Well this is fucked.
Barely two weeks after NSW Premier Mike Baird announced that greyhound racing would be banned statewide by July 1 next year, a damning report into a mass greyhound grave in the Hunter Valley has found that at least 99 dogs were brutally killed and buried there over a four year period.
Most of the greyhounds were killed by either a gunshot or blunt instrument to the head, and showed no other signs of injury, leading the report to state that it was likely the dogs were merely killed because they were “underperforming” and “therefore of no further use”.
“It confirms everyone’s worst fears,” the outgoing interim chief executive of Greyhound Racing NSW, Paul Newson, told Fairfax, as it implicated “sickening and unconscionable acts of animal cruelty”. Bloody hell.
Widespread, industry-condoned animal cruelty was the key factor in Baird’s decision to ban greyhound racing, with the Special Commission of Inquiry into NSW Greyhound Racing (published two weeks ago) finding that as many as 68,000 greyhounds had been killed in the past two years because “they were considered too slow to pay their way or were unsuitable for racing.”
Naturally, Baird’s decision invoked criticism, including from Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce, who didn’t read the report, and the woah-where-did-he-come-from NSW opposition leader Luke Foley, whose party previously supported the ban.
The industry “has implicitly condoned as well as caused, the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands of healthy greyhounds.” (1.113)
— Mike Baird (@mikebairdMP) July 14, 2016
“It is not uncommon… for unwanted greyhounds to be drained of their blood under anaesthetic before being euthanased.” (21.5)
— Mike Baird (@mikebairdMP) July 14, 2016
“It is an industry where the peak body – Greyhounds Australasia – has said that the industry has preferred profits to welfare”. (1.44)
— Mike Baird (@mikebairdMP) July 14, 2016
Giving the industry further time to address overbreeding and “wastage” appears likely to be fruitless. (1.135)
— Mike Baird (@mikebairdMP) July 14, 2016
The industry “has caused and will continue to cause injuries to greyhounds that range from minor to catastrophic.” (1.113)
— Mike Baird (@mikebairdMP) July 14, 2016
“It appears unlikely that the issue of the large scale killing of healthy greyhounds…can be addressed successfully in the future.” (1.125)
— Mike Baird (@mikebairdMP) July 14, 2016
“When Parliament resumes, we will introduce the legislation to ban greyhound racing,” he tweeted. “The legislation will be debated. And it will pass.”
