Animal welfare organisations are joining forces to call for a review into Tasmania’s “increasingly unpopular and dying” greyhound racing industry, following the launch of a similar inquiry in New South Wales.
Nearly a dozen groups, including the RSPCA and Dogs’ Homes of Tasmania, with support from Greens Animal Welfare spokesperson Cassy O’Connor, are raising concerns about significant welfare issues within the industry and are advocating for an end to taxpayer funding.
“Organisations like ours, whilst we watch the industry profit from the millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, we are left to rehabilitate and re-home greyhounds without a cent of funding,” RSPCA chief executive Andrea Dawkins said.
“What we’ve learnt through our greyhound adoption program is the most important lesson that we need to teach greyhounds is to trust people. And that’s the saddest thing.”
She said they frequently deal with greyhounds that have “never experienced” any love or pleasure or connection.
“We think it’s time the Tasmanian Parliament listened to the majority of people who oppose taxpayer-funded greyhound racing and start to think about the future of these beautiful animals,” she said.
Dogs Homes of Tasmania CEO Mark Wild said they are examining the industry from a re-homing and animal welfare perspective.
“We have significant concerns in the Tasmanian context around welfare within the greyhound racing industry and we think it’s time … to support and back an inquiry to really get to the bottom of what the issues are,” he said.
O’Connor said the state is the only jurisdiction in Australia that “guarantees public funding” of over $30 million each year to the thoroughbred, harness and greyhound industries through a twenty-year funding agreement established in 2009.
“It’s an extraordinarily generous arrangement for an industry with so little public support and diminishing by the day,” she said.
“[The deed] expires in June 2029 so there’s an excellent opportunity here to examine its ongoing impact and its relevance in the future.”
A petition calling for a joint select inquiry into the Racing Deed is set to be tabled in the Legislative Council in August.
