Page 5141 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 28 November 2017
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industry have not accessed the transition support team because they are not interested in transitioning to anything. Furthermore, you are asking people to seek support from their abuser. It just does not work very well at all.
We have watched on as the minister has refused to take questions from the media in regard to the industry and the government’s proposed ban. It further contradicts the claims of being clear and open. The minister refuses to defend his own policy in the public space. This has led many in the community to feel as though the minister does not fully subscribe to the policy. What other reasons could he have? Surely it is not just that he is too scared? What other reasons could he possibly have not to defend his own policy actions? If the minister believed that this was the best course of action, why would he refuse to defend the government’s position? And if the minister responsible does not want to defend his own policies, one can only wonder how many other members opposite are not fully signed up to this absurd policy.
This is not the first time we have seen the Labor Party sign up to bizarre policy decisions to please their coalition partners. We have already watched in this space as the Greens forced limitations on gaming machines at the casino that make them unviable to operate. We know that the ACT Labor Party is held hostage by the ACT Greens; this is just another example, evidenced by the fact that this is the only branch of ACT Labor anywhere in the country that is against greyhound racing.
I want to address some of the misinformation that the minister put forward in his presentation of the bill. I refer to the training of greyhounds. In his presentation of the bill, the minister said:
The ownership, breeding and training of greyhounds in the ACT for racing outside this jurisdiction will be allowed to continue …
He then said that the bills “also preserve the ability for ACT residents to own, train or breed greyhounds for racing elsewhere”. All it takes is one look at the legislation to see that this is not true. This bill states that greyhound racing means one or more greyhounds racing in competitive pursuit and includes a greyhound trial or training race, which is defined as a test of speed of one or more greyhounds.
What the government is saying here is that it is still legal for you to train a greyhound to run; it is just illegal for you to have the dog actually run during that process. What are we even talking about here? This is impossible. You cannot train a greyhound to race without testing its speed. It is impossible. As I pointed out last week, under this legislation, if you take a racing greyhound to flyball, if you get them to jump over the hurdles and grab the tennis ball, you could end up in jail for a year and cop a whopping fine. That will be the law. That is a test of speed of one or more racing greyhounds.
It is all well and good to say that that it is not the spirit of the law. That is what they will say: “It is not the spirit of the law.” I am sure the very same words came from Scott Ludlam, Jacqui Lambie, Larissa Waters, Katy Gallagher, Barnaby Joyce and John Alexander. I am sure they said: “Come on; that is not in the spirit of the law.”
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