The Thoroughbred Breeders Queensland Association is bitterly disappointed with Racing Queensland’s ‘Tracking Towards Sustainability Plan’.
“This is definitely not a sustainable plan for the long-term future of racing and all we are tracking towards is certain doom,” said TBQA President Basil Nolan. “RQ has just taken the lazy way out, by deducting prizemoney and slashing country racing.”
Well, here’s some hard facts from behind the scenes:
The Breeders Bonus has been taken from the Queensland Thoroughbred Incentive Scheme (QTIS), which has also been cutback considerably. This Breeders Bonus was a new implementation where stallion owners were contributing a sizeable amount to virtually self-fund the bonus.
Those funds had been collected by the TBQA at the start of this year and were ready for distribution. This was raised with Declan Martschinke, the Head of Operations at Racing Queensland, and he said that RQ didn’t want the contribution from stallion owners, and then they went ahead and scrapped the Bonus.
At every consultation Mr Nolan attended, UBet’s performance was attacked because they aren’t performing up to expectations and this is the industry’s main source of revenue; 6.5% comes back from wagering to revenue.
The corporate bookmakers have gone ahead in leaps and bounds and the industry only gets 2% of that investment. But these corporate bookmakers haven’t been audited in the past six months (since Labour came to term and sacked the previous RQ Board) and we therefore don’t know if they are contributing fairly.
RQ was made aware of this important financial matter at the very first consultation and have failed to do anything about it. This inadequacy needs to be addressed immediately. The industry could be losing millions of dollars in revenue because the ‘book-keeping’ isn’t being done by RQ.
Nolan says the ‘Sustainability Plan’ does not outline how the industry will move forward from these cutbacks, and all it will achieve will be an exodus of owners and trainers, resulting in an ongoing downturn in wagering and revenue.
“The industry is on a downward spiral because decisions are being made by people who have no idea about racing, thanks to the failings of a Government that has no interest in the industry,” Nolan said.
“To start with, to take $70,000 a day off Saturday metropolitan racing is absolutely absurd; while also decimating the country areas, many of which rely heavily on racing for their livelihoods and the social fabric of their communities.”
Nolan said that instead of taking the easy road of deducting prizemoney and axing race meetings, RQ should be focussing on a marketing plan that will increase participation, wagering and revenue.
“Taking prizemoney away while increasing fees is simply alienating owners and trainers, while a top-heavy Racing Queensland interim management team lines their own pockets.”
Nolan is once again calling on RQ and the State Government to make public a detailed breakdown of the projections that supposedly show a loss of $28 million, along with the exact costs to run Racing Queensland.
“This $28 million figure seems to have appeared from mid-air on Day 1 of the RQ takeover,” said Nolan. “RQ management simply tell us that their financial controller, (who has since left RQ), gave this figure to (Interim CEO) Ian Hall– and they’re sticking with it.
“Yet the audit at the end of the financial year showed a loss of $2 million, so how they arrive at $28 million is beyond comprehension – and at the five consultation meetings I attended, they were never able to verify that figure!”
“It’s about time they were held accountable.”
Nolan is also furious about the complete ignorance towards the many issues and ideas raised during the so-called ‘consultation’ process.
“This consultation was a complete waste of time and money. I don’t think they were ever interested in what participants had to say, this was simply a smokescreen for an already planned agenda.”
Another fail for Racing Queensland has been their pathetic attempt to negotiate with Sky Racing for over six months in a bid to improve the televised coverage of racing in Queensland. This coverage and promotion is vital to boost wagering and turnover in the state. There has been absolutely no result from there’s apparent negotiations.
“Then added to the debacle, we’re appointed a new Racing Minister who has absolutely no knowledge of racing or interest in the industry, right in the wake of this Plan’s release,” said Nolan.
“It is absolutely disgraceful and a slap in the face to every stakeholder. Clearly Labour has no consideration for racing, and is completely ignorant of what could be achieved economically if it were able to thrive.”
The State Government obviously needs to be reminded that racing employs over 30,000 people and supports thousands more through association. It is the third largest industry in the State, and could be even stronger with the right direction, especially with the downturn in the resource sector.
Nolan said it has been a three ringed circus since Labour came to power and sacked Kevin Dixon, Peter Boyce and Mike Kelly under the guise of the greyhound live-baiting scandal.
“We all know that sacking was just political games. These three men were the best and most progressive RQ Board that Queensland had ever seen.
“They all have a wealth of experience in the racing industry and are astute business men. They are the top of their fields and have been involved with extremely successful multi-million dollar international companies. They had a long term plan that was going to take Queensland forward and the Labour Government should have stuck with it.”
Nolan said there is now absolutely no leadership, they have no idea of growing the industry and there has been nothing positive to come out of RQ or the State Government to encourage people to partake in this wonderful industry.
Now, instead of celebrating the progress that had been made just twelve months ago, participants will be rallying together to fight for its survival.
Ian Hall and the Labour Government have failed dismally.