The blatant falsehood in the NSW Government's greyhound ads

Hmmmm, wrong about both. Is sugar next in your sights?

You've lost Baird as soon as you take into account anything midly associated with 'ethics' - there are few politicians less ethical than Mr Baird. The industry has to win the fight now if its going to survive - even with racetracks closed on 1 July 2017 and a state election less than 2 years following, the damage will be done by then. Wenty Park will be gone, Richmond will be gone to start with - the 2 key tracks in the state, and there won't be any coming back once they are gone. Its amazing how much of the community has accepted the findings of a report that, with just a bit of digging, can be shown to have significant flaws within its methodology, data and therefore its findings. Its just because its a minority industry in the scheme of things that the NSW Governemnt has got away with what is a third rate report, and a tenth rate approach (i.e. no provision of the industry with any chance to respond (or see indeed) to the report before a decision was made).

Sorry the only answer I can think of is " is with great ease and lack of thought". Maybe someone else can answer your question. I think that you might be trying to introduce some form of ethics which is not their strong point.

I totally understand your point re the TAB act however what I am referring to is that the premier has looked at the ban as both legal and moralistic and therefore how does his government accept tax from bets on interstate races involving greyhounds or indeed the cartoon greyhound racing that the tab runs in pubs etc.

Ian, The 13% of the contract re the inter code agreement is a transfer from the 1964 TAB in which the greyhounds activity was limited by the horse majority so the 13% technically is paid irrespective of the marketshare wagering of each code. It would be possible under the current arrangements for the horses to take all the time slots and pay out the greyhounds at an increased 13% (if the horse holdings brought in a greater return, The thing that saves the greyhounds from being taken completely off the matrix is under the current contract they are guaranteed a minimum of 593 meetings per year on the Sky broadcast. The non tab share has always been independent of the tab holdings, So the removal of the greyhound racing puts the horses where they have always wanted to be but there is a case for the greyhound activity to continue to be paid the 13% for the next 81 years but not in the form of racing. The above is not compensation but simply the contract being paid out for different activities. 2. The greyhounds need to continue the legal fight because this is the only thing that will get them the respect of the sex marriage project funding both sides in the public interest. The big end of town uses the commercial courts to get certainty in process and legislation and regard going to the law as a part of their creative processes. The worst thing that can happen for the country and the non for profits in particular is for the greyhound legal action to stall due to financial concerns. If the above happens it will leave everyone with an uncertainty so it would appear wise to me for the non for profits to contribute to the greyhound actions. As there are 600,000 NFP's in Australia they would only have to levy a small amount each to provide $10 million say which would be a good estimate of what a court action to gain certainty would likely cost. Irrespective of this there is a chance that some sense will prevail and a few million will do the trick anyway. 3. I regard the waiting of the next election as a cop out for not doing anything at present. However the greyhound amenities need to survive fir the long haul and they should take this into account. It would be a foolish Government to trash greyhound racecourses in this climate but who knows.

An interesting article re the whole mess that this is. I would like to make a few comments regarding this issue. Firstly, I was wondering whether the NSW gov't will ban gambling on interstate greyhound racing events and if not then not take the tax from those bets. Would be an interesting question to pose to the premier. Secondly, are other activities such as rodeo, duck shooting or indeed any other animal orientated sports on the government's agenda. Thirdly, I suspect that the fighting fund set up by the industry will be chewed up by the legal profession with the other side ie the tax payer having unlimited funds. Maybe a better tact would be to find a conservative independent in say two or three ministers electorates in country or regional NSW and fund their campaigns at the next election. It is doubtful that they would win their seats from them but their margins would be reduced forcing them to spend more money and time in and on their electorates. Nothing like the threat of losing your seat to focus you.

Nathan, you are rightly offended as a scientist of standing with various aspects the unscientific approach of public servants to the task of converting information or lack of relative information into statistical sense. The revealed statistical assumptions would be offensive to anyone with a reasonable knowledge of simple maths , a focussed mind on the subject and common sense. The elephant in the room is contained in the rest of your excellent article which leads to people asking the question of how does the Government explain its use of spending $1.5 million of public money on effectively a press release campaign supporting the Liberal/National Party rather than a legislated policy of the parliament. The obvious breech in the advertising laws could be fixed up by the political parties paying the $1.5 million for their adds out of party funding. The limited access to the parliamentary documents is in accordance to the restricted distribution of information under the privacy acts and your idea for a restricted on line presentation should be followed up and recommended to the parliament as the current system is unfair to country and rural institutions who have to travel great distances to Sydney to view documents freely available to people in the Metropolitan areas who only need to travel short distances. The other elephant in the room is that if the Government can close down Not for Profit Industries as easy as it thinks it can do with the greyhounds then all the over 200,000 not for profits larger than the greyhounds in NSW are in danger themselves and need to join with the greyhounds themselves at least as a avoidance of commercial risk factor. On the cultural side of the project the Government controlled GRNSW have tried to close down the community greyhound clubs who have arguably had the strongest claim to having a social license to exist before the special commission of inquiry come out with questioning the greyhounds right to exist under a social license. If this whole business is not the biggest mess in Australian political history would someone please tell me what was.

I don't know where Nathan has obtained his statistics from and I don't know what they mean. This is an angry article but I can understand where the anger is coming from in the industry and I sympathise with it. I believe this is a stup1d decision by the state government and they will pay for it. People who agree with the decision to ban greyhound racing will hardly be swayed in the way they vote, but the opponents will certainly be prepared to change their votes. I hope the decision to ban the racing can be overturned, but if it is the people in the industry must not be prepared to tolerate the small number of owners and trainers who indulge in live baiting. In fact I would like to see anyone involved in that practice go to jail.

Agreed, The Liberal/National Party should be paying for the adds itself as they are clearly party political not adds for a public service. (see the regulations).

Governments are there to govern not just ban. Their bending of the rules to waste public money is a disgrace. They should be held accountable for the spending.

Jeff you are giving the project far too much credit for it acting in good faith. You cant cure a flawed process effectively without starting again from the beginning.

Nathan, The front page of the telegraph today reported on the various backgrounds to the adds you are talking about. In the report a leading public servant advises that the adds need to be targeted at an audience which is largely illiterate but this makes n o sense as the articles were mainly produced for the Sydney newspapers who's subscribers can obviously read. I think that the strategy was meant to regard people as not numerate which means that thee readers would accept figures as gospel without question. (after all they come from the Justice Department). The purpose of the adds are naked in their intent. Here is a cut and paste of part of the telegraph report. THE Baird government has added insult to injury for the state’s devastated greyhound owners and trainers by calling them stupid. A senior bureaucrat in Deputy Premier Troy Grant’s Justice Department sent out a “creative brief” for the government’s greyhound advertising campaign in which she claims they are largely illiterate.

The problem with that data set is that it assumes all greyhounds live to at least 1.5 years of age. The McHugh report notes the industry consensus that 40% of dogs whelped never race (para 11.60). It also quotes the Working Dog Alliance's estimate that 30% of all greyhounds "go missing" within the first year of their lives (para. 11.115). It's not hard to see that a large number of pups dying very early within the first year of their lives can drag the average life expectancy down significantly.

Well said. "Average" is probably the median in this case and not the mean, partly because the 10% who reach 10 years or more skew the figures. If 9 dogs die at 1 year old and one dog reaches 15, it's unreasonable to say the average age is 2.5. You use the median and say 1. This is the work of someone who has gone off like a rocket at a perceived injustice, grabbed the first "fact" they could find to discredit it and trumpeted it like they made a great discovery instead of just failing to understand statistics. Makes The Roar look like a goose to publish it when it accuses the government of a "blatant falsehood" on incorrect grounds.

Nathan, my last post was before I read this. I am sure that once greyhounds are racing then their median age at death will be significantly above 1.5 years.

Nathan, can you check your figures please. I suspect that the figures should read 40% living to at least 1.5 years, 30% to at least 3 years, 20% to at least 5 years and 10% living to at least 10 years -- the 20% and 30% that you are using are the wrong way around. The 10% living to 10 years are included in those living to 5, 3 and 1.5 years. Can you give a link for the values you are using?

This act by Baird is just another sad reflection of the state of our politics. It is pure opportunism to shore up the support of minor parties. The government will see this case through to a certain point and then negotiate a compromise, with an overhaul of the industry. They will save face with the minors with a "at least we tried" and "we did get focus on the industry and you can participate in all of the new regulation". Of course the sad outcome is that the money spent by the industry on the fight, will not be there for the overhaul. Hopefully, that can form part of the compromise.