Carol Altmann – The Terrier

How to save $700,000 in seven days, instalment #6:

Today is another reminder rather than a revelation: for at least the past 15 years, the Warrnambool City Council has hosted a marquee at the final day of the May Racing Carnival at a total cost to ratepayers of around $225,000.

I am still waiting for a response on how much the council paid last year for this corporate networking tent, but in 2014 it spent more than $17,000.

For one day.

If we tally this up over 15 years, at an average, conservative cost of around $15,000 each time, we are suddenly up around a quarter of a million dollars.

This money has gone into hiring the marquee, the catering staff, the chairs, tables, decorations, hors d’oeuvres, alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, member’s reserve entry tickets and wristbands.

Ratepayers even paid for the race books.

I first wrote about this marquee in 2014, when it emerged the guest list was largely made up of members of council and their partners, local MPs, local executives, representatives from the council’s Melbourne law firm, Maddock’s, a couple of associates of then-councillor Brian Kelson, and current Mayor Tony Herbert, who was invited as the then chair of Commerce Warrnambool.

So much for it being a networking opportunity.

Networking is supposed to involve connecting with people you don’t already know.

Cr Peter Hulin has long challenged the justification for the marquee, but it remains firmly in place.

Indeed when Cr Hulin again questioned its relevance in 2015, then Cr Jacinta Ermacora said the marquee was an important part of the council “supporting the local racing industry”.

This made thoroughbred horse racing sound like some form of charity rather than part of a multi-billion dollar enterprise based on gambling.

I am pretty sure the council could find far more needy causes who are out turning sausages in the carpark at Bunnings each Saturday.

And this is the bigger problem, because while $17,000 a year is not much in an $89 million council budget, it is still a lot of money to a majority of people: this is what the council loses sight of.

It can drop $17k of our money on one afternoon’s entertainment without batting an eyelid or producing one shred of evidence as to its value.

Because it is all about “networking”.

In this case, however, the networking is not working, especially now the council is asking ratepayers to either pay more in rates, above the 2.5% State Government cap, or face service cuts.

The final instalment tomorrow.

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OPINION – Carol Altmann

Port Fairy MLC James Purcell has been front and centre of the push to allow racehorses to continue to access Killarney beach for training – he has spoken about it passionately in State Parliament and launched a petition on the issue – but did you know that he also owns or part owns multiple local racehorses?

I didn’t.

Mr Purcell is also director of Enjoy Racing, a syndicate heavily involved in many of the horses trained by his son, Aaron Purcell, who operates under the name Enjoy Racing.

I didn’t know that either.

What I did know, because Mr Purcell has been very clear on this, is that he has been a long time supporter of horse racing and, to quote his own website, “enjoys racing in his spare time”.

But enjoying and supporting horse racing is an entirely different thing to owning racehorses and having a direct financial interest in their success or otherwise.

It’s a bit like saying Rupert Murdoch enjoys reading newspapers and supports journalism.

Or, to use another comparison, the bloke putting a bet on down at the local TAB is someone who enjoys racing – but, of course, he doesn’t own the horses or have intimate ties to the industry.

In politics, as so many politicians have come to learn the hard way, perception is everything, so I am at a loss as to why Mr Purcell has not been completely and utterly transparent in declaring his potential conflict of interest when speaking and campaigning on anything to do with horse racing.

What Mr Purcell has declared is this: he is director of a company called Tiger Bronze which owns Enjoy Racing.

If you check the State Parliament Register of Member Interests (as some of us do), you will see Tiger Bronze listed under Mr Purcell’s name. But that is it.

There is no explanation of what Tiger Bronze does (it sounded liked a tanning salon or gymnasium to me), and certainly no mention of Enjoy Racing.

When I asked Mr Purcell, through his chief of staff, why he hadn’t listed Enjoy Racing or added details of what the Tiger Bronze company involved, the reply was this:

“The requirements are to list the companies and trust, not to list the activities of the companies”.

In other words, he has covered the bare minimum for disclosure.

Given the recent and very damaging furore around former Premier Denis Napthine and Wannon MP Dan Tehan sharing an interest in a racehorse (Spin the Bottle) with Midfield Group supremo Colin McKenna, I would have thought Mr Purcell would be bending over backwards to ensure he listed every single one of his racehorse interests by name.

As it happens, that list would include a horse called St Jean (total prize money so far $187,524) that has James Purcell and Colin McKenna among its owners.

Other MPs openly list their racing interests by name, and update that list when it changes.

Mr Purcell’s response to why he hadn’t done the same was this:

“In regards to owning racehorses, James has never shied away from this publicly. The horses are not listed on the register of interests as we are unsure if they need to be, but have put in an enquiry to the Deputy Clerk and have not heard back at this point”.

What makes all of this so important, of course, is Mr Purcell’s active campaigning on horse racing issues, like that of allowing racehorses to access our local beaches, or building new training facilities at the Warrnambool Racecourse.

In my view it is not enough to say, as his spokeswoman put it, “it is widely known that James owns racehorses and he has never disputed or hidden this fact”.

Not hidden, perhaps, but damn hard to find unless you know where to look.

Some of the horses in which Mr Purcell has an interest include: Haylaman (Total prize money to date: $117, 513), Initiator ($152,843), King of Dudes ($339, 280), Siga La Vaca ($61,920), St Jean ($187, 524), Kilowatt ($31, 802), Written Era ($18,700), The Ten Bob ($45,820), Swacadelic ($294,287).

Mr Purcell could easily choose to be so much more transparent.

For example, when Mr Purcell stood up in Parliament on September 15 and urged Racing Minister Martin Pakula to “intervene” and “work with the Warrnambool Racing Club to fund the upgrading of a synthetic training track and to provide an uphill gallop at the Warrnambool Racecourse”, he should have made it crystal clear that he owns/part owns racehorses.

But he didn’t.

And when Mr Purcell launched his online petition to allow racehorses at Killarney virtually all year round, he again should have made it crystal clear that he owns/part owns a lot of racehorses.

But there was not a single word.

Mr Purcell also recently wrote a Facebook post (Sept 23) saying that his son’s horses “have never used Killarney Beach and I doubt they ever will”.

What he forgot to add, however, is that his son’s training website, Enjoy Racing, proudly says “we have access to some of the best beaches in the country at Warrnambool, Killarney and Port Fairy”.

If Mr Purcell took this approach, then people could make up their own minds about his impartiality on horse racing issues – not after the horse has already bolted.

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* This is the last piece I will be writing under the Bluestone Magazine banner. Bluestone Magazine is coming to an end, but the website will remain live until (all being well) a new project is launched in 2017. Keep updated by following Bluestone Magazine on Facebook here. Thankyou to everybody who has believed in independent media enough to support Bluestone Magazine for the past three years – I hope you will continue that support for the next venture. Carol Altmann

Hansard:

15 September 2016
COUNCIL
Adjournment
JAMES PURCELL

Mr  PURCELL  (Western Victoria) — The adjournment matter I raise tonight is for the Minister for Racing, Mr Pakula. As members know, I am a dedicated supporter of horseracing and not shy of showing my support in this chamber. I have continually raised the importance of the racing industry to Victoria and particularly to my part of Victoria, western Victoria, in the Warrnambool area. I will continue to use my position in this place to support the racing industry, including getting the dunes at Levy’s Point reopened for training. It has been used for the training of many racehorses, including last year’s Melbourne Cup winner, Prince of Penzance. I will work to get these reopened; they were closed this week. But I cannot support the most stupid idea of using the East Beach in Port Fairy as a training track.

If the proposal to build a horse truck park at the foot of the dunes near the Port Fairy golf course came to fruition, we would see the visitors and local residents of Port Fairy excluded from using this section of the beach, as up to 120 horses per day would be using East Beach. My community and the tourism industry are too important to allow this to happen to Port Fairy East Beach, which is one of the loveliest beaches in this country.

With the promise to have the Killarney Beach closed during Christmas — it is halfway between Warrnambool and Port Fairy — and with the Warrnambool beach also closed during that summer period we could see over 200 horses per day on East Beach, with many members of the public not happy to share the space with galloping horses. What happens to the people fishing or taking their dogs for a walk?

For too long the Warrnambool Racing Club has been too easy a ride, with so many of the horses being trained off the racecourse. To solve this problem and keep the industry alive the Warrnambool racetrack must provide the facilities, including a usable synthetic training track and an uphill gallop. If the Warrnambool Racing Club had provided the necessary training facilities in the beginning, we would not be facing these problems.

I therefore urge the minister to intervene in this issue and work with the Warrnambool Racing Club to fund the upgrading of the synthetic training track and to provide an uphill gallop at the Warrnambool racecourse.

Ends

As Victoria continues to buck the trend on placing a ban on jumps racing, we ask if steeplechasing really is integral to the success of the Warrnambool May Racing Carnival.

OPINION – Carol Altmann

Here we are at that awkward time of year again in Warrnambool when the city’s biggest local sporting event – the May Racing Carnival featuring the Grand Annual Steeplechase – is also the most difficult to embrace.

For no matter how we dress it up, the reality is that jumps racing is on the nose and has been for many years.

Despite this, the powerful figures that surround the “sport” continue to tell us that horses love jumping, that the local economy would wilt without the jumps races, and that those campaigning to have jumps racing stopped are just a bunch of lefty loopies without a sense of fun.

One of the most vocal “lefty loopies” is, of course, that highly radical and subversive organisation, the RSPCA, which has an ongoing campaign against the practice on the grounds of animal cruelty.

It appears that the RSPCA is welcome to tackle battery hens, sow stalls, duck shooting, puppy farms and run the cheerful Million Paws Walk, but if it dares to go near the sanctity of the steeplechase, it is accused of being “grandstanding hypocrites,” guilty of euthanasing thousands of unwanted cats and dogs each year.

That is how the former head of the Australian Jumps Racing Association, Rodney Rae, described the RSPCA president Dr Hugh Wirth in 2011, disregarding the fact that the RSPCA is the group that mops up the sad mess left behind by irresponsible pet owners around Australia.

But let’s return to jumps racing.

As most people know, this is a sport that no longer exists in any other states except for Victoria and South Australia. Jumps racing finished in Queensland more than 100 years ago. It stopped in WA in 1941 and in NSW in 1997. Tasmania joined their ranks in 2007.

A Senate committee in 1991 suggested it be phased out across Australia over a three-year period and, in 2010, this is exactly where things were headed for Victoria – until the state election prompted local MP Dr Denis Napthine to pledge $2 million to assist the racing industry if the Coalition won office.

The Coalition won and Dr Napthine, who part-owns a racehorse with local Federal MP Dan Tehan*, would be not only the Minister for Racing but also, eventually, Premier. Talk about friends in high places.

Despite the $2 million having surely being spent by now, horses still die in jumps racing.

It is a nasty, unavoidable truth of the “sport”, even if we try and disguise it behind the green curtain that is hastily erected around the broken horses before they are euthanased on the track.

According to the RSPCA, four horses died in jumps racing last year and there is no doubt that this week, many punters will be watching the three main jumps events at Warrnambool with their hearts in their mouths, hoping all the horses (and riders) make it home, while feeling a deep sense of unease that the horses are being made to perform this way in the first place.

The Warrnambool Grand Annual Steeplechase is 5.5 kilometres long – the Melbourne Cup is 2km shorter – and includes 33 jumps: the most of any steeplechase event anywhere in the world. That is a lot of running and a heck of a lot of jumping, even for a horse that “enjoys” it.

And for all of their Herculean efforts, hardly anyone remembers who wins. Can you name one winner of the Grand Annual Steeplechase? Or the Brierly Steeplechase? Or the Galleywood Hurdle?

At the end of the day, it all seems so cruel and so unnecessary, especially when such a small group of people has any significant investment in jumps racing and its immediate spoils.

The average punter, I believe, would be just as happy to go along to a three-day racing carnival at the beautiful Warrnambool racecourse and not see horses jump.

Some of the most popular – and charming – race carnivals in Victoria (think Dunkeld, Hanging Rock) attract thousands of people not because of the actual racing, but because of the atmosphere, and the chance to dress up and drink champagne for brunch.

Given the increasing awareness and activism around animal rights, especially among young people, it is only a matter of time until jumps racing is banned across Australia.

So why not cancel the jumps at Warrnambool, just for a year? Or maybe for three years, as happened during World War II when the Grand Annual Steeplechase was suspended because of more pressing matters than horse racing.

Then will we know whether the May Racing Carnival can truly stand on its own two legs, rather than relying on horses to stand on all four: despite all that is thrown at them.

*Since writing this piece, The Age has questioned the connections between Dr Napthine and Midfield Meats managing director Colin McKenna, another part-owner of Spin the Bottle.