HON ALISON XAMON (North Metropolitan) [9.51 pm]: I rise because I want to respond to the ABC’s horrific 7.30 report that was aired last Thursday, which I was horrified to watch after I arrived home from Parliament. That was, of course, the report that highlighted the incredibly cruel practices occurring over east within the horseracing industry. I think anyone who saw that report would have been absolutely horrified by the brutal images they were confronted with, particularly because we need to note that these animals have been specifically bred for the purposes of our entertainment and profit. Like greyhound racing, it is clear that horseracing is an industry that is predicated on overbreeding and the using and disposing of animals. That is something the Greens have consistently raised in this place. I have raised this issue in this place already in this term of Parliament, in the context of some of our racing bills.
I note that the industry’s consistent claim has been that it cares for the horses throughout their whole lives, and the official line has been that only 34 thoroughbred horses have been sent to slaughter each year. I note that these figures differ from Racing and Wagering Western Australia’s figure that about 100 thoroughbred horses were registered as being either euthanased or sent to an abattoir in 2018. It is very difficult to get a determination of how many of those horses were ultimately sent to an abattoir. The investigation undertaken by the ABC suggests that the actual number was that up to 4 000 horses a year are being sent to either abattoirs or knackeries. If that is not bad enough, we saw that the horses filmed as part of that investigation were being subjected to the most heinous acts of cruelty leading up to their untimely deaths. I felt physically ill watching that footage. I think that Australians are rightfully shocked by this, both inside and outside the industry. It is vital that these kinds of practices are exposed. The community has a right to know what kind of behaviour is underpinning the operations of the industry. The investigation managed to uncover evidence of racing horses from Victoria, South Australia, the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania being sent to an abattoir in Queensland. I note that no mention of Western Australia was made in this report.
I asked the Minister for Racing and Gaming about this issue this afternoon in question time. I note that the minister has also issued a ministerial statement, which is good—it means that concern is being exercised. As a result of the comments that have been made, the Premier previously advised that these practices are not occurring within Western Australia. I also understand—this has been reflected in the ministerial statement—that there is no system of recording exactly what happens to our horses within Western Australia after they have left racing. This means we do not have any way of knowing what is happening to our retired racehorses in WA, and this needs to be rectified as a matter of urgency. The statement recognised that horses are being exported to South Australia. I am going to remind members that some of the horses that ended up in those abattoirs were from South Australia. The minister referred to the fact that a number of unregistered private businesses process horses for pet meat, and that there is currently no way that racing authorities have any authority or visibility over this process. The minister talked about the limitations within our statutes and regulations to be able to monitor what is happening with our horses.
Having said that, the tracking of horses or, for that matter, any other welfare measures that we might want to look at imposing are not going to be effective on their own. Those measures will have to accompany a rigorous monitoring and enforcement regime. I think 7.30 did a very good job of highlighting the inadequacy of the regulatory regimes that exist within New South Wales. We know that in 2016, the New South Wales horseracing industry implemented a range of welfare measures after the cruelty in the greyhound industry was exposed. People in that industry were, for good reason, obviously desperate to avoid the sort of outrage that people had expressed towards greyhound racing, so a number of commitments were made to domicile and rehome every racehorse and to make sure that they were tracing the racehorses throughout their life cycle, similar to what happens here with greyhounds. I will have a bit more to say about that in a moment. As it turned out, it seems that the commitments that were made only three years ago were not even worth the paper they were printed on. Three years on, New South Wales still does not have a rehoming program, and the database recording horses’ movements is wildly inaccurate. In fact, the database showed horses as still racing when they had already been sent to slaughter. The head of the regulatory agency, Racing NSW, categorically denied knowledge of any racehorses being slaughtered and instead confidently said that he thought the New South Wales regulations were being followed, when clearly they were not. That raises obvious questions about the capacity of the industry to regulate itself.
Getting back to the issue of greyhounds, I note that in Western Australia we have requirements to track greyhounds across their life cycle. However, I have received anecdotal evidence that even this is not very well monitored or effective, and members will be hearing more about that from me in the future. We know that animal welfare protections should never be a secondary consideration. Most certainly, they should not just be treated as a public relations exercise. I think it is absolutely clear that there is a need to better understand what is happening to racehorses here in Western Australia. I am glad that the minister seems to have been put on notice on this issue and seems to be taking it seriously. At the very least, the industry needs to step up and make sure that it is being transparent and accountable about what is involved throughout the life cycle of animals that are bred purely for our “entertainment”. We need to know more about what is happening with the overbreeding and wastage ahead of horses racing, the injuries that are occurring to horses while they are racing and also what is happening to those horses after they have effectively been discarded.