Central Coast local and Greens NSW Upper House MP Abigail Boyd has criticised the NSW Government’s whole of life e-tracking system for greyhounds, labelling it a sham.
CCN reported last week the government’s reform plans for the industry involved the new tracking system in response to ongoing criticisms of poor practices by some in the industry.
“(It) does not address the concerns of greyhound advocates that dogs are being transferred out of the industry (and so out of the tracking system) on paper and killed in reality,” Boyd said.
She said the Government continued to claim strong action for greyhound welfare while ignoring welfare advocates and refusing to close the legislative gap that would allow dogs leaving the industry to continue to be tracked.
“If a racing greyhound is injured during a race and subsequently retired from racing, but its owner, trainer, or a bookie decides to keep it as a pet, the Greyhound Welfare and Integrity Commission (GWIC) can keep tabs on the dog and check on its welfare through this e-tracking system,” she said.
“If, however, that same greyhound is given to the owner’s brother, or next-door neighbour, or adult daughter, the Commission has no jurisdiction to check on the dog no matter what they suspect may have happened to it.
“Last year alone, 229 greyhounds were transferred off the industry books without going through any rehoming program, and we just don’t know what happened to them.
“Have these dogs been transferred out of the industry on paper and killed as wastage in reality?
“We just don’t know — and neither does GWIC.”
Boyd said in 2017, the Government promised to track every greyhound from birth to death, but the e-tracking system only tracks dogs up until they’re transferred out of the industry.
“I attempted to fix the error in the existing Greyhound Racing Act and to ensure that GWIC’s e-tracking system will have oversight of every greyhound that has ever been used in the racing industry, but the Government and Labor voted against this change,” she said.
“It’s unconscionable that the Minister for Racing would celebrate this tracking system when he knows full well that dogs are likely being killed once the regulator can’t see them.”
Primary source: Media release, Jun 19, 2022 Greens MP Abigail Boyd
Months ago I received a phone and software from GWIC to enable me to pass on retirement details of the greyhounds I took from racing owners. GWIC has never sent a tech to me to set up the system. Smoke and mirrors!
Why don’t the state government just ban this horrendous so-called “sport”. Surely as a civilised society we are better than this. Oh, hang on, of course! The state government makes money out of it. Silly me. Disgusting!
The tracking system is a farce just like the whole of the Great Waffle and Indesisive Commission that is GWIC. Ask them if they can tell you how many dogs there are in the industry after the operation of several years? They tell you they’re tracking these dogs for their entire lives, the entire racing lives yes, what happens to these guys at the very end? Oh that’s okay they just do the same as GRSW did with the data dump and removal of dogs on the system. Problem solved.
Abigail are you not sitting currently on a Parliamentary Inquiry into functions of the integrity commission? was there no point in time you could bring these concerns of yours to raise these questions directly to the panel of muppets that was sitting in front of you, instead of creating a media report?
And in fact, is the Parliamentary Inquiry not a panel committee that should be impartial and take all the facts before passing judgement outside of inquiry before it’s over?