by Brian de Lore
Published 10 August 2017
NZ First leader Winston Peters spelled out a clear message this week when he intimated that the racing industry should take a long, hard look at itself in the mirror and then get its act together before its fortunes can be turned around.
The veteran parliamentarian who was Minister of Racing between 2005 and 2008 and was clearly the most successful and productive minister that racing has had, is critical of the industry’s previous lack of unity and leadership and says that needs to change.
No one currently in parliament understands our business better than Peters, and with just six weeks before the election, it is appropriate to air the views of both Peters and the new and current Minister of Racing David Bennett.
Bennett, who assumed Nathan Guy’s racing portfolio in only May this year after Bill English became PM, has been in parliament since 2005, comes from a dairy farming background and is MP for Hamilton East.
Conversely, Peters is a wily campaigner who has been an MP since 1978 and since that time has dealt with all the leaders of racing and witnessed all the changes and declining fortunes of the industry over recent years.
The common denominators are that both come from farming backgrounds and both see stake increases as the most pressing issue for racing. But when they individually spoke to The Informant this week it was very evident they differed greatly on how each would take racing into the future.
“The racing industry can expect nothing is going to change unless they themselves change,” began Peters in his distinctly dominant tone. “Racing can’t go on expecting serious change in policy unless the people in it are prepared to work for it and vote for it. You need to ask the racing industry ‘do they or don’t they want a change?’
“The idea that they are going to get something without doing anything in return does not work in modern day politics. In short, all I’m asking them to do is get out amongst their membership – professionals, vets, trainers, jockeys and the whole hundred yards, and for heavens-sake organise themselves and ensure they vote right.
“The racing industry shouldn’t be taking aim at the NZRB when surely if they were focused and had a grip on the crisis they are facing, they would firstly be pointing the finger at the minister and the government’s basic policy – why would they avoid the obvious.
“I’m saying, ‘if you want to save yourselves’ – and it’s pretty serious what’s going on – and restore this country as one of the leading racing countries in the world, and one which instead of having only 6,000 thoroughbred mares but has the 12,000 plus mares it should have – given the market it’s operating in – then for heavens-sake get focused on the problem. Stop avoiding the obvious because if you are, some of you might vote that way.
“Either you want a change, or you don’t; to get change then change yourselves. If you’re losing the war you don’t go out and start firing the platoon commanders – you fire the general.”
Peters didn’t require a treatise on how the thoroughbred industry was travelling; that things were tougher now for its stakeholders than possibly at any other time in its history. He may have been relatively silent in terms of industry comment in recent times, but he has still had his ear to the ground and wasn’t mincing his words.
On the other hand, Bennett was less concerned about either the state of the industry or the need for a change in attitude from its stakeholders. When asked how he thought the racing industry looked at the moment he replied like this:
“I’m very confident going around the industry and very optimistic about the future – we have a great product, especially our breeding and also the skill level of the people involved and their passion – I think we have a very strong base to work off – a growing Asian market and think that we will have a huge desire for horse betting in the near future.
“But I also acknowledge there are some challenges in the delivery of the product we have, and how we are going to capture those opportunities that will come our way. I think racing has a lot of opportunities ahead of it.”
Bennett was painting a different picture to that of Peters; perhaps understandingly given they are from different political parties pursuing different policies and objectives. So how would Bennett react to the view of Peters?
“I wouldn’t agree with Winston on the criticism levelled at the industry itself not doing enough, but he’s passionate about horses and racing,” began Bennett.
“So many racing people are passionate and are really wanting to succeed and do well, and they are giving their whole lives to it – we just have to get the product mix right – where we land the industry so we take advantage of the opportunities, so I’m not critical of the people in it.
“I think there’s some good vision coming forth and I actually think there is common agreement that they want to do things – after talking to the trainers. Fundamentally this industry is in good shape, and there’s a desire to take it forward. We have just got to get those proposals off the ground, and it’s not a thing government needs to do; it’s something the industry can do itself and is doing itself, and I think Winston is overly critical.
“We want people to have different ideas – we want them to have smart new ways of thinking – if we all thought the same we’d never achieve much.
“It’s a positive thing to have that discussion but I think the discussion would hold back delivery of change, and there is a mood out there to do things and that discussion is part of that mood to get the best solution we can for the industry.”
So here we have differing views – oceans apart you could say. Peters, on one side, saying if you want change it can only happen by electing a new government (his) and for that to happen the industry should vote for it, but on the other side, Bennett saying retain the government, there is passion out there in the stakeholders, and the signs are positive.
Bennett is new to the industry and therefore isn’t familiar with its recent history then you could fully understand his point of view. But after years of decline and some ineffective predecessors to Bennett and a less than average governance it’s hard to get too excited about whatever ‘passion’ is left in the horse people out there – the stakeholders.
The passion that Bennett speaks of is something all racing people have always had; passion is all that’s kept them going over the past 12 years that’s seen our industry cash reserves of $70 million and assets of $36 million – a total of $106 million – all disappeared.
Passion is what is keeping us going through times of diminishing broodmare and foal crops (halved in the last 30 years); passion has kept us going through domestic turnover dropping year after year, our 40-odd best racemares being sold overseas every year, dropping turnover in the TAB, closing TAB stores and a cannibalising of racing in favour of sports betting.
And when you eventually run out of passion, you will then need a new spirituality called ‘hope.’ Because now you will need hope that race fields’ legislation will eventually come through, hope that the FOB platform will give us a return after a $50 million investment, hope that the money borrowed to increase stakes won’t leave the industry in debt and hope that the 35,000 full and part-time employees can keep their jobs on an on-going basis.
However, both Peters and Bennett independently agreed that the owner was the person suffering most in racing and that redressing the stakes issue had to be the priority:
“The number one person you have to look after in the racing industry is the owner,” said Peters. “They are paying the bills and when you’ve got the lousy prizemoney that we have got, and you can win six races and still not pay the way for the horse – that just ridiculous! You have to start right there.
“The owner has to have the return on investment, or where at least you have some chance of recuperating your money – currently you have no chance of doing that. As an industry, in terms of encouraging the owners to be involved, every signal is presently a bad one.
“I would be starting with the minimum prizemoney around the country at a much higher level than the current one, and I’m not disclosing how I’m going to do it but I know I can, and I know where the money is going to come from.”
Bennett has been talking to as many industry stakeholders as possible since his appointment and did not doubt the most earnest needs:
“Stakes money, that’s the message everyone is giving me. More difficult now than at any other time they are saying – stakes have to be enough – we need to give people a reason to own a horse and be involved in the industry.
“The first thing about stakes is that the high-level races look after themselves – the big races at home and in Australia – that in itself is a separate market in some ways. Then you have that medium to lower level racing – we need to have enough return to the owner to at least go out there and retrieve the costs or want to go out there and own a horse.
“Also, it would be good for industry employees as they would benefit with a higher return to owners. The strong message that I’m getting is that the entry-level racing is uneconomical; we need it to be at a level where there’s an incentive to have a horse and be in the industry.”
Neither Peters nor Bennett were saying exactly how stakes would be increased but race fields’ is coming and everyone in racing knows that a much leaner administrative annual spend by NZRB would be a good starting point and would save many millions in itself, and Peters was more than happy to air his views on those costs:
“The practice of hiring CEO’s and countless executives on massive salaries – all that’s going to stop if I get a chance,” began Peters in a louder tone.
“But the CEO is not where the problem is going be solved – it will be solved at a higher level; with a government and a minister that changes the legislative structure from top to bottom, and then changing the financial structure so that it comes back to being a paying proposition for the owner.”
But if Peters was in a position to form a coalition government following the election what would he do about the Racing Act 2003?
“Changing the racing act – I don’t disagree with you at all on that. You can change the act only if the right politicians are there to do it – the whole legislative structure has to be changed, and with the greatest speed possible.
“When I’ve gone along to racing industry meetings and everyone is whinging about different organisations, and all it’s screaming a lack of leadership from the top – that doesn’t happen when a campaign is organised properly to change an outcome.
“If the industry is serious about what’s going wrong then it needs to show that it’s serious.
“I didn’t campaign to be the racing minister last time but I made myself the racing minister because they’d been around for all these years getting crap treatment and neglect and if someone could improve the economic theories then it would pay off big time, and it did.
“Today that is still my view but I say the owners are the critically most important people in the chain, and the racing industry would be revived the moment you have a system that makes it worthwhile for them to be part of it again – and that’s prizemoney. There are a lot of other things that need doing as well, I quite agree with you.
“The other thing is the gross wastage – massively over-costed expenses in a computerised age which is utterly inexplicable. Years ago I brought in changes to the GST tax paid when the horse left the country; I brought in depreciation on stallions and mares and what have you.
“Straight away the treasury got in behind national party closed doors and started corroding it, so I go down and see the minister of Inland Revenue – he said he wouldn’t talk about individual cases, and I said it was a class action case and therefore no one’s details are going to be personally divulged – he ducked behind that.
“I’ve talked to a lot of people in the racing industry over the years and some of them think they know the business of politics, but they don’t. I probably don’t know as much about horses as I could but I seriously know a whole lot more about politics than they know – my point is that if they think they’re going to get something for nothing by sitting back and not doing anything – they won’t.
“That’s not the way the world works anymore. It’s extraordinary that you have got an industry that should be roaring at the moment – we should be bigger suppliers of thoroughbreds to everywhere than we are, and we’re not.”
Was Peters just starting to warm up?; a shame knowing half the quotes I had couldn’t be used for this story and that Winston needed to attend a new rally. So what would be his final message to the racing industry?
“Give them this message – had enough then vote NZ First. It’s that brief. Well, if you are asking if ‘it’s now or never’ – you’re right, it’s now or never. And another thing, tell the industry that one thing Winston Peters can’t stand is people that are fast on the lip and slow on the hip.”
When fully recovered from the Peters interview it seemed a good idea to find out whether or not Minister Bennett could work with Peters on racing, especially in the possible event of the election outcome resulting in an NZ First-National Party coalition?
“We want to work with all the political parties around racing because it’s not a political thing – it’s an industry that we want to take forward – if Winston has good ideas then fine, we will work with him.
“I think regardless of what the election result is the industry has a very positive future and we just need to make sure we take some of those steps in getting it further towards that future.”
But questioning Bennett further on issues relating to the NZRB he replied like this:
“I think as an industry we are getting too caught up with the board – we can do things regardless of who the board members are. You don’t want the minister intervening in the board affairs. That’s not how it’s done – our job isn’t to do operations.
“Race fields had been through Cabinet by the time I was appointed, but we still had to write the legislation which was more difficult than anticipated because it’s inter-jurisdictional – because you are going into another country.
“So we have put a lot of pressure on DIA, and we have worked closely with the racing board and other departments to get this done as quickly as possible.
“The first reading of race fields is projected for next week at this stage but next week is the last week parliament is sitting, so we are pretty keen to get it done in the time frame.
“I can’t say that it will definitely happen until the order of the week has been determined – it was supposed to be this Thursday, but it won’t be – the first reading is an hour and a half of debate so it’s time-limited.
“The legislation itself will take some time to go through the house because you have the election period. Parliament then comes back and then it’s Christmas. I would imagine it would be well into next year before it’s passed into law.”