by Brian de Lore
Published 14 March 2019
Racing Minister Winston Peters phoned The Informant this week to provide an update on the progress of the Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC) recommendations but then said he wasn’t able to discuss MAC’s prioritised list in any detail.
Admittedly, the writer does not receive the Minister’s phone calls with random regularity – less so in recent times; it now requires a lot of text prompting to an extremely busy Deputy Prime Minister who holds four Ministerial portfolios including Foreign Affairs, is often acting PM and is busier than the proverbial one-armed paper-hanger.
But what we have developed is an understanding that at the appropriate time we can communicate and subsequently deliver a message to racing’s stakeholders which is a pipeline for information that appears lacking from both NZTR or NZRB. When do either of those organisations communicate to the stakeholders the progress made at government level by quoting the Minister?
Are not people employed specifically for that role – government liaison – and haven’t they a duty to keep stakeholders up with the play in important industry matters – it doesn’t happen for whatever unknown reason.
The Minister read a prepared statement over the phone from which he said, “On the 28th of February, I received from the MAC the guiding next steps on racing industry reform based on the John Messara Review. MAC has produced an interim report which reflects submissions from the racing industry and establishes the options for clinical, legal, process orientated and the financial steps to be taken – and that’s where things are now.
“We acknowledge the excellent work of that panel so far, with a very productive interaction with the racing industry and government officials. Our next step is for cabinet to make decisions based on the interim report and advice from the DIA.”
Apart from Winston’s familiar dulcet tones, it didn’t sound like Peters talking. It was the first time in all our phone conversations that he had read something from a prepared statement which reminded me of a quote from the USA lawyer and statesman Dean Acheson who once said, “A prepared statement is not written to inform the reader but to protect the writer.”
Suspecting then, the Minister was following the advice given by his office of bureaucratic sidekicks led by his Chief-of-Staff and political scientist John Johanssen; I decided my best strategy was to fire at him a rapid series of curly questions.
‘What about RITA and what about the legislation,’ was fired at the Minister with a machine-gun-like approach but his interjection came with raucous laughter while saying, “You’ve prepared the whole damn steeplechase course for me, and I’ve only just arrived at the first hurdle.”
At that point, it was the interrogator who had fallen at the first jump. But one questions that resonated was, ‘how can MAC make any recommendations for change without knowing the true financial state of the industry – surely the first move must be to instigate the Performance and Efficiency Audit as demanded this year under the current Racing Act of 2003’?
NZRB has taken the industry into an unknown state of disrepair. No one knows the true current financial state of the racing and until a thorough and unbiased audit is completed that information will remain hidden. Unless you know how much money is in the bank or the level of debt that’s accrued, how can any business decide on its strategy for the future?
“There’s two ways of looking at the industry,” responded Peters, “and that’s with what’s there now and what’s prospected into the future. With things unchanged, this industry is in serious trouble. I’m looking at where things are now and where they have to go to, and the budgetary bits for the May budget are based on those factors plus other alternatives and policies we have such as all-weather racing and that sort of thing.”
But a suggestion to the Minister that the all-weather tracks were nothing more than a distraction to the real issues facing the industry appeared not to be heard.
“We have said to three areas in the country that we would welcome applications,” continued Peters, “based on their thorough due diligence and research into what is required based on differences in climate and other anomalies and we have said to them – we’ve done the hardest part – we have gone and got the industry the money.
“All-weather has a mixed history internationally, and the utmost caution in making the right choice is critical, but that doesn’t mean we should put off making a choice.
“It’s very important that the due diligence and research is put in, and we have a number of international experts that will be of help to us on the finality of the decisions on those issues.”
“The MAC report won’t be published or released at this point because it requires cabinet decisions,” Peters continued, “but I’ve got the statutory opening for the legislation – that is all organised. Further announcements will be made following the cabinet decision on these matters in the coming weeks. The matter of cabinet decision making is imminent.”
So, what about the legislation being done and dusted by the end of June. Is that still on track, was the next question for the Minister?
“Yes,” replied Peters after a some hesitation, “but with qualification. You never know what will come out of left field in terms of the whole agenda, but it’s on track as we speak.”
Peters agreed there would be some comfort for the stakeholders knowing that the writing of the legislation is well-advanced, and agreed that message should be conveyed to the industry.
When suggested to him that the TAB has failed to increase its customer numbers sufficiently, as claimed they would, and that total TAB turnover was down since the FOB platform went live January 4th, he replied, “The TAB is down about 4.1 per cent I believe without having the figures in front of me. There could be a range of reasons for that and one could be the novelty and newness of the system but we will know shortly, before too long, whether that’s a fact or not.”
But being a follower of the TAB figures it is prudent to report that in the first 54 days of betting in 2019 up to February 27th, turnover for that period is down $18.15 million compared to the same period last year – that is for betting on horses and greyhounds but doesn’t not include sports betting.
For those 54 days in 2018, the turnover was $266,727,693 compared to $248,577,542 for 2019 – a decline of 6.8 per cent. If sports betting has risen on last year’s figures, it may account for the Minister’s lesser quoted figure of just a 4.1 per cent decline.
However analysed, the turnover compared to last year has fallen and no industry prospers on a decreasing revenue. When suggested to the Minister the NZRB would be unlikely to meet its budget in the current financial year and the present worry of the industry was that the minimum stake may have to decrease, he sounded less perturbed.
“I know what their concern is,” replied the Minister, “but the fact is that for Saturday racing we have a much higher figure projected for stakes that we are setting out to achieve and we are not taking our eyes off that prize – $50,000 minimum a race. That’s where we seek to go.”
