Winter’s false start

Jane Howlett,Minister for Racing

Labor’s racing spokesperson Dean Winter has burst out of the barriers this morning with more misleading claims, desperate to harness the Melbourne Cup day media.

As Mr Winter is aware, industry consultation on the draft terms of reference for the Government’s important review of the Racing Regulation Act 2004 is currently being undertaken. Mr Winter should be supportive of the importance of this consultation with industry.

The Government is taking appropriate steps to ensure that all relevant stakeholders have been consulted in developing the terms of reference and the Government will publicly release them when our consultation has concluded – not to suit Mr Winter’s media schedule.

I have already previously stated in the Parliament that the review will be undertaken by an independent expert and will include the functions of both the Office of Racing Integrity (ORI) and Tasracing.

This review will be an important step to ensure that the governance and integrity model in the Tasmanian racing industry is effective in delivering probity and integrity with appropriate education, compliance and enforcement functions.

Rather than cheap politicking, Mr Winter should be providing bipartisan support for this important review, but instead all we get is just more negativity from a bitterly-divided Labor party. It’s pretty clear that Mr Winter is hot to trot in his own race to become the Labor favourite.

The Government is a strong supporter of the Tasmanian racing industry which makes a vital contribution to our economy and employment, particularly in regional Tasmania.

/Public Release. View in full here.