet he’s letting down the people who live right on his doorstep. The people who thought he had their backs.
The funding allocated in the policy slashes the $8 million that was allocated to a new track and replaces it with $2 million towards upgrades of existing facilities – none of which host greyhound racing.
This is a broken 2021 election promise which will put greyhound and harness racing on the northwest coast under enormous pressure and undoubtedly lead to industry exits.
Harness and greyhound racing participants have been without a Devonport track since March 2022 when TasRacing, with support from the Liberal Government, voluntarily exited the lease at the Devonport Showgrounds.
Since then participants have been travelling to Carrick or Launceston to train their animals under a TasRacing scheme which cost $220,000 last financial year.
No commitment has been made to the continuation of the scheme, guaranteeing industry exits.
This lets every single racing participant on the north west coast down. It cripples the industry at a time when it can least afford it, as the Minister fails to act on the Murrihy Review.
After 10 years of shutting down racing, shutting down race tracks, massive animal welfare breaches and race fixing, its time for a change of government.
Tasmanian Labor strongly supports Tasmanian racing. We backed it when the Liberals were shutting it down and we will continue to back participants on the north west coast.
I am looking forward to releasing Labor’s racing policy in the coming weeks.
Dean Winter MP
Shadow Minister for Racing
