Carol Altmann – The Terrier 

People power at work: as has been reported in the paper, the two Moreton Bay figs planted around 1903 in the middle of Banyan St have been saved.

You did this.

Scarlett Patrick, who started a petition that attracted more than 2000 signatures in four days, did this.

Everyone who signed and wrote letters and buttonholed a councillor, did this.

These glorious trees, planted just fifty years after Warrnambool was founded, were due to be chopped down last year to make way for a better footpath.

They had already been mangled through “pruning” by people with chainsaws who didn’t care less about what they looked like in the finish.

This makes them easier to cut down, of course.

As one wise woman said to me this week, trees can be whatever shape they bloody like.

Yes, they bloody can.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

I have written a lot about racehorses this week, and for good reason, but there is one big question which still hasn’t been fully explored by the community: do we want to see Lady Bay become a permanent racehorse training facility?

Somehow this important question has been lost, despite the racing industry slowly and steadily claiming a bigger and bigger footprint on what is our main public beach.

That footprint is about to become permanent*.

Plans are afoot to build a $520,000 extension to the Pavilion carpark that will see an extra 33 carparks, plus another nine, double-length carparks for horse floats and long vehicles, plus a $100,000 wash-down facility for racehorses, all on what is Crown Land.

The Warrnambool City Council plans to spend $220,000 on this carpark/washdown set up and the Warrnambool Racing Club will contribute $400,000: more than half a million dollars in total.

Make no mistake, no club agrees to spend $400,000 without some sense of long-term security.

This means even more bitumen and concrete at Lady Bay over what is now sand and vegetation.

And it comes at a time when our animal species are dying out at an unprecedented rate which, even if you are not a soy-latte-sipping-snowflake-leftie-rabid-vegan-terrorist-activist-greenie (or whatever else is the insult these days), has to be of concern.

The carpark is being funded as a priority under the Warrnambool Harbour Masterplan and will be used exclusively by the racing club in the mornings.

“The car park would be available for horse-on-beach activities during morning periods and would be the area designated for that use,” says council spokesman Nick Higgins.

“It is this aspect that has triggered their (WRC’s financial) contribution.”

As to how long this agreement is for and what else will be funded in the future, that is all still under negotiation as part of the bigger plan to have racehorses training at Lady Bay and Levy’s Beach.

Which comes back around to the question: do we want our public beaches to become a permanent racehorse training facility?

We need to have this debate, because once the carpark is there, it isn’t moving.

It is a question which troubles a lot of people.

This includes the people who want to support local trainers, or love racehorses, or love watching horses swimming at Lady Bay – or maybe all three – but don’t want to see Lady Bay, or Levy’s Beach, turned into an extension of the racecourse.

These people just want to be able to walk on the beach, at any time of day, without worrying.

And they do worry, because when you mix large numbers of highly-spirited racehorses with the public, dangerous things happen.

Like last Thursday, the day of the Grand Annual Steeplechase, when a skittish racehorse being led into the water broke away from its handler and bolted down the beach.

A member of the public walking his dog had the foresight to raise his arms high and managed to stop the horse from belting further toward the surf club.

A couple of weeks ago, a similar thing happened: a racehorse cut loose and took off across the carpark toward the breakwater.

No wonder those who walk along the beach in the morning, do so with eyes in the back of their heads.

As one woman who walks most mornings said to me today, she is astonished the horses are allowed to run the length of the beach, all the way to the surf club.

“On the days when there are no racehorses at Lady Bay, it is just so peaceful and I was amazed at how different it felt, psychologically, to not have to worry.”

This woman is among those who have felt genuinely nervous as a clutch of racehorses have galloped past – “like they are in a race”.

And yet this woman, like so many other beach users I have spoken to about this issue, feels torn.

She can see the beauty in horses swimming. She finds most of the riders friendly and has no problem with people enjoying horse racing as a sport, but racehorses taking over a public beach? That is a bridge too far.

“If I had a choice, though, I would rather see them stay at Lady Bay than go to Levy’s Point, because the environment out there is even more important,” she says.

So this is the terrible choice that we have been given: do you wish to sacrifice this beach or that beach?

I can’t disclose this woman’s name, but I can assure you – if it helps to underscore the point – that she is not a soy-latte-sipping-snowflake-leftie-rabid-vegan-terrorist-activist-greenie.

She is just an everyday Warrnamboolian, worried about what is happening to our beaches at a time when we need, more than ever, to be protecting our natural spaces.

She is not alone.

* If there was any doubt about the deal being done here, you can refer back to a report in the minutes of the 1 Oct 2018 council meeting on p330: “The process has also given Council the opportunity to negotiate a reduction in horse numbers on Lady Bay and to require the Warrnambool Racing Club (WRC) to make a funding contribution towards the construction of a new bespoke car park for horse training adjoining the existing car park at the Pavilion.”

If you would like to see The Terrier keep digging up, sniffing out and chewing on local issues, please consider throwing something in the tip jar.

Terrier Tip Jar

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Now this is some serious clout: top-gun academic Dr John Sherwood, from Deakin University, is preparing a report on the Levy’s Beach area which has been earmarked for large-scale racehorse training.

Dr Sherwood, a member of the State Government’s new Marine and Coastal Council and the 2017 Warrnambool City Council Citizen of the Year, has been keeping a quiet eye on the plan to allow up to 160 racehorses a day into what is part of the Belfast Coastal Reserve.

Dr Sherwood is now looking closely into the so-called “Hoon Hill” area, which has been woefully under-researched in terms of its potential environmental and cultural importance.

Respected local ecologist Jodie Honan is also preparing a report on the plants and animals in the area, because – once again – we don’t really know what is there.

Despite this gaping hole in the data, the Warrnambool City Council and State Government intend to allow up to 120 racehorses a day on the beach and 40 a day on the dunes, five days a week, from November.

As you do…in a coastal reserve.

Both reports have been commissioned by the Belfast Coastal Reserve Action Group which, as we know, has been fighting commercial racehorse training on beaches for almost four years now.

Dr Sherwood entering this issue is, to me, monumental because he comes with decades of experience and a tonne of respect.

His most recent work, in case you have been hiding in a cupboard, gained international attention after it raised the possibility of humans living at Moyjil/Point Richie in Warrnambool up to 120,000 years ago – 50,000 years longer than previously thought.

I will be fascinated to see his and Jodie’s reports.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

With the death of yet another racehorse from the Warrnambool May Racing Carnival, how on earth is jumps racing still considered okay?

How does Warrnambool, as a city, continue to look away as if racehorses being killed is an unavoidable by-product of pumping money into our local economy?

It was revealed today that Blues Breaker, trained by local Symon Wilde, was killed after a truly hideous, full-roll somersault last Wednesday, and it serves as an ugly reminder that we accept horses can and will die in the name of a “sport” that hides its cruelty under hired suits, fascinators, champagne and finger food.

At the same time, our Mayor Tony Herbert bangs on about Warrnambool being “sophisticated” and “cosmopolitan” – well, jumps racing ain’t either of those, Mr Herbert, it is barbaric.

It is unquestionably brutal and the money generated for Warrnambool by this “sport” is once again smeared with blood.

For the record, Blues Breaker is the fourth horse to die at the Warrnambool May Racing Carnival since 2016 and there have been more than 50 horses die from jumps racing in Victoria in the past 10 years.

Unfortunately we have become deaf to the statistics that, in any other sport, would cause an outcry, such as the results of a 15-year-long study by the University of Melbourne which shows horses are 18 more times likely to die in jumps racing than flat racing and 121 more times likely to suffer a head, back or neck injury.

Read those numbers again and imagine, for a moment, if they applied to AFL or cycling or soccer.

While Blues Breaker has been euthanised, there are numerous other racehorses still recovering from their outing in Warrnambool last week.

You won’t hear or read about them, but you can read through the racing stewards’ reports compiled from across the three days of the May Racing Carnival to see the string of horses that stumbled, failed to finish, “knuckled upon landing”, jumped awkwardly, pulled up sore, ran out of breath, were whipped too many times, or bled from the nose after racing.

Despite all this, our city leaders wander around the racecourse, all hats and smiles, as if wearing their own personal set of blinkers: nothing to see here folks! Let’s all have fun!

It is dishonest and it is dirty, but because it brings in the big dollars, we are encouraged to stay mute and suck it up.

Indeed if you do speak up, you are accused of being a killjoy, or a rabid animal activist who lives in a sweaty little teepee, or ill-informed because, hey, don’t you know racehorses love to jump numerous hurdles for long distances while having their arses beaten with a whip? What’s wrong with you, killjoy?

If there is one rock solid argument as to why jumps racing must be maintained in Victoria, I am yet to hear it.

In the meantime, what we do hear is about the millions of taxpayer dollars being poured into the Warrnambool Racing Club and the Warrnambool Racecourse.

Racehorse owner and Federal Member for Wannon Dan Tehan, who shares a racehorse with the chairman of the Warrnambool Racing Club, Nick Rule, announced $1.25 million of public money would be put toward revamping the grandstand.

The State Government will throw in another cool $300,000 and the remaining $3.4 million for the project will come from the Warrnambool Racing Club which, according to Mr Herbert, has been struggling, cash-strapped, and virtually down-on-its-knees.

Former Premier Denis Napthine, another racehorse owner and now a racing commentator on 3YB, would like to see the State Government offer more prize money because, hey, that has to be a priority for us hardworking taxpayers, doesn’t it?

And we know that millions have already been spent improving training facilities at the racecourse with sand tracks and swimming pools and better drainage, yet the industry still wants to run around our wild beaches.

Enough.

Warrnambool is moving toward being a different city to what it was 20 or 30 years ago. We have a Greens’ member on council and a rainbow flag outside the council chambers – both unthinkable just a decade ago.

Our demographic is changing and we are all moving on from the days of treating the natural and animal world as if it is ours to exploit. Heavens, we even had the Swedes here recently telling us how to capture hydrogen fuel to power our cars.

This is the Warrnambool I am a proud to be a part of and so many people want to be a part of. Jumps racing – surely – no longer fits that future.

Would you like to support The Terrier? Please consider throwing something in the tip jar.

Terrier Tip Jar

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Three interesting things and a question:

Titibit #1: If you were wondering why a series of red bars have suddenly started popping up on intersections around the CBD, here’s the answer: the introduction of a 30kph speed limit.

The new, slower speed limit was one of the many things bundled into the now $18 million upgrade of Liebig St but, as far as I can see, it hasn’t been mentioned or discussed widely since it was first raised as an idea for Liebig St in 2014.

From what I have found, Warrnambool is the only place in Victoria outside certain parts of Melbourne to introduce a 30kph zone and the idea, of course, is to slow the traffic down to make life safer for pedestrians. 

There is nothing wrong with that concept, but given the amount of traffic controls now in place in Liebig St – with more zebra crossings, roundabouts and speed humps than you can count – is it really necessary?

And is it necessary to extend it from Liebig St to other parts of the CBD where the limit is 50kph?

I haven’t seen any statistics on the number of pedestrian injuries around Kepler St/Raglan Pde, for example, or Banyan/Timor St, which are just two of the intersections now getting the red stripe treatment.

Driving at 30kph really is snail’s pace – it’s 10kph slower than for school zones – and I can’t see people sticking to it outside of the main street where the speed is already restricted by design.

Titbit #2: The draft Warrnambool City Council budget/s and its submission to the Essential Services Commission to ask for a 4.5% rate rise contains so many gems, I am not sure where to start, but I will list a few during this week, starting from today.

First, according to the ESC submission, Flagstaff Hill – my old hobby horse – and the Visitor Centre ran at a loss of $1.79 million in 2016-17 and $859,061 last financial year.

It is expected to run at a loss of around $750,000 each year for the next three years, which is $100k more than anticipated and getting close to double the losses of around 10 years ago.

This is eye watering.

By the way, it is worth mentioning that Colac Shire Council is raising its rates by a mere .5% this year. They were thinking of going for 2%, the same as last year, but that was knocked back by a majority of councillors. It is also worth mentioning, again, that out of 79 councils in Victoria, only two are applying to break the rate cap and we are one of them.

Titbit #3: Enormous public pressure and several thousand signatures on a petition saw council staff recommend recently that the two 115-year-old Moreton Bay figs at the corner of Banyan St and Raglan Parade be saved.

Yay! Sanity prevails.

But wait…

No, they are not saved, yet, because the councillors deferred making a decision so they could – once again with feeling – look at the whole Banyan St streetscape and – once again – try to find out how much it would cost to plant coastal banksias down the southern end because Infrastructure head Scott Cavanagh had no real idea.

Good grief, the people of southern Banyan St have been waiting for five years to get this sorted. Five years.

Worryingly, as part of the debate Cr David Owen – he who loves trees – described the two Moreton Bay figs as “freaks” because of their bad pruning and said should be removed.

Why, as has been said elsewhere, do councillors ignore most petitions unless they give them the answer they wanted in the first place?

And a question….

Speaking of petitions, how ironic that the WCC is part of a petition for better roads in our area.

Judging by the years of neglect in road funding so far, the council might find its own petition efforts are also ignored.

Unless…unless…we will actually make Wannon a marginal seat at the federal election on May 18.

Are we brave enough?

Over to you….

If you would like to see The Terrier keep digging up, sniffing out and chewing on local issues, please consider throwing something in the tip jar.

Terrier Tip Jar