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GREYHOUND RACING: 12 JULY 2016

Baird has done it again ... and what is the National Party going to do about it?

Mike Baird’s latest decision to ban greyhound racing once again raises the question as to what part the National Party intends taking to stand up for yet another sector of the community that is threatened in rural areas. according to Cabonne Amalgamation No Thank You spokesperson Marj Bollinger.

“Many years ago the Country Party who we believed were there to stand up for country people became the National Party, obviously to try to attract more votes from city dwellers,” said Marj Bollinger, spokesperson for Cabonne’s Amalgamation No Thank You group.

“They are now clearly demonstrating that to be the fact by abandoning voters in their heartland of rural Australia in favour of political ambitions to obtain more front-bench seats in the Liberal-dominated Coalition governments.

“The process prior to the decision to ban the greyhound industry is typical of the way the Baird government operated in their bid to destroy local government with forced council mergers.

“To date they have, as before, failed to debate the merits of the greyhound-racing industry and whether it should be banned or not, and ignored the voices of those who will be affected by their ill-considered decision.”

ANTY Chairman Jock Haynes said: “It appears the Baird Government has once again commissioned hand-picked advisors to provide a report, and then, without consultation with key stakeholders or even members of their own coalition party, they have done as they did with Council Amalgamations and made life-destroying decisions that are based on unknown or poorly quantified information without any consideration the consequences would have on communities.

“The three most recent proven examples of this happening are the lock-out laws in Sydney, forced council amalgamations, and now banning the greyhound racing industry.

“These actions are designed to solve a specific problem, which in the case of the proposed Cabonne Council merger did not exist in the first place.

“Rather than performing a detailed analysis to determine the full outcomes of their actions, the Government have once again engaged ‘independent high level consultants’ in the ilk of KPMG to arrive at the conclusions and provide the reports they required.

"Whilst Mike Baird claims unproven savings for councils, based on unfounded, undisclosed evidence provided by KPMG, the fact is that KPMG did not contact anyone at Cabonne Council (nor presumably Orange City or Blayney Councils) to project savings for the three-way forced merger. The similarity surrounding the greyhound industry is frightening to say the least.

“Mike Baird says he is making the ‘tough’ decisions, but he is actually being lazy by not consulting properly and widely with all key stakeholders.

“He didn’t even have the stomach to have the conversation with his own parliamentarians prior to making these decisions, let alone the electorate.

“If he had done so in all three cases he may still have made the same decisions, but at least he would have been aware of the full implications, been able to set realistic expectations, not oversell the outcomes and maybe even bring the community with him.

“The Labor Opposition have made some noises against the greyhound ban and, once again, Troy Grant and his National colleagues are standing behind their ‘leader’ to save their own jobs rather than listening to the voices of the people.”

Based on media release issued by Amalgamation No Thank You.

Mike Baird ... has once again commissioned hand-picked advisors to provide a report.