Delta Bro

By the look of it, South African got rid of racing clubs and set up a listed company to run their racecourses. Now the company is bankrupt. In New Zealand we set up the Racing Authority/Racing Industry Board/Racing Board to run racing. A $72.5 million support package has saved it from collapse. Same mistake in both countries. Racing is not a business: it is the king of sports.

If the instance of perjury and fraud involves a racing matter and not getting involved means the perpetrator gets away with what they have done , then not getting involved would be detrimental to the interests of racing. Anything a Judicial Committee rules is detrimental to the interests of racing is a serious racing offence. Morality, associated noise, angst and whether those factors are intolerable are irrelevant considerations.

The Select Committee Report has been released and the land grab provisions have not been removed https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/sc/reports/document/SCR_98073/racing-industry-bill A mealy-mouthed provision has been added which reads "We recommend inserting clauses 26A and 26B. Clause 26A would provide that the Minister must not recommend an Order in Council to transfer the venue if, having considered these issues, the Minister considers special circumstances exist. Clause 26B would apply if the Minister decided there was no justification to exempt the venue from transfer under clause 26. In this instance, the Minister would decide whether and how the surplus venue should be transferred to the code, taking into account the factors in clause 26B(a) to (k)." Winston Peters, or whoever the Racing Minister is at the time, gets to approve the theft of private property. What might make him want to? How about pressure from donors making substantial campaign donations via his party's Foundation? It looks as if South Africa's Julius Malema will be able to site the New Zealand Racing Bill as an example of his land expropriation policies being no different from what is being enacted in other countries. So much for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which says Article 17. (1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property. Final-report-Racing-Industry-Bill-198-2.pdf

Running industry days at the new all weather tracks such as the one at Cambridge makes grass racecourses such as Avondale surplus to requirements. Ten million dollars of government money goes into the all weather tracks and the clubs concerned or NZTR have to find the other six million. In California all racetracks were mandated to convert to all weather surfaces such as polytrack in 2007. By 2014 there was only one left. So what went wrong? All weather tracks have a limited lifetime. If used for training and racing they wear out fast. That's primarily what went wrong in California. Cambridge is the largest training centre in the southern hemisphere. What happens when the all weather needs replacing and Winston Peters is no longer Racing Minister? And has anyone looked into where the worn out all weather surface is dumped and at what cost? It is toxic waste not household garbage.

I was sent a text alerting me to this RNZ discussion on Avondale and the closing of racecourses in general. The text message said Avondale Jockey Club President Allan Boyle's cell phone was cutting out. Not true. The problem was reception so garbled it was almost impossible to make out anything he said. Kim Hill used to tell people such as Allan Boyle to hang up and call back on a landline. Wallace Chapman, one of those discussing the issue of racetrack closures on the program, lives in Waterview, the suburb between Avondale and Pt Chevalier. I saw him once at Antique and Collectors. On its website this business claims to be, "New Zealand’s biggest antique shop, opened once a month to the public for the best deals in town." It is located in the oldest grandstand at Avondale Racecourse.

Just in case you missed it. Winston Peters facing battle in Northland with racing community over shutdown of small tracks. TVNZ News item March 7.

Auckland Racing Club set up a tablet PC with a ring of LED's around it to provide extra light, on a pole outside the member's stand. They employed a young bloke to explain to the "A listers and Posers" how to take selfies using this set up. It proved to be extremely popular.

YouTube (Volume cranked up 24dB) Mark Chitty https://youtu.be/NFHrIjzU088 Alan Galbraith (NZTB) https://youtu.be/NpQyDr6gIr0 Alan Galbraith (personal) https://youtu.be/gMRfxYFXt18 Vince Middeldorp https://youtu.be/5dbplu_nbX4

The low level sound resulted from the camera being fixed to the back of a chair with an octopus flexible tripod stand. It is also the reason why the camera does not pan around and show the members of the Select Committee. There were two members sitting on the Select Committee hearing at Waipuna Suites in Auckland, who are not shown on the Parliamentary website as being members of the Transport and Infrastructure Select Committee. One was National Party MP for Hunua Andrew Bayly.. He is the son of Phil Bayly the owner of Blue Denim. She was trained by Dave O'Sullivan, won the Auckland Cup and ran an unlucky second in the Melbourne Cup. The other was Labour Party MP for New Lynn Deborah Russell, PhD and former lecturer in taxation at Massey University. Avondale Racecourse is in her electorate. She will be speaking, or has now spoken, to the Labour Party Caucus in Wellington about the Racing Bill. When Vince Middeldorp ended his submission Green MP Jan Loggie said, "great submission" and Andrew Bayly said "It was a good thing you had the opportunity (to make your submission)." Vince Middeldorp replied, "I really wanted to say that." Andrew Bayly then said, "You would have been a menace on the road (if you had not been able to make your submission)." Vince Middeldorp shot back, "I came by train." Green MP Jan Loggie exclaimed, "Beautiful" followed by Deborah Russell who said, "I'm going back that way." Vince Middeldorp replied "I might take a ride with you." Vince Middeldorp's presentation starts at the 5.57 mark in this segment. He spoke for 9 minutes. https://www.facebook.com/TISCNZ/videos/512733309383366/ Vince Middeldorp did get a ride back to Avondale in the car with Deborah Russell MP for Labour New Lynn emblazoned all over it.

Watch it for yourself https://www.facebook.com/TISCNZ/videos/808832306301074/

In 2009, New Zealand stopped paying Australian Tote Commission to the Clubs whose races generated that income. The current Funding Policy does not pay income received from IP, information, International Media Rights etc, to the Clubs who generated that income. Obviously Australia still does e.g. International Media Rights revenue for the Melbourne Cup finds its way to the Melbourne Racing Club. Our enlightened system is based on, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

" The shock move has been described as “disappointing” by Melbourne Racing Club executive racing manager Jake Norton who expects MRC revenue from international media rights to be slashed by about five percent as a result." In NZ revenue from international media rights is seen as rightfully either the property of the TAB or the Code i.e. not a racing club such as the MRC. Australians need to come to New Zealand to learn how to run racing. Then their clubs won't have these problems.

Second try for video

Winston Peters Racing Bill First Reading Video 1

D

Jordan Peterson

Someone I watch on YouTube was asked what advice he would give his Prime Minister. I think his advice was applicable to those who run racing. “Think through how things could go terribly wrong even if you have good intentions. That’s the mark of someone who’s wise. Its way easier for things to go wrong than it is for them to go right and maybe it is more important that we think carefully about how things don’t go terribly wrong than we are concerned with making sure that they go right. Hell is a long way down and we can only make things so much better. Can you think out any ways that your ideas might not work out so well and how will you mitigate against that. One of the things the wise know is the probability that your well meaning intervention will have the positive outcome you intend and no other is zero. The highest probability is that it will kick back against you and make things worse. So you bloody well better be sure when you implement your well intentioned intervention that you lay out a measurement strategy to determine what the consequences of that interventions are because they are very unlikely to be an improvement. That’s especially the case if the system is already working well because if it’s already at 85% optimal capacity moving it up another five percent is really hard, whereas making it work fifty percent worse, it’s like any fool can manage that. So when things are working be very cautious about what you do to radically fix things because you don’t know what the consequence of your intervention is going to be. First, do no harm. Put you own house in order. You are not going to hurt anyone doing that. Then maybe put out your tentacle and tap something in the real world, gently.” You’re welcome to guess who I was watching.

Last night I showed my mum, now aged ninety-one, the Newshub (TV3) item on the raceday at Wairoa. It was very picturesque. She was outraged and asked me what possesses people to want to close down such racedays and what gives them the right to do it? I needed a succinct reply. What should I have said?

Click on the link below. Would Bernard Saundry be saying what he says if he wasn't on the NZTR payroll? Newshub Report and Video

Mate from next door came over to get my help to put on a $10 fixed-odds freebet from the TAB. We finally saw when we clicked on a fixed odds dividend being displayed, that a tiny window in the top right hand corner of the screen appeared with the name of the horse. It was so slight as to be barely noticeable. There was also a clickable link in the bottom line for "freebet." The instructions said clicking on that link would bring up a drop down list. We clicked on the freebet link and nothing happened. No drop down list. We didn't know what to do, said "What the hell" and clicked "Accept." The horse lost. My mates account is down $10. The "freebet" thing never worked. This website is a dog.

Some years back I asked John how he was doing. He replied, "Okay from the neck up." Later I asked him what I should do. He fired back, "Stick to your guns, deny, deny, and shut up." He described himself as, "Non-conciliatory, non-compromising and argumentative by nature." That was his persona. In reality he sought solutions. There was no better bloke to have in your corner when things got tough.

What went wrong with the StrathAyr redevelopment at Moe in 2015? From what I read, the redevelopment resulted in no racing for 19 months, cost $4.5 million and when racing recommenced there was kickback of large clods. Moe's racing was then transferred to Bairnsdale.

I also thought the RIU was completely independent of New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing (NZTR), Harness Racing NZ (HRNZ) and the Greyhound Racing New Zealand (GRNZ) but it is not. It has a four member board with one representative from NZTR, HRNZ, GRNZ and one representative from the New Zealand Racing Board (NZRB).