by Brian de Lore
Published 15 November 2018
Once-upon-a-time the thoroughbred industry was administered by people who were Subject Matter Experts (SME), and although it was far from the perfect structure, it was still a long way better than the administrative cataclysm we have today.
Since the Racing Act of 2003 came into being and more lately through three terms of National Party government, this racing industry has suffered a steady decline which, to be fair, has not entirely been the fault of that political reign which mostly had John Key at the helm.
But for a long time now, anyone who follows racing and also has an eye on the political landscape will have concluded that like him or not, Winston Peters has been the one and only political leader who has displayed a willingness to repair this business to at least economic viability.
The question right now is where is this industry currently positioned post-one-year of coalition rule from which Peters has returned for his second stint as Minister. The Messara Report was commissioned and completed in record time, but with almost as much time elapsed since its release, as Messara took to write his 82-page report, we have made little progress.
The lack of action is a worry. The initial impetus that came with a build-up to the launch and the impact of the contents of the report itself is lost. Industry stakeholders are now asking why we are procrastinating?
The Minister asked for submissions, and apparently, more than 1600 had turned up by the cut-off date of 19th October. As reported last week, the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) asked for a month to evaluate them, but the Minister said he gave them only a week and a half.
The industry now awaits the Minister’s return from Europe and a promised announcement which is likely to be an evaluation of the submissions plus other unknown measures – hopefully, the replacement of outgoing NZRB Chair which the industry would see as a very positive step forward.
When are we going to see this report adopted and changes invoked – not an uncommon question echoing around racing circles? Deloitte said quite categorically in its report the industry was unsustainable and the urgency with which Messara completed his report gave the stakeholders a mindset that action would be immediate.
Messara himself stated on several occasions we didn’t have the luxury of waiting, around the time his report was presented to the Minister. But the parliamentary process, as Peters has continually reminded us since the report’s launch, cannot be circumvented.
When little over a week ago the Minister spoke to The Informant about the ‘mandatory establishment of RITA,’ it wasn’t immediately evident that he was referring to a bureaucratically appointed committee that wouldn’t be formed overnight.
A transition authority similar to this was last used for the amalgamation of the Fire Department and Search and Rescue. Looking at that model in terms of time constraints, we will be fortunate if RITA is established before March 2019. Further to that, RITA will be appointed by the DIA and by the terms of the protocols now apparently adopted by government bureaucrats, will encompass gender equality.
Racing has struggled administratively; if it hadn’t, we would not be facing the current dilemma. Finding the right people is tough enough without gender prerequisites, but the world is forever changing, and racing is certain to come under the microscope of various pressure groups, particularly on items more pertinent such as animal welfare and integrity.
If the Messara Report is adopted, which it must be for racing’s survival, then governance must come under the microscope from the industry itself. In the first of the 17 Messara Report recommendations, the NZRB will be reduced to a shadow of its former self and become Wagering NZ after outsourcing the TAB has been negotiated and the power it currently holds is devolved to the three codes for self-management.
Therefore the future selection of board members on NZTR takes on a new significance. The so-called Members’ Council came into being in 2011 and this 12-person committee (see the adjacent illustration) is the body that selects the people who become NZTR Board Members.
Going to the NZTR website to find out how the Members’ Council operates and how they are selected is a waste of time. It says virtually nothing, and it appears as though it hasn’t been updated since 2011, listing only the original Council from which only five of the 12 are still current.
When this writer approached the Members’ Council Deputy Chairman Bill Cotton to discover how the Council operated I was told the information was, ‘confidential and highly sensitive,’ and the conversation was quickly ended.
But not be denied and digging around, it wasn’t too difficult to uncover the plot which seemed relatively straightforward and not the sort of information that should be deemed confidential and withheld from industry stakeholders.
Nine of the 12 members are selected by the race clubs, three coming from each of the regions divided as upper North Island, lower North Island and South Island. The three remaining members are single representatives from each of the Breeders,’ the Owners’ and the Trainers’ Association.
In each of the three regions, the clubs have one vote for every race day of each club to find their three representatives, giving the big clubs a decided advantage. Once elected to the Members’ Council for a three-year term, the member is eligible for re-election to a further two three-year terms – a total of nine years. T
That’s far too long to remain on such a committee and all things considered, this is a draconian set-up designed not to find the best 12 committee people but to appease club representation and a provincial mindset that has pervaded our racing for such a long time.
The aim of this Council should solely to be represented by the best 12 in New Zealand and if those 12 happened to all live in Whakatane then, so be it, appoint them. Under this regime that’s not possible but why have as many as 12 – a seemingly high number of which some will be scantly qualified for such an exercise.
The Members’ Council is responsible for assessing all the applicants to find the next NZTR board member. One of the problems with that process is they advertise for the position at the New Zealand Institute of Directors which is a cartel of white-collar unionists who look after each other and who have an appalling record in racing administration.
Racing in New Zealand needs to disenfranchise itself from all the mediocrity of the past and raise the bar on its standards. These are the people that appoint the directors who will be running New Zealand racing in the future.
That’s not to say we don’t have some very good representatives currently on the NZTR board, but if you believe the NZTR board has been an overall success over the past 15 years then it’s time to reevaluate.
