Cameron Luxton: ACT MP on proposed changes to Greyhound Racing ban

The Select Committee report on the Government's proposed Greyhound Racing ban has come back, with the committee saying they want the bill passed. 

But, ACT has some concerns surrounding the impact to the livelihood of a 'lawfully acting industry'.

ACT MP Cameron Luxton sat on the Select Committee, and joined Heather du Plessis-Allan to discuss the party's proposed changes. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now the ACT parties put a bit of a spanner
in the works. Read the proposed greyhound racing band. The
Select Committee reporters come in. They want the bill to
be passed, but Act has some concerns and it's the
MP Cameron Luxton, who sat on the Select Committee, is
with us High.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Cameron, Hey, get our afternoon, Heather.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
What are your concerns?

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well my concerns and that party concerns and that thousands
of soles to the Earth kiwis are having their livelihoods
and the greyhound industry and the community around it ended it.
They feel like Wellington just doesn't understand them and they're
losing their industry through no fault of their own. It's
quite unfortunate and I think it needs to be addressed.
Hence why written the alternate view in the Select Committee

(00:37):
report back.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
And your alternate view is that the industry should not
be completely shut down.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
No, it's saying we need to address safety concerns properly,
but also an industry who's being shut down should be consulted.
If the state or the government is going to take
the step of shutting down an industry, it should only
be doing that. If regulation isn't working. Well, that's not
what was happening in this case. The industry invest Yeah,
the industry had invested heavily in the last few years.

(01:03):
They've put they've done a whole lot of things to
try and meet standards that have be set on them,
and the Racing Integrity Board says they met or exceeded
all the measures placed on them. So if you're going
to close down an industry, you better make sure regulations
are not being complied with and if you feel like
you need to put more and maybe do that. I
don't go and close an entire industry without actually doing.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
A complying with the Cameron. But there was still what
would obviously deemed to be unacceptable levels of dog deaths.
Is that what happened?

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Well, what happened is an industry got blindsided with a
closed down and that's the situation we're in. We've got
a bill in the House with it was a bit
of surprise for the industry when it came in. There's
no compensation regime. And look, if you're going to be
taking the private property of a lawfully acting industry basically

(01:55):
leaving its asse, it's worthless. You have to have some
method to make sure that the loss has been accounted for.
I think it needs some compensation. And also the precedent
that you know X stood up for the firearm owners
when the buy the gun buybacks were in place and
said is this fair? Well, this is a precedent for
the for this racing code with with greyhounds. Is it fair?

(02:18):
Are we setting a good precedent here? Are we consulting
properly upfront? Are we providing a compensation ranging that makes sense?
And are we actually meeting the needs of the of
the greyhounds when it comes to rehoming?

Speaker 1 (02:31):
What would the compo be?

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Look, I don't We had numbers thrown around at Select Committee,
but really that work hasn't hasn't really been done, so
it's hard to say. But the good news Select Committee
did make an amendment to allow what was originally designed
in the plant in the proposal to allow overseas betting
on greyhounds. Now, some people said that was not right

(02:55):
because it was you knowposing down betting in New Zealand
but allowing it on overseas greyhounds. But the revenue from
those overseas betting could still be used for rehoming and
closed down and even compensation, So you know there isn't
it's not like this is this is a completely there's
no revenue that could be used. There is a piece

(03:16):
of revenue that the Select Committee saw saw fit to
include in the amendments to this bill.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Mate, what are we going to do with the sixteen
hundred dogs that need to be rehomed?

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Well, it's a good question. You know, we've got the
SPCA and the Ministerially Ministerial Advisory Committee, the MAC committee.
You know, they say that there's a large scale challenge
that they've got ahead of them, but you know that
that is a concern and so.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
Realistically a whole bunch of those dogs have to be
put down.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Right, I pray not greyhounds of beautiful animals. I was
patting one couple of hours ago, amazing things. I would
hope that wouldn't happen. But look, we've got we've got
a tight time frame to this closed. I'm sure that
I'm sure that people are working hard on that. Yeah,
but you know, tight timeframes are tight time frames, and

(04:06):
perhaps we should be looking at whether a shutdown on
the first of August and what is that four and
a bit months away? Whether that is the right thing.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Yeah, Cameron, thanks for talking us to talking to us
about it. I appreciate us. Cameron Luxton of the AX Party,
I don't know if you realize this, but New Zealand's
only animal blood bank is in jeopardy of closing down
because they get a lot of their blood from the
greyhounds and the greyhound industry. So if you don't have
the greyhound industry anymore, all of a sudden, you've got
a problem, an't you.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
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Speaker 1 (04:38):
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