Mike Baird expects to win next election, despite massive backlash over the greyhound ban

MIKE Baird, under pressure over his greyhound ­industry ban, told his MPs yesterday that he expects to win the next election with an increased majority.

• DOG OWNERS HIT BACK AT BAIRD’S ‘STUPID’ BRIEF
• BAIRD BRIEF: HOUND OWNERS LARGELY ILLITERATE
• PREMIER STARES DOWN REBELLION OVER DOG BAN

PREMIER Mike Baird, under pressure over his greyhound ­industry ban, told his MPs yesterday that he expects to win the next election with an increased majority.

“He actually said that we’re going to win government again and that we are going to not only hold all our seats but we’re going to go after Labor seats,” an MP said.

The confident assessment by the under-fire Premier to the Coalition partyroom came as Deputy Premier Troy Grant conceded to colleagues that winning the Orange by-election on November 12 would be very tough but he expected the Nationals to win.

The government’s confident predictions came on the day it faced a storm over damaging emails ­involving government officials over the greyhound ban being released to the upper house under a “call for papers”.

A very animated Premier Mike Baird answers questions from the opposition on greyhound industry during Question Time / Picture: Cameron Richardson

Among the emails, Deputy Premier Troy Grant’s chief of staff said the government wanted to disown the transition after the greyhound industry ban and fob it on to others.

Asked to comment on the proposed greyhounds ad, Mr Grant’s chief of staff Alex Bruce sent an email on July 31 to his office and the Premier’s director of social media Tony Story saying: “Disagree. When and if the legislation passes, we won’t (sic) NSW Govt owning transition and will be saying go speak to taskforce, RSPCA etc and not us.”

Mr Story also said in an email in July 31 to the Justice Department’s Catherine Parker: “Can I also just suggest from a social media perspective, I think the ad content needs to run from the Justice Facebook page with a heavy targeted spend this week to get it out there,” he wrote. “We need to keep this content as government content, not Mike (Baird) or Troy (Grant) content.”

The Daily Telegraph revealed yesterday greyhound owners and trainers were insulted by ­official Baird documents ­describing them as stupid.

The communications director of Mr Grant’s Justice Department, Ms Parker sent out a “creative brief” for the state government’s greyhound advertising campaign which claims they are largely illiterate.

The document, ­obtained by The Daily Telegraph, says: “Take into account the intended audience. A large number of the target group potentially have low levels of literacy.”

An excerpt from the Baird’s government’s ‘creative brief’.

The government’s confident predictions came on the day it faced a storm over damaging emails ­involving government officials over the greyhound ban being released to the upper house under a “call for papers”.

In the document, it said the campaign was targeting the “wider NSW community” but also “existing members of the greyhound racing industry ­including owners, breeders, trainers and dog handlers”.

On 2UE yesterday, Mr Baird said the brief was not implying those in the industry were stupid: “No one’s saying that, and you know, my understanding of reading that is the context that it, it could well be that it’s across the entire community.

“I mean any, any campaign that you create, I mean there, there are low levels of literacy across the community, I mean multicultural communities, as an example. I mean there are low levels of English literacy. So I mean, any campaign needs to take on account of that.”

Yesterday, under fire over the document, Mr Baird said in Question Time that Opposition Leader Luke Foley was attempting to create “class warfare” over the greyhounds issue.

Premier Mike Baird reckons his government will be returned with an increased majority / Picture: Cameron Richardson