Basil

Ouch! https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/122376304/harness-racing-star-matt-anderson-assaulted-strangled-woman "Anderson’s victim said she supported him while he was being prosecuted on the drug charges because she always wanted to believe the best about him. She felt foolish for not seeing the warning signs she now realised were there, she said." Between Anderson, McGrath and no doubt some others still to come, quite a few are likely to be feeling the same way soon.

Hilarious — if royal honours were given for moaning, you'd be a duke (Duke Brodie!) The issue isn't complicated. When dissatisfied with a rule that limits the number of times a horse can be struck with a whip, there are two alternative pathways. The logical and ethical one is to say "let's get rid of the whip altogether". The other, favoured by the horse-bashers, is to say "let's get rid of the rule altogether". You've opted to put yourself in the latter group. What's amusing is that you don't even agree with yourself. One of your pet peeves is that incompetent administrators and unscrupulous journalists harm racing by tarnishing its public image. Yet on what surely must be Exhibit A for public image, you suddenly switch to "who gives a smeg?" It really is that simple Brodie Basher. So give yourself a few cuts with the whip and see if the fog will clear.

Yawn, yawn, yawn. Repeating the same crap for the 977th time is certainly boring, but it doesn't make it somehow right. Everybody knows Brodie will only be happy when all horses (or at least those he has money on) are flogged within an inch of their lives. There is definitely "stupidity" on this thread, but it has nothing to do with the 10-hits rule.

The judgement only refers to "unrelated competitor ABC" and, unfortunately, the Commission won't tell me who that is. The suspicion has to be that they're being pursued separately — the judgement makes it clear they're equally culpable.

I hesitate to divert attention from the pre-eminent issue of Aveross Spitfire, but those concerned about industry costs might find this to be of minor interest: https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU2007/S00480/settlement-reached-in-equine-air-freight-price-fixing-proceeding.htm

I have some sympathy for this view, but, unfortunately, this thread has only tangentially addressed it (to my shame, I've now contributed the 236th post!) As far as the animal welfare issue is concerned, it might be worth considering what the fate of AS could be if he didn't trundle around at the back of the field every week.

This would have to be one of the most bizarre threads to ever have appeared anywhere — 228 posts about the rights and wrongs of a horse whose only distinction is that he's very slow. Please Chief, put it out of its misery (the thread, not the horse!😀)

Well, I suppose it depends on whether one is emotionally invested in the matter or not, but I thought it actually had quite a lot of substance. The message is very simple: McGrath has a history of dubious practices, he got caught (repeatedly), is now paying for it personally, and his actions have badly damaged the reputation of harness racing. No amount of ex-post squealing can change any of that. It would be difficult, not to mention illegal, for "Van Beyen" (sic) to currently write an article of the kind you describe given that parts of the matter are still before the courts.

How so? Apart from the claim about 'several' Blue Magic suicides, it seemed like a pretty reasonable synthesis of facts and a cross-section of opinion. If anything was exaggerated, it was McGrath's abilities. Shooting the messenger doesn't make the message go away.

The NZ Taxpayers' Union (rightly) takes aim at Peters' pandering to the thoroughbreds...😀 Central government nominees Rt Hon Winston Peters: Responding to COVID-19 with horse tracks The Deputy Prime Minister and New Zealand First Party Leader led the Government’s COVID-19 response by announcing a $72 million funding package for the racing industry. This package included two synthetic horse tracks. No-one has been able to establish how horse tracks relate to coronavirus. Rt Hon Trevor Mallard: $572,000 for a Parliamentary slide As part of his initiative to make Parliament more “family-friendly”, the Speaker of the House commissioned the construction of a playground on Parliament’s lawn. The playground, which essentially consists of a slide and some stepping stones, was budgeted at $400,000, but ultimately cost $572,000. Hon Chris Hipkins: $87 million for unwanted internet modems An $87 million package to give students the means to study remotely during COVID-19 lockdown resulted in thousands of unwanted modems being sent to wealthy schools. Epsom’s Auckland Grammar alone received 137 unwanted modems, and even Mike Hosking’s child was a beneficiary of the policy. Hon Shane Jones: Three train trips for $6.2 million The Regional Economic Development Minister re-opened the Wairoa-Napier rail line last year, predicting that up to six train services would run per week. As of last month, only three services had run in total: a cost of more than $2 million per train trip. Hon Kelvin Davis: $10 million for AJ Hackett Bungy In response to a tourism downturn due to COVID-19, Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis singled out one of Queenstown’s most successful businesses – AJ Hackett Bungy – for a taxpayer handout. AJ Hackett received a $5.1 million grant, plus a potential $5.1 million loan, all on top of its substantial payout received under the COVID-19 wage subsidy scheme. Central Government Jonesie Winner:

I wouldn't get too carried away with the Swedish situation. Yes, their covid-related death rate is high, but it's still lower than in countries like the UK, Spain and Italy, all of which had stringent lockdowns. And then there are countries like Taiwan, which has a grand total of 7 deaths without imposing any kind of lockdown at all. If there's one thing we know from the data available thus far, it's that covid death rates have nothing to do with government-mandated lockdowns. Brodie's principal solution to 'improve things' would be for the TAB to allow him to bet as much as he likes on whatever he fancies whenever he wants. All else is just pettifogging trivia.

We're not playing tiddlywinks...

I'm guessing this is a rhetorical question, but on the off-chance you have a genuine interest, here's how this will have played out. John Allen would base his case on having been in charge of 2 declining industries (racing and postal service). He'd present cherry-picked facts and figures illustrating how he arrested these declines, which would be seen as particularly relevant to WgtnNZ in these days of closed borders etc. And nobody on the Wgtn NZ board (you can see them at https://www.wellingtonnz.com/about-wellingtonnz/our-team/wellingtonnz-board/) would have the inside knowledge necessary to properly question any of this. For example, I doubt if any of them would even be aware of the TAB website, let alone its dismal history. Foreign Affairs might be harder to explain away, but most people in Wgtn think diplomats are prima donnas anyway, so the ructions he created there would probably be seen as another positive attribute.

Last week everybody was complaining about the government having no heart (fathers not allowed in to be with heavily-pregnant wives etc). This week, everybody's bitching about the government having no head (2 women on mercy dash test positive for covid). Mistakes happen, even for the most competent and well-intentioned of governments (which this one, arguably, is not). But in the grand pantheon of mistakes, this is a pretty minor one. Let's not lose our own heads over it.

One wonders how we all managed to cope prior to the mid-90s if not having cellphone coverage is 'blatantly dangerous'! 'Mildly inconvenient' would be a more accurate description. What's changed, as I said, is that the taxpayer is subsidising the installation via the 2nd round of the RBI. So ironically you have the government you despise to thank...

This may come as a surprise to you Brodie, but racing clubs don't decide where cellphone towers go. Phone companies do. And providing them in sparsely-populated rural areas is a dubious economic proposition. It's only happening now because the taxpayer is subsidising it.

As I've pointed out before, that's totally incorrect. The original modelling provided to the MOH (and that undertaken at Imperial College) was all by epidemiologists. It was actually economists like this one http://www.tailrisk.co.nz/documents/Corona.pdf who pointed out the problems with what the epidemiologists were doing.

I agree that betting on an unknown number is kind of hard to do.? But does that number really matter anyway? After all, we know from examining the accounts over a number of years (or just reading the Lichter article that Happy posted) that the TAB's financial woes don't have anything to do with the odd high salary. Instead, those woes are primarily the result of being crap at fixed odds bookmaking (particularly on sports where they're subject to competition) and being taken to the cleaners as a result. A couple of semi-related personal observations that are probably of no interest to anybody: • In the early noughties, I had some involvement with John Allen via a shared connection with a Wgtn-based think-tank. He was, shall we say, distinctly underwhelming. That he's continued to be appointed to a succession of high-profile and high-paying roles has been one of my life's great mysteries. But his salary (as opposed to his business acumen) hasn't been the cause of the TAB's problems. • Chch high school debating is run exclusively for the benefit of 3 private schools — St Maggots, Christs and STAC. So unlike Westland/Nelson back in your day, the corruption is based on class rather than politics.

Further to this, I was at the Cashmere Club this arvo, which is, or was, the closest TAB to Barrington. The dedicated betting windows were gone, leaving only a single self-service machine. Which was broken. Oh happy days!

This is a classic own goal — you've just vividly illustrated the benefits of competition! Re your claim that the TAB made bad decisions not because they were a lazy fat monopoly but because they hired the wrong people, I'm afraid this confuses symptoms with causes. They were able to hire the wrong people precisely because they were a lazy fat monopoly whose protected status allowed them to take their eye off the ball and instead engage in empire-building. Your example also confuses the TAB with the racing industry. If competitors come in and eat the TAB's lunch by offering better service, that's bad for the TAB but *good* for the industry. Bottom line: the survival of any firm or industry requires a customer-centred focus. Monopolies are really, really bad at customer service because they have no incentive to provide it. Consequently, retaining (never mind extending a la Rutherford) the TAB's monopoly would certainly be good news for TAB management, but very bad news for its customers, punters, and the industry as a whole. QED.

It might be a good idea to think about why the TAB has "alienated customers" etc. Answer: because they're a fat, lazy monopoly that has faced essentially no competition. Responding to this situation by continuing with the same protectionist structure is is a classic example of the dictum sometimes attributed to Einstein: "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome". "The timing is wrong" argument was loudly trotted out by the farming industry in response to the elimination of SMPs and other subsidies in the 1980s. But today that industry is far more profitable, efficient and innovative than it ever was under protection. It's *always* the right time to promote competition, and the TAB is no exception.

Yes, I'm afraid this misunderstands how competition works. It doesn't just split existing customer demand among more providers, but instead *grows* customer demand by offering more attractive prices, better options, and an all-round superior quality of service. By contrast, advocating for the protection of a monopoly that, by all accounts, has already spectacularly failed, makes as much sense as continuing to whip a horse 200 metres after the winning post. The power grid is a natural monopoly; gambling is not. Set our punters free!

Rutherford is almost certainly right about the source of the problem, but his 'solution' is half-baked: if the answer is to give more monopoly power to the monopoly that caused the problem, then my name is John Allen! It makes as much sense as requiring us all to only buy Fisher and Paykel fridges, or Skellerup lobbying for a ban on imported gumboots, or Australian racing clubs insisting their CEO positions can only be filled by Australians. The true solution is to increase competition, not reduce it. Remove the TAB's statutory monopoly, let other organisations and bookies set up in NZ, and may the best man win. If that doesn't force the TAB to lift its game, nothing will.

I can assure you she did. And resorting to quoting the economic views of a comedian seems a bit, shall we say, desperate...

Keynes never actually said that, it's a myth. His colleague EAG Robinson did say "The great merit of the capitalist system, it has been said, is that it succeeds in using the nastiest motives of nasty people for the ultimate benefit of society." Which obviously has a completely different meaning... Robinson's wife, the socialist Joan Robinson, also observed after a trip to Africa: "The only thing worse than being exploited by capitalists is not being exploited by capitalists."