Silence on racing strike ‘deafening’

RACING Alliance spokesman Cameron Partington says the Queensland Government’s reluctance to end strike action shows it has no interest in helping an industry on life support.

The Bulletin yesterday learned the Government last week appointed Glenn Butcher, the Member for Gladstone, to clean up the mess.

Government officials met last night to try and resolve an issue that threatens to unravel racing in Queensland.

Racing participants vowed to strike on Cox Plate day on Saturday and Melbourne Cup on November 6 because the Government refused to put money from a $70 million tax windfall into stakes.

The money is being spent on infrastructure for greyhound and harness racing, the “write-off” of a loan, and tax for Ubet.

Mr Partington said the Government’s silence in the lead up to the Tuesday night deadline was deafening.

“I thought it was probably a 50-50 chance they would come back with something to avoid the strike,” Partington said.

“I thought they would have not wanted to see racing strike and want to do something about it. It indicates they don’t want to do anything about it.

“They have it on life support and have had it on life support for 20 years.

“They just keep making it a political football and keeping it alive just enough. They don’t want it to flourish or thrive.”

Racing Minister Stirling Hinchliffe declined to take calls on the matter but released a statement saying the Government were working on “developing avenues to support increased prizemoney” in order to avoid strike action.

“Unfortunately we haven’t been able to avert Saturday’s planned action, but that doesn’t mean we’re not working closely with the industry,” Mr Hinchliffe said. “Queensland’s racing industry employs or engages more than 41,800 people, and we want to see it thrive and prosper.”