A former chief veterinarian for greyhound racing in New South Wales has urged Tasmania to shut down the industry a year earlier than planned, telling a parliamentary committee the sport kills one in three dogs that enter it.
Alexander Brittan gave evidence to the Joint Standing Committee on Phasing Out Greyhound Racing today, revealing he flew back from a family holiday in Europe at his own expense to appear.
Brittan spent eight months as Chief Veterinary Officer at GRNSW before departing in late 2023.
Speaking under parliamentary privilege today, he told the committee that Greyhound Racing NSW had allegedly tried to have him arrested before fronting New South Wales’ Drake Inquiry.
He said that his employment contract imposed a lifetime ban on discussing anything he learned inside the industry.
“I had unfettered access to all points of the industry and due to my research, I was given open access to the entire databases of the industry in New South Wales.
“Prior to the commencement of the inquiry, GRNSW attempted to have me arrested and to have an APB placed on me.
Standing alongside a press conference with Greens MLC Cassy O’Connor after today’s hearing in Hobart, he said it is “simply not possible to make greyhound racing safe.”
He described injuries including dogs sliced by mechanical lure cables, shattered skulls and fractured legs that dogs continued running on.
Tasmania’s mortality rate sits at around 30%, he told the committee, meaning of every three dogs entering the industry each year, one will die, one will be rehomed and one will remain as backlog in kennels.
He claimed every Tasmanian contributes $12.57 a year to the racing industry compared to a national average of around $5.70.
Brittan urged the government to bring the proposed phase-out forward from June 2029 to June 2028.
In a statement to Pulse today, Greyhound Racing New South Wales rejected the claims.
The organisation said many of his assertions were “unsupported, based on incomplete or misinterpreted information or extend beyond Dr Brittan’s area of professional expertise.”
GRNSW said independent analysis showed Brittan had “misread and misapplied” data from industry tracking systems, leading to wrong conclusions about death rates.
The organisation said allegations Brittan made about the Greyhound as Pets program were independently investigated by former Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton and “found to be baseless.”
GRNSW also disputed Brittan’s claims about the US rehoming program, saying the actual death rate in transit was 0.2 per thousand, not 2.8 per thousand as he suggested.
The organisation said NSW now has one of the lowest serious racing injury rates in Australia and that in 2024-25 the industry rehomed more greyhound pets than pups were whelped.
Labor racing spokesperson Dean Winter challenged Brittan during the hearing over his characterisation of Tasmanian breeding numbers, noting Tasracing data showed pups whelped had halved since 2017-18.
Brittan responded that such decreases were organic reactions to political pressure rather than meaningful industry reform.
The bill to phase out greyhound racing was withdrawn from the Legislative Council in April and premier Jeremy Rockliff has said it will not return until the government is confident it has the numbers to pass.
