Racing woes a tale with familiar ingredients: lax regulation and weak integrity bodies, political editor David Killick says

It hasn’t been a good year for the racing industry, and with the latest scandal, political editor David Killick says the tales of woe are all too familiar. Full analysis.

Images of racing greyhound Zipping Princess supplied by Animal Liberation Tasmania.

There’s a famous line in the comedy The Naked Gun where actor Leslie Nielsen instructs a rapt crowd gathered outside a flamboyantly exploding fireworks factory: “Move along people, there’s nothing to see here”.

But it’s hard to imagine even the great Leslie Nielsen delivering the Tasracing CEO’s line about our flamboyantly imploding racing industry with anything resembling a straight face.

“So, in terms of the nature of the industry, look, I would acknowledge that there are a small number of participants who have conducted themselves in manners that are not desirable and not in keeping with expectations of the industry or the rules,” said Andrew Jenkins on Wednesday.

No shit, Sherlock.

Andrew Jenkins Tasracing CEO. GBE hearing with Tasracing. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

It’s another of those most decidedly Tasmanian affairs, the evergreen combination of rotten conduct, ineffective regulation and deficient integrity mechanisms. Haven’t we heard this one before?

The state that can’t protect children in its care and which has to hold an inquiry into the cover-up of an inquiry into a cover-up, the state where public servants dodge accountability like ministers dodge questions, the state which held a state funeral for a pedophile policeman, the state which can’t stop bullying and sexual harassment in the halls of parliament also apparently isn’t much good at administering integrity in the racing industry.

What an astonishing revelation for all of us to behold. Again.

This is the government which reappointed the head of the Office of Racing Integrity some months ago without telling anyone.

This is the government that knobbled its own racing inquiry by excluding alleged cruelty in the greyhound industry. The same inquiry that’s months overdue.

This hasn’t been a good year for the racing industry, what with all those pesky claims of animal cruelty, worker exploitation, tax dodging, sexual harassment, race fixing, of threats and the flagrant breaching of rules.

It’s not “a small number of participants”, it’s some of the industry’s biggest players, responsible for most of the runners in some of the codes.

The state’s top greyhound trainer Anthony Bullock was banned for life just months after being declared trainer of the year for the 14th time.

Images of racing greyhound Zipping Princess supplied by Animal Liberation Tasmania.

And now there’s fresh claims about the Ben Yole Stables, the state’s leading trotting operation.

Once again, the animal welfare groups, the parliament and the media have been doing the work while the oversight bodies punish whistleblowers and argue over whose job it is to understand and enforce the rules.

This is an industry with a growing reputation for animal cruelty and other bad behaviour that is lavishly funded by the state government, the same state government that lavishly underfunds the RSPCA.

It is an industry that is rapidly losing public support. Nobody believes any more the line that there’s nothing to see here.