Former top dog launches legal action against Greyhound Racing NSW

Eight years after the Baird government’s unsuccessful attempts to ban greyhound racing, the industry has well and truly gone to the dogs.

Then-premier Mike Baird insisted a ban was the right thing to do, following a special commission of inquiry that revealed widespread euthanizing of greyhounds, but backed down after an industry campaign and a potential Nationals’ revolt.

Rob Macaulay (blue suit and cap) is taking legal action against Greyhound Racing NSW amid ongoing turbulence around the regulator’s future.

Any notion the sport had addressed all its problems were blown up this July, when a bombshell report from a former chief vet at Greyhound Racing NSW disclosed barbaric treatment of racing dogs, describing an “unsustainable morass of exploitation and suffering”. While he wasn’t directly criticised in the report, within hours GRNSW chief executive Rob Macaulay had resigned.

“Mr Macaulay’s decision to resign was an amicable one, and one he felt was best for the industry at this time,” the regulator said in a statement.

Beneath the PR guff, things look a little less amicable. Last Monday, a matter was listed before the Fair Work Commission between Macaulay and GRNSW relating to “an application to deal with contraventions involving dismissal”.

Both the commission and Macaulay remained shtum, while GRNSW didn’t respond to our questions, leaving a shroud of secrecy over the matter.

But Macaulay’s action comes amid ongoing turbulence around the regulator’s future. This week, Racing Minister David Harris extended the term of each GRNSW board member – including chair Adam Casselden SC and his deputy, colourful defamation solicitor Rebekah Giles – by nine months.

Meanwhile, GRNSW is the subject of an ongoing independent inquiry announced days after Macaulay’s resignation (or whatever it was). It’s set to report back in December. But with acting chief executive Wayne Billett still in place, and so far no push to find anyone permanent, some insiders are concerned about whether GRNSW will be in any position to respond to the findings.

As for our friend Macaulay, regular CBD readers would recall that the suburban lawyer happens to be a member of the exclusive all-male Australian Club, firmly backing a successful 2021 fight to keep the ladies out. So whatever happens at the commission, he’ll always have a safe space among the country’s elite.

WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?

Since its founding, Guardian Australia has long stood up for workers rights.

Now there’s a new group of workers crying out for its campaigning journalism – its very own staff.

More than 95 per cent of union members just voted for protected industrial action, including the option for an indefinite strike, reports the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance.

Local staff of the famously left-wing news organisation headquartered in London are unhappy with an offer of a 4 per cent pay increase in the first year, followed by 3 per cent rise in the second and third years. And more than 120 freelancers who work for the website have also pledged to stand with employees during any action, the MEAA said.

So, the timing couldn’t be worse for UK magazine Private Eye to report that Katharine Viner, the publication’s global editor-in-chief and founding editor of Guardian Australia in 2013, now earns an annual salary of 584,000 pounds – or $1.17 million.

And her husband, columnist Adrian Chiles, received a 10 per cent pay rise, while most UK staff only received 3 per cent. Chiles, once a big TV star who now works on radio, files a slice-of-life column for the Guardian, with recent output including “After decades of trial and error, I think I’ve nailed the perfect handshake” and “Would you row across the Atlantic with someone like me? I certainly wouldn’t”.

The local organisation’s accounts for the year to March noted that its directors, editor Lenore Taylor, chief financial officer Matt Connor, managing editor Alison Rourke, who arrived in August last year, managing director Rebecca Costello, who was appointed in January, and former managing director Daniel Stinton who resigned in August last year, were paid a total of $1.43 million in the year 2024, up from $1.30 million in 2023.

We reached out to the Guardian about the pay negotiations. “Guardian Australia is continuing productive negotiations with our Australian staff,” a spokeswoman said.

The MEAA said it was making progress on negotiations, but management had not done enough to address pay, career development and job security concerns. Local staff had waited a decade for their wages to catch up to the rest of the industry, the acting director of MEAA Media Michelle Rae said. The union will be hoping management improves its offer.

BLUE TAPE

It’s been over a month since the NSW Liberals’ spectacular failure to lodge their paperwork for local government elections, leading to the sacking of ambitious state director Richard Shields and a federal takeover of the division.

So imagine our surprise to see that Shields is still listed on the NSW Electoral Commission’s website as state director. Surely they didn’t botch their paperwork again? There are consequences for such tardiness after all. According to the commission, failure of a party to “promptly” inform it of any changes to its officeholders can make them ineligible for any public payments for electoral or administrative expenditure.

Not his administrative bungle… Sacked Liberals state director Richard Shields. Credit: Dion Georgopoulos

Turns out it wasn’t actually the Liberal Party’s fault this time. We’re assured the commission was informed as soon as Shields was out and Dorina Ilievska was confirmed as acting state director.

The outdated website is a result of the state’s sclerotic electoral bureaucracy. Once a party tries to update its officeholders, the commission must engage in a cumbersome consultation process which includes putting out in the newspaper public notices of any change.

No wonder the Liberals are always so cranky about red tape.

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