Wednesday, 23 September 2026

 Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (17:21): I rise to speak on Greyhound Racing Victoria’s annual report for 2024–25. This report details a number of things about the industry, which I will speak about. We are still waiting on this year’s report, which I am sure will be a very interesting and somewhat concerning read. For four years I have been reading these annual reports of deception, of death, of cruelty, of suffering, of gambling harm and of misogyny, and all of this is being propped up by taxpayer funds and backed in by the government. In their most recent annual report, GRV topped the highest death toll for four years. They are out there saying racing is getting safer, that less dogs are dying, but 450 dogs, which was 28 more than the year prior, lost their lives to this industry. Of this total, 234 deaths were due to injury, 55 due to temperament and 161 for illness or other reasons.

Rehoming rates for the dogs that are no longer profitable to the industry were at their lowest in four years. Anyone who has been in here as I have read my motion every single sitting week updating the chamber on the deaths, injuries and incidents since the last sitting week would know that we have terrible rehoming figures here in Victoria. These dogs are bred for the purpose of gambling, for exploitation. They say they love their dogs, but I tell you what, the second that they are no longer useful to them, they suddenly have nowhere for them to go. In fact their own rehoming program rehomes less dogs than do community rescue groups run by volunteers and funded by donations, who are all anti racing. If that is not telling you how much this industry cares about these animals, I do not know what will convince you.

When the industry is done with greyhounds, they can send them off to the Greyhound Adoption Program, which is their rehoming program that I have just spoken about, which has around a 12- to 18-month-long waitlist. Recently GRV, instead of introducing a breeding cap, which would probably make sense in a rehoming crisis, actually just said, ‘You can pay us $3000 to skip the queue.’ So now you can pay to get ahead, which is obviously only putting dogs at more risk. Despite this, the government has continued to throw money at GAP and has continued to throw money at the industry. They have received Treasurer’s advances and emergency support payments. We actually looked into how much money would be saved if we just simply stopped subsidising greyhound racing in Victoria, just as Tasmania have done. The Tasmanian Liberals, guys, are doing better on this than we are. I mean, when the Liberals are leading on animal welfare, you know something has gone seriously wrong. We would save half a billion dollars over 10 years just by stopping the funding to greyhound racing only. The number is eye-watering if we actually just stopped subsidising all racing codes.

I just want to flick through some of the things that have happened in the racing industry, because of course GRV, for the most part, is exempt from our Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1986, which is outdated and which the government promised to replace this term. They did not do that. But the dogs are not even protected by this failing legislation. There have been countless horrific events, including multiple live baiting scandals. Despite their saying ‘zero tolerance’, it continues to happen, and then it is ‘zero tolerance’ again. You would think that that would mean ‘not one more time’, but they continue to make exceptions. There was Turbo Tommy, Deliver and Canya Cruise, who were all exported to China illegally and are in greyhound racing and breeding rings. Pacific Reef, Pacific Dreamer, Dark Stealth and Stealthy Flight were killed using blunt force trauma to the skull with a rock. There was Long Sleeves, who was literally left, rotting from the inside out, to die of gangrene. A vet said even if they did not notice the injury, they would smell the injury, and yet this person got a slap on the wrist.

There was a dog born with no tongue, called No Words, who broke his leg racing earlier this year. There were dogs that were given cocaine as stimulants. There were greyhounds who died on treadmills – that was plural, by the way, everyone: greyhounds, not a greyhound. Multiple died on treadmills. Prohibited substances – 60 different types. And the reasons? I mean, come on. Ventolin was ‘from breathing near a trainer that used an asthma puffer’, cocaine ‘because someone patted the dog down the street’. There are so many things I could say – I am running out of time – but there have been 154 greyhounds killed on tracks, 800 off track and 1240 injured this year. The next report is going to be even worse. The government needs to defund this industry.