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The BulletinDecember 11, 2024

Greyhound racing sprints toward the finish line

The Bulletin editor
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Some in the industry say a small number of negligent trainers ‘buggered it’ for everyone else, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund for The Bulletin.

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‘Protecting the welfare of racing dogs’

Let’s return to a topic we talked about way back in June given there has been a significant update from the government. I’m talking about greyhound racing, with Winston Peters confirming yesterday he would take long-awaited action to ban the sport in New Zealand. Investigative reporter Michael Morrah has been covering the issue for years, first for Newshub and now for the NZ Herald. As he reported, the decision by Peters to outlaw greyhound racing followed three critical reviews of the industry along with a number of reported injuries. “This is not a decision that is taken lightly but is ultimately driven by protecting the welfare of racing dogs,” Peters, a known dog lover, told media.

While the ban has been announced, it will take almost two years for it to come into effect in order to let the industry adjust to the change. Urgent legislation was also passed yesterday in parliament to try and prevent racing dogs being killed as a result of the impending ban. Thousands of dogs will need to be rehomed, too. The Herald’s Cherie Howie (paywalled) spoke to a greyhound adopter who said the dogs make great family pets. “They’re not damaged goods. They’re really loving dogs that are gonna need homes.”

A long time coming

We’ll get into the immediate response to the announcement shortly, but first, a little backstory. Peters has been contemplating this ban for sometime given cabinet was considering a move way back in May. It goes back a lot further than that, however. In 2017, a major report revealed more than 2,000 dogs had been injured, and 165 put down, directly due to racing over the previous three seasons. By 2021, the former Labour government had launched the third wide ranging review into the industry in a decade, putting it on notice. No decision was made before the last election despite a subsequent critical report by the Racing Integrity Board. And while Christopher Luxon was on the record during the election campaign as being in favour of a ban, the decision needed to go through Peters who had previously pledged to “clean the industry up” but never expressly spoken in favour of an outright ban. “[Luxon’s] got a minister now who knows more about it than he does, and I’m on the case, alright?“ Peters told reporters in March.

For those wondering whether action could be taken in the future on horse racing, another industry that has its own history of animal welfare concerns, that seems unlikely. Peters declared earlier this year that the industry needs to raise the stakes and get its “mojo” back, reported RNZ’s Felix Walton.

A few bad apples?

The greyhound industry, reported RNZ, said it had a lower rate of euthanasia on race days than the horse racing industry (Peters denied that horse racing was a more dangerous industry, speaking to Morning Report moments ago). “We believe that greyhound racing as an industry has taken huge, huge strides over the last two years and is leading the way in the racing industry from an animal welfare perspective, so the decision today is clearly very disappointing,” said Greyhound Racing New Zealand chief executive Edward Rennell. Peters acknowledged the progress made by the industry, but said it wasn’t enough. A legal challenge was “extremely remote”, reported the NBR (paywalled), meaning the decision announced yesterday seems unlikely to be wound back.

Writing for The Press, Charlie Mitchell looked at how Canterbury’s racing scene appears to have contributed to the sport’s demise, with a pattern of issues linked to the Addington race track including an uptick in injuries to dogs. A leading trainers in the region, Riley Evans, said a small number of negligent trainers had “buggered it for the rest of us”, reported The Post’s Brendon Egan. Another, Matt Roberts, agreed: “It’s devastating, especially when you know 95% of the trainers out here have been doing right by their dogs and there’s been a couple of rotten eggs who have ruined it for everyone”.

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But animal welfare advocates said the writing had been on the wall for a long time, and the government made the right decision. “The sport is inherently dangerous… And whilst we appreciate the industry has made some improvements, it has completely lost its social licence,” the SPCA’s chief scientific officer Arnja Dale said, reported Stuff.

All eyes on us

In an opinion piece for the Herald, racing reporter Michael Guerin acknowledged that while the demise of greyhound racing was about the dogs, it was also about the people involved in the industry. “I feel for those greyhound people, some of them kind people who love animals and dogs more than anybody.”

Some will likely move overseas to continue their passion. You may be surprised to learn that New Zealand is currently one of just five nations to still have a greyhound racing industry. The other four are the UK, US, Australia and Ireland. It will be interesting, given those nation’s close ties to New Zealand, whether our decision sets a precedent. The decisions our government has grappled with are not unique. In the UK, reported the Vet Times in October, the government has suggested it could take action to address animal welfare concerns, but a wholesale ban was unlikely. Australia, too, is facing renewed calls to act almost a decade after an investigation exposed the preventable deaths thousands of young dogs a year and triggered a (later reversed) ban, as explained here by the BBC. Whether our government’s actions prompt other countries to take a look remains to be seen, but the rest of the world will be watching.

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The BulletinDecember 10, 2024

A tale of two polls

The Bulletin editor
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newsletter

Te Pāti Māori hits a high, but not at the expense of Act, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund for The Bulletin.

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Te Pāti Māori hits poll high

We’re rapidly heading towards the end of the political year, and one party in particular has received an early Christmas present. Two polls released yesterday showed Te Pāti Māori jumping in popularity after a high profile month that saw the country’s biggest ever protest arrive on the forecourt of parliament and the introduction of a highly controversial piece of legislation, the treaty principles bill. The latest 1News Verian poll, reported here by political editor Maiki Sherman, had the two major parties steady – National on 37% and Labour trailing on 29%. The Greens were down two to 10% (we talked about their challenging year in some depth yesterday morning), and Act was steady on 8%. But Te Pāti Māori was up three points to 7%, the party’s highest result in a 1News poll ever and well above its previous record of 4.4% back in 2008 when the party was incredibly different. It placed them ahead of New Zealand First on 6%, though the current coalition would still be in a position to form a government with 63 seats to the opposition’s 57.

Meanwhile, a Curia poll for the Taxpayers’ Union also had Te Pāti Māori three points up on 5.5%, reported RNZ, though the overall numbers showed National and Act wouldn’t even need New Zealand First’s support to form a government. So, no change of government from either poll – but that’s not the most interesting part.

‘A lot of publicity’

While neither poll would mean a change in government, Te Pāti Māori will undoubtedly be pleased with its rise in popularity. This is only its second term back in parliament after being turfed out altogether in 2017 when Labour swept the Māori seats. On both these latest poll results, Te Pāti Māori would still be in parliament with or without any electorates – the party has never polled above 3.08% in any general election. In comments to 1News, the leaders of both Labour and Act were sceptical the numbers would stay high for long. “They’ve had a lot of publicity over the last few weeks,” said Chris Hipkins. “It’s boosted their attention,” said David Seymour in reference to the recent nationwide hīkoi. “But attention is always followed by scrutiny.”

Unless the polls shift substantially over the next two years, Hipkins is going to need Te Pāti Māori to have any chance of forming a coalition – indeed, the three opposition parties have been more unified than usual in recent months. However, Labour will be wary of having its own support eaten away. The near sweep for Te Pāti Māori in the Māori electorates at the last election came as something of a surprise to Labour, as Aaron Smale looked at for Newsroom here.

Sucking up the oxygen

The flipside of this is that Act – the party on the opposite end of the treaty principles debate that has likely boosted Te Pāti Māori – hasn’t suffered in either of these polls. It was steady in the 1News survey, around the same result it received at the election. Curia had the party up 4.5%. It reflects what commentators have previously suggested about the debate over the treaty principles bill and the protests in response to it: that both parties will attempt capitalise on it. The Spinoff’s Toby Manhire, attempting to prove whether or not Act has had “disproportionate” influence in the coalition as Seymour recently claimed, looked at public interest in the three government parties on Google. It showed that over recent weeks, as the debate over the treaty principles bill raged on, searches for Act and Seymour spiked significantly. Dan Brunskill, writing for Interest, said that Seymour had “staked the success of the bill on his ability to win a public argument, in the ancient Athenian style, and cause National to cave under the pressure”.

National has largely bowed out of that argument, with PM Christopher Luxon consistently repeating his view that the bill is divisive but otherwise avoiding to be dragged deeper in (and he was not present in parliament for the bill’s first reading). One of his MPs, James Meager, is in charge of the justice committee that will oversee the public consultation process of the doomed bill and has pledged to keep the process neutral, he told Toby Manhire on Gone by Lunchtime. “In this instance, that might be slightly different, because everyone has their positions laid out and they will not change, but it is still, I think, worth having the conversation when it comes before us and treating it with the respect that you treat any other piece of legislation.”

Poll shows majority support for Aukus

Meanwhile, a very different poll released this morning shows support for the government joining pillar two of the Aukus security pact, reported Andrea Vance for The Post. According to the Freshwater Strategy poll, a slim majority – 51% – back moves to sign up to Aukus, while 20% are opposed. It’s worth noting that 29% were either unsure or listed their response as “neither”. Supporters of the coalition government are more likely than other party voters to support pillar two, and men are more likely than women to approve. Last week, as we talked about, Labour ruled out joining Aukus should it become government again in 2026 and pledged to pull New Zealand out of the agreement if the coalition gets us in there before then.

*Editor’s note: An earlier version of this mistakenly said this was Te Pāti Māori’s second term back in government, not parliament. This has been corrected.