Laurie Sutherland

Hope I can get this short reply in before my hacker shuts me down again. John Allen's main job is to research various options, and make recommendations to his Board. It is the Board members who make the decisions.

For the last nearly one hour I have been posting figures for the Code, plus Auckland, Wgton and Chch, also Waikato, Reefton and Kurow, but someone has just wiped it all off!

You are well on target Reefton, in that the big clubs have never (this century anyway) generated enough turnover to fund the high level of stakes money they pay out. Hence the Racing Board and NZTR between them screw the shortfall from the smaller clubs. By far the heaviest drawoff is to fund the high-stakes Group Races. The one sector of racing that gets by far the most financial benefit from the Group Race system is the commercial breeders who breed for the top end of the market at the Karaka Yearling Sales. I think most readers will know there are several extremely wealthy people in the commercial breeding fraternity, and it seems only logical and reasonable that they should shoulder the lion's share of the stakes money for the Group Races, instead of the NZRB and NZTR between them rifling the pockets of the lesser clubs every year to fund those races. I made a submission to the Messara Review (I believe these can now be looked at via the Dept of Internal Affairs) in which I said I thought about $60 millions had been swindled from the lesser clubs since 2003 for this purpose. And that figure did not include the $6 million so generously given by Racing Minister W Peters to further subsidise a small number of top-end thoroughbred races following the gaming duty reduction of 2006. EVERY club paid the same higher level of gaming duty up to 2006, so Mr Peters was totally unfair. As a suggestion, clubs that don't stage any Group or Listed Stakes Races should be fully exempted from contributing to Group Race stakesmoney. That would leave any such club that, for any reason, wants to make a contribution, free to do so. Finally, a correction to the note beside Stratford in the Table of Club Efficiency at the start of this thread. Stratford was in fact second highest received of Export Turnover in 2016/17, per NZRB official statistics (available on NZRB website).

A couple of months ago I decided to make a comparison on how many $$$ of NZ On-course, Off-curse + Fixed Odds betting the various thoroughbred Clubs generated with each One Dollar of funding they received from the NZRB/NZTR administrators. I think of the result as a form of CLUB EFFICIENCY RATING. Dargaville, Foxton, Kumara and Westland did not race in 2017/18, and Waikouaiti had only one race, and Thames only two, so have left them out. The upper part of the list reads as follows:- Taupo $11.602 Avondale 11.306 * Kurow 10.588 * Banks Penin 9,875 * Sth Waikato 9.695 Stratford 9.315 * (was Second Top the previous year) Poverty Bay 8.997 Matamata 8.922 Wairoa 8.831 * Waverley 8.701 Waipa 8.437 Waipukurau 8.121 * Woodville-Pah 8.035 * Reefton 7.898 * South Canty 7.664 * Tapanui (at Gore) 7.461 * Feilding 7.359 Tauranga 7.358 Egmont 7.328 Whakatane 7.324 Taranaki 7.197 Rotorua 6.856 * Wanganui 6.785 Greymouth 6.751 Marlborough 6.751 Gore 6.744 * Cambridge 6.714 Waimate 6.639 * Winton 6.527 * Ashburton 6.389 Wairarapa 6.353 Counties 6.336 Central Otago 6.237 * Waipa 6.228 Beaumont 6.227 CODE AVERAGE 6.141 A further 19 Clubs below the Code Average, including Waikaro RC at 3 below av, Hawkes Bay at 4 below av, CJC at 10 below av Auckland RC at 16 below av, Manawatu RC at 17 below, and Wellington RC at 18 below. 10 of the top 16 clubs have been recommended for closure by the Messara Review or by NZTR and the Minister for Racing. All clubs so recommended are marked with an *. Does anyone know of any other major activity that has had 10 of its top 16 performers recommended for the chop? Or is it yet another sign of woolly-headed thinking by those at the top of our administration? Cambridge 6.714

I don't know what rates of Gaming Duty, GST etc apply in Aust but the situation in NZ is that for many many decades there has been a class of organisations officially recognised and approved by successive Govts as NOT FOR PROFIT organisations. That means organisations which are prevented from paying out any of their profits or surplus funds to members of the organisations. These include Rugby clubs, Golf clubs, Bowls clubs, Racing Clubs, and dozens more. These organisations do have to make profits, of course, to keep themselves solvent and able to function, but their principal reason for existence is to provide sporting or social services and wellbeing to their local populations. In Racing, the TAB was created specifically to handle all the off-course betting on all the racemeetings of all the NZ Racing Clubs. The TAB< the Racing Board, the three Code Governing Bodies, and ll the Racing Clubs are specifically exempted by the Income Tax Act from having to pay Income Tax. Likewise stakes winnings are exempt from tax because horse or dog Owners, as a group incur a lot more costs on the way to winning any stakesmoney than what they collect as stakesmoney. The TAB (Totalisator Agency Board ) exists for the sole purpose as acting as each Club's AGENT to handle the club's off-course betting. The TAB was merged into the NZ Racing Board by the Racing Act 2003, and the main purpose of the Racing Board is to allocate race dates, to handle the raceday judicial work that might arise, and generally to maintain an oversight of the whole operations of the NZ racing industry.

Re the comment at www.RP.net/node/3181: The main reasons why Govt has an involvement in Racing include: 1. In 1951 they created the NZTAB to handle off-course betting, and to collect some gaming duty tax off that betting. Previously such betting was available only thru bookmakers, who in general operated illegally and paid little or no gaming tax on their operations 2. The gaming tax collection part is controlled by the NZ Gaming Duties Act, which covers Racing, Poker Machines and Casinos. 3. Racing is a large and quite complex industry, with three separate codes, numerous individual clubs throughout the country, thousands of employees and registered persons such as Trainers, Jockeys and Drivers who earn their livelihoods from the sport/industry, therefore it needs an element of Government oversight to keep the whole operation broadly fair, and honest. 4. That oversight is achieved by means of the Racing Act 2003, which at Section 3 states its Purpose to be:- "The purpose of this Act is -- (a) to provide effective governance arrangements for the racing industry; and (b) to facilitate betting on galloping, harness, and greyhound races, and other sporting events; and (c) to promote the long-term viability of New Zealand racing. 5. The NZ Government, as does the Australian, British, French, United States, and plenty of others worldwide, collects taxation in various forms from their racing industries, but they do not own their racing industries. Our Government is on record as saying that the NZTAB exists for the primary benefit of the NZ Racing industry. EVERY company in NZ operates under the oversight of the N Z Companies Act, but the Govt DOES NOT own them. All taxes and duties paid by every company and every Incorporated Society (which every NZ racing club is) are paid by the owners (of companies) and the beneficiaries of incorporated societies. Hope this furthers everyone's education a bit.

Curious The latest NZ Racing Board Annual Report I have is for 2013. It states that for the 2013 season N Z racing paid TO our Government: Betting Duty of $10.873million GST (Net) of $38.356million Total $50.229million. You will look in vain to find even $1 paid by NZ Govt to NZ racing. And in 1992 we paid Betting Duty of $42.494million GST of $18.331million Total of $60.825million. and got NOTHING in return. Laurie Sutherland