Is there a government anywhere in Australia more in thrall to the gambling industry than Chris Minns’ Labor in NSW?
Minns has proceeded slowly on most issues — his laudable, signature reform to land zoning has been pushed back beyond this year’s local council elections — but he moved very quickly on two issues of concern to the gambling industry in NSW: the additional tax that the Perrottet government had proposed to impose on Star Casino, and the introduction of cashless gaming for poker machines by that government.
The Star Casino tax rise was dumped, despite the casino having ripped off NSW taxpayers and engaged in extraordinary misconduct — which, as we now know, was continuing while NSW Labor was asking the casino how much tax it would like to pay.
And the introduction of cashless gaming — a crucial tool to control money laundering and problem gambling — was diverted into an increasingly farcical “trial”.
Now, confronted with further, extensive evidence of how monstrous the greyhound exploitation industry is, is Minns moving to finally shut down an industry that has demonstrated over many years that it is utterly incapable of operating without butchering and torturing dogs?
Of course not.
The core issue exposed by the former chief veterinary officer of Greyhound Racing NSW Alex Brittan is the same one that greyhound welfare campaigners have been trying to bring to public attention for years: quite apart from the brutality of racing itself, which sees scores of dogs killed a year, the industry continues to massively over-produce dogs in such numbers that it is impossible to find homes for them all.
The only way to deal with the discrepancy is by quietly killing the surplus dogs. The result is the industry has been hiding the true number of dog deaths — by the thousands, despite scams like sending dogs to the United States.
NSW Labor is an ardent supporter of greyhound exploitation — it’s the main reason the industry still exists in NSW, after it opposed then premier Mike Baird’s effort to shut the industry down in 2015. Racing Minister David Harris has only turned on Greyhound Racing NSW (GRNSW) after 2GB radio host Ray Hadley — another loud opponent of the Baird ban who has attacked greyhound welfare groups in the past — turned on GRNSW, revealing details of bullying, animal abuse and deaths of dogs being transported to the US, and questioning GRNSW’s rehoming figure. In May, Hadley called for the GRNSW board to be sacked. Harris fell into line last week and asked the board to show cause why they shouldn’t be terminated.
Changing the GRNSW board isn’t going to magically fix the abuse inherent in greyhound exploitation. At best — for Labor — it will produce a board better able to cover up that the industry cannot exist without industrial-scale abuse and butchery of dogs. But Minns preemptively ruled out shuttering the industry yesterday.
That Minns, Harris and co would only take minimal action against even the feeblest arm of the gambling industry once they had cover from a shock jock is a strong pointer to the nature of this government. The only thing NSW Labor learnt during its too-short years in opposition was how to be electable again, not how to govern in the public interest. Inevitably it always has one eye on stunts that will appeal to the Daily Telegraph, Sky News and shock jocks. Thus yesterday’s gimmick by Minns of announcing that large retail trade would be prohibited on Anzac Day, along with music festivals. Rugby league games, however, are still permitted to go ahead on Anzac Day.
If it’s hard to tell the difference, in cultural terms, between a music festival and a body contact sport — remember that the gambling industry has a huge stake in rugby league, and rugby league, like its gambling industry allies, has extensive political influence in NSW.
Banning people from shopping on Anzac Day is a form of enforced participation in Anzackery, a small but compulsory enlistment of everyone in celebrating Australia’s involvment in so many wars of imperialism (while of course studiously evading any recognition of the imperialist war fought right here to dispossess and slaughter First Nations peoples). Again there’s an arbitrary distinction drawn — between large retailers and small business, which are allowed to operate as normal. The differences between large and small business are even more subtle than those between 26 men bashing each other over a ball and a music festival, but Minns wouldn’t want to alienate the small business sector.
It’s the kind of idiot virtue-signal policymaking that normally characterises dying governments. Minns isn’t even halfway through his first term, but a bitterly divided NSW Coalition has already overtaken his government in the polls. The gambling lobby in NSW might be starting to fret that the good times possibly won’t last as long as it expected.
Disclosure: Bernard Keane has supported greyhound welfare and adoption for nearly a decade.
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