Dog breeders, rodeos, pony clubs, fishermen, etc, should all be concerned.

Imagine telling our grandkids we used to have an event called the Melbourne Cup but they banned it as well.

The Baird government’s decision to ban greyhound racing in any way. I have been involved in harness racing for 40 years and I know how I would feel if they banned the sport.

Why write this letter you may ask? I have become sick and tired of being told what we can and can’t do. We put these people in Parliament and they should not forget that.

In summarising, I would like to make the following points:

I, like everyone else, was disgusted with what I saw on 4 Corners and do not condone cruelty to animals in any shape or form.

Mr Baird’s decision conveniently came four days after the election. I put it to him that if he had made this decision before the election, Labour would now be in. The Liberal’s nearly lost the unlosable as it was.

After the 4 Corners program, Queensland Greyhound Racing gave life bans to 15 people. I was curious that NSW appeared to do nothing. No bans. No fines. I now discover that the Baird government runs Greyhound Racing in NSW. So they banned no one in 14 months, then they decide the easiest way was to ban to sport completely. A little bit hypocritical you must admit.

The government claims 48,000 greyhounds have been put down in the past 10 years. I would like to know how they get this figure as records have only been kept for the past 15 months.

Judge McHugh came up with 79 recommendations for the industry and they close the easiest one for them. Get rid of it and we won’t have to worry any more.

There have been several politicians charged recently with corruption. Maybe we should ban politicians!

The government owns approximately half of the greyhound tracks in NSW including Wentworth Park in the middle of Sydney. A prime residential area that would be worth $200 to $250 million dollars as real estate. Do you see a pattern developing?

One of the most unbelievable decisions was to ban people from breeding greyhounds, even if they are not going to race them. What happens if all other states follow suit. Greyhounds would become an endangered species. What will the Greenies do then? While on the Greenies, they handed out a three foot ballot paper at the elections so they must not be worried about trees anymore.

Member for Wagga, Daryl Maguire, was quick to jump on the coattails of his fearsome leader. Come to think of it, he was conspicuous in his absence when the Harness Club was fighting for it’s new $10 million dollar track in Wagga. A track given to Wagga by Harness Racing NSW. Member for Cootamundra, Katrina Hodkinson has been the first politician to back the trend and support the people who voted for her. She realises how many jobs this will cost her electorate alone. Kay Hull, as expected, has also damned the decision. Kay’s late husband, Graeme, was a tireless worker for the greyhound industry. He would be absolutely shattered at this selfish decision.

In closing - the government came up with a decision that 20% of people have been “live baiting”. The actual figure is 1%. There have been no cases in Queensland since they banned the 15 people. I am very confident that commonsense will prevail and this decision will be overturned. National Party leader, Barnaby Joyce, is now looking at it and he has always appeared to be a politician with his people his first priority. He also shows commonsense. This cannot be attributed to too many in Parliament today. I would ask all Harness Racing participants in the Riverina to support your greyhound counterparts. If the government gets away with this, we could be next.

John Davey, Wagga