Wednesday, 13 November 2024

 Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (09:50): The United States now only has two operational greyhound racing tracks. The UK has 23, Ireland has 15 and New Zealand has six. Everywhere that we look, dog racing is coming to an end. Yet Australia has a whopping 64 tracks across the country, the most of anywhere in the world, that still allow dogs to be killed in the pursuit of gambling profits. Despite skyrocketing track deaths and injuries, it seems that Greyhound Racing Victoria believes they simply must kill and injure more dogs, with a planning application recently lodged for a new track in Kilmany. They are calling it part of the strategic plan, but with the release of their annual report last week, which showed that they are killing more dogs, injuring more dogs, rehoming less dogs in a rehoming crisis and are rapidly losing money to the point they are relying on advanced support payments from the government, we know and they know they should just get a grip and give up already. If approved, the Kilmany track will kill many dogs. That is why the greyhound community, the Animal Justice Party and I will do everything we possibly can to ensure that it does not proceed, because greyhounds are for winning hearts, not races.