The state of racing depicted after Nathan Guy’s term as Minister
by Brian de Lore
Published 11th April 2020
It wasn’t a Dick Turpin* ‘stand and deliver’ robbery, condoned by an opportunist Government that reigned for nine long years until the last election, that has stripped the racing industry of its wealth.
It was more reminiscent of the stealth of an undercover petrol-siphoning operation that trickled the fuel out slowly but surely over many years until the gauge was displaying the red light and illuminating ‘reserve tank’ by October 2017.
And at that time in history when National was usurped by a Labour Party Coalition and Winston was entrusted with steering the ship, racing was hopeful the siphoning operation would be suspended in the interests of the future health of the racing industry, and the pre-election promises would slowly bring about a refilling of the tank.
Alas, the siphoning has continued. Mismanagement and self-interest is endemic in the administration. Everyone knows the problem but no one talks about it, at least publicly. The people in charge don’t want change – they’re looking after their own interests – we have a business model that defrauds the people it was set up to benefit, and the culprits carry on as though nothing is wrong.
The question is, to what are we transitioning?
The Government appointed RITA stands for Racing Industry Transition Authority. The question is, to what are we transitioning? Whatever it is, it does not resemble recovery. Neither does it resemble the outcome visualised in MACs Terms of Reference or later outlined in the Racing Minister’s Letter of Expectation to RITA.
Since the appointment of MAC 15 months ago, which became RITA on July 1st last year, the industry debt has gone from $25 million to $45 million. The realisable tangible assets are few, and the daily running costs continue unabated with only token efforts at reducing costs from either RITA or NZTR (New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing).
Last Tuesday, Tabcorp announced that due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic it was taking the action of the “temporary standing down of over 700 Tabcorp employees to 30 June 2020 in businesses of the Group where there is no work as a result of COVID-19 shutdowns.”
By comparison, RITA and NZTR have only tweaked staff costs with no apparent downscaling of numbers, and have been slow even to tweak. We have no racing in New Zealand but have basically maintained staff levels, yet Australia continues to race but is appropriately downsizing – go figure that one out!
Is it because the Wages Subsidy is paying salaries to keep those people fully employed? The answer is unclear. The last round of annual reports showed that the administration costs of running racing are as follows: $200,000 a week each for Greyhounds and Harness, $400,000 a week for thoroughbreds, and $4.1 million a week for RITA – quite a lot for an industry not operating and one likely to return as a ‘cottage industry.’
Does anyone dispute the potential for substantial cost savings?
Does anyone dispute the potential for substantial cost savings?
Australian racing is all that’s keeping our TAB afloat. Since I mentioned the weekly cost of ~$ 5 million last week, we are another ~$5 million worse off.
My information says punters have been leaving Tabcorp in droves in favour of the corporate bookmakers because all Tabcorp’s retail outlets at clubs, pubs and franchised TABs are closed due to Covid-19. Tabcorp is reputably down as much as 40 percent in GBR (Gross Betting Revenue). The NZ TAB with a markedly reduced GBR is also struggling to compete (with no local racing) with the Australian corporates offering more attractive fixed betting odds due to their luxury of scale in a diminished marketplace.
RITA is now awaiting the outcome of an application for a cash bail-out of the industry from the Government. Whether or not its granted is problematic either way. To get the bail-out will put money in the hands of an administration that has been recidivist mismanagers and shown no inclination to restructure and outsource the TAB. It would be BAU, which projects a prolonged but inevitable outcome.
To be rejected exacerbates an already dire predicament. RITA is currently not paying its bills with debt maxed out at $45 million and, therefore, must be close to going into administration. Not knowing who would be in charge of our industry’s future decision-making, particularly in relation to outsourcing the TAB, would be of major concern given the astonishingly poor record of government appointments to racing over the past 15 years.
It was Nathan Guy who became the ultimate ‘Dick Turpin’
It was Nathan Guy who became the ultimate ‘Dick Turpin’ for the National Party when appointed Minister of Racing in 2011, a position he held for six years until David Bennett replaced him in 2017. Nathan Guy showed zero interest in racing despite his position and did the industry two massive disservices when he sat on the ‘racefields’ legislation throughout his entire tenure and did nothing with it despite a visit from Australia’s Peter V’landys to convince him otherwise.
But then in 2015, Guy committed the ultimate offense when appointing National Party Director Glenda Hughes as Chair of the NZRB. Hughes did not qualify under the Racing Act of 2003 terms of appointment (‘no racing experience’) but nevertheless the appointment wasn’t challenged by any of the codes.
That was the most blatant ‘jobs for the boys’ appointment of them all. But it was soon followed in turn by the double sideways nepotistic shift of John Allen, who arrived as a present for racing from Hughes and the then PM John Key. He came via the Department of Foreign Affairs and New Zealand Post – the former euphoric to see the back of him after a 42 Diplomatic signed petition to get rid of him.
…not one with an ounce of racing knowledge or previous experience in racing…
The John Allen ruse was consummated by the infiltration of his civil servant workmates who like all good troopers trundled along after him in the spirit of the Pied Piper to join the circus. And like Allen himself, not one with an ounce of racing knowledge or previous experience in racing on their cv.
Nathan Guy was also the MP who stood up in parliament less than a year ago and declared the unconditional ownership of the TAB to be the Government, amongst his other deprecatory and uninformed remarks that further unendeared him to the stakeholders of racing – as if he hadn’t put the boot in enough during his six years as racing’s ‘mute’ minister.
This bunch of National Party freeloaders and failed civil servants became known as the NZRB gravy-trainers who have since thundered down the railway tracks of New Zealand, slowing only to throw scraps from their champagne luncheons to the grass-roots participants of racing as they passed each of the 58 thoroughbred racecourses throughout the country.
Incredulity is to the fore when considering the Racing Act of 2003 opened the door for this siphoning of racing’s blood. It was a heinously poor document but even worse was the one offered to racing as its replacement in the first week of December last year. It was nothing but an invitation to hand gratis control of the TAB to Sport NZ.
…blatantly insulting the racing fraternity with a document so appallingly anti-racing…
No apology or explanation has been offered as an excuse for blatantly insulting the racing fraternity with a document so appallingly anti-racing – but not knowing the origins of its purpose or the original authors, one can only be suspicious to the extreme.
Regurgitating all this government bashing of racing, which you will all be so familiar with, leads us to raise two important questions. How will New Zealand racing get through this current Covid-19 lockdown predicament and come out the other side – in what sort of shape?
Secondly, what and who will put a new administrative model in place and reverse the graph’s steep line of descent which is the one and only thing in racing that’s been constant?
History tells us racing can’t trust anything orchestrated by a government. The second albeit delayed reading of the Racing Reform Bill will be eyebrow-raising. Will it be a reflection of the 960 written and 90-odd oral submissions that were painstakingly processed in February, or will the rewriting for its second reading have again been infilrated by that same anti-racing, pro-sport lobbyists that authored the original?
NZTR is promoting a return to racing by July 1st which could only happen if the lockdown is relaxed on Wednesday week. That seems unlikely given the PMs inclination for erring on the side of caution and the conservative nature of Kiwis as a nation.
Even if racing did return on that date, does anyone know what we’ll be using for prizemoney? Sacks of potatoes are out due to the off-season unless leftovers remain from last season.
A cash hand-out from the Government would represent compensation for past misdemeanours but offer only an interim solution. It would be out of character, however, and show a benevolence towards racing against all manner of recent and past history.
* Dick Turpin (21 September 1705 – 7 April 1739) was an English highwayman whose exploits were romanticised following his execution in York for horse theft.
