23 December 2020
The Hon Meka Whaitiri
Associate Minister of Agriculture responsible for Animal Welfare
Parliament Buildings
Wellington
CC. The Hon Grant Robertson
Minister of Racing
Parliament Buildings
Wellington
Tena Koe Minister,
I have received your letter in relation to our quarterly progress report which Greyhounds New
Zealand has continued to provide to yours and the Minister of Racing’s offices following our
correspondence on 1 May 2018. We note your concern that
your NAWAC
advisors
have
raised re
being insufficient detail in the final report. I am very happy to furnish any specific information
required but at this stage I am unaware of what this may be.
For your information, the Chair of NAWAC called the Independent Chair of the GRNZ Health and
Welfare Committee on the 23rd of
September 2020. During that
call, our Chair recommended
that
the NAWAC Chairperson contact me (as the CEO of GRNZ) directly and come to a mutual
agreement of the information needed by NAWAC and the frequency of that reporting.
To date I have not been contacted and the report forwarded to you was in the format originally
agreed between the previous CEO (Mauro Barsi) and the Ministers office.
It is important for clarity, that I advise you that I commissioned
the
Hansen
Review
of greyhound
racing as Chairperson of
the New
Zealand
Racing
Board.
This was an industry
driven
review
and
as
part of that we offered to keep the then Minister of Racing informed. This was not a review
commissioned by the Ministry for Primary Industries, whom we also kept informed via their
representation as an observer on our Health and Welfare Committee.
The Hansen review was then followed by the Messara review which quite rightly acknowledges
the importance of Welfare in all racing and recommends these matters become the strong focus
of the new combined Racing Integrity Board and
is a
key focus
for
all
Racing
Codes. In
my
role
as
a
member of Racing NZ I am working with my colleagues to ensure that all codes get the best
advice possible to ensure the welfare of our animals and we are finding this collaboration
helpful
as well.
Since taking over as CEO of Greyhounds New Zealand in 2019, I like you am pleased with the
advances Greyhounds New Zealand has made. Due to the current level of record keeping we are
now able to continue to work to ensure good welfare for greyhounds, both within the racing
industry and once their racing career is ended.
My personal view is that to understand the
actions taken
by
our
trainers
and
licensed persons
it is
best to visit our rehoming, training, and racing facilities to observe what is taking place. To date
only the Chair and the senior vet of our external observers on our welfare committee have taken
this opportunity which my predecessor offered, I recently restated this offer. Now we have
hopefully progressed past the restrictions we implemented because of Covid-19 these visits may
occur. Note the current Racing Integrity Unit, attend all our race meetings,
and
regularly
visit
our
kennels to ensure they are adhering to all of our animal welfare requirements.
Currently I am pleased we are at
a
stage
where
we can
measure
our
performance
against
our
past
performance. It is frustrating though that we are currently unable to measure our number of
euthanasians against other organisations. In contrast in Australia the RSPCA releases a full report
with similar measurements to ours reporting percentage and number of animals euthanised and
rehoming. I would suggest we would get a greater
grasp
of all
the
current
animal
welfare
issues in
relation to the dog population if these were recorded and reported.
Greyhounds New Zealand recognise the importance of our social licence and we are also aware
that there will always be a minority who feel that racing animals is not acceptable. In saying this
we are cognisant of the importance of the welfare of our dogs, and how critical it is for our
Greyhounds both during their racing careers and their retirement.
Although the earlier
correspondence
with
the previous
Minister
of
Racing
identified
the
report
you
recently received as a final, we will be continuing to keep records and publishing in our annual
report we will also deliver the report directly to your office and should you require anything
additional we will be happy to respond.
Should you wish to discuss any matters set out in this correspondence, or any o
ther matters to do with t
he
Hansen report and our response to it we would welcome the opportunity to meet with you and do so.
Nga Mihi
Glenda Hughes
Chief Executive Greyhound Racing NZ
Document Outline
