Brisbane Racing Club Chief Executive, Stephen Ferguson, was photographed speaking at a racing industry meeting last Sunday at Albion Park.

A quick head count revealed 97 people officially attended the racing industry meeting that was convened last Sunday at Albion Park by harness racing identity Bill Dixon.

The main speakers on the day from the three codes were Bill Dixon (harness racing), Stephen Ferguson, the Chief Executive of the Brisbane Racing Club (thoroughbreds) and Stephanie Houghton, former Greyhound Racing Authority, now called Greyhounds Queensland, Board Chair (greyhounds).

After these three main speakers had addressed the gathering, attendees who wished to express their views, were also given the opportunity to do that, provided they limited their address to no more than five minutes, so that everyone had a chance to speak - and to that end, quite a few attendees took the opportunity to speak at the meeting.

What I have done for readers today is I’ve reproduced what “thoroughbred” speaker Stephen Ferguson had to say. He addressed the meeting by stating the following - which is his entire speech.

“Hello, my name’s Stephen Ferguson and I’m the Chief Executive of the Brisbane Racing Club. Now you might ask what a thoroughbred bloke is doing at a do for the dog, ah, greyhound and harness people, but we are all in this together and could I say Stephanie’s (Houghton – previous speaker) concerns are our concerns 100 per cent and probably what I’d like to do first of all, just so you understand where I’m coming from, Bill Dixon’s going to distribute to you a letter, which is sort of our suggestion as to how we might be able to take things forward best to the government and Racing Queensland Limited.

Ah, as I said, look everything Stephanie (Houghton) said was spot on, and one of the difficulties you have when you look at it, (is that) I was in New South Wales when they merged the harness and greyhounds down there and I was good mates with the fellow that ended up being the CEO, so I do wonder how that (same amalgamation of codes) would work in Queensland.

Probably the most important thing in all this has been the consultation, or lack thereof it. If you look at what the Minister (of Racing) has said in parliament, Mr Lawlor, he’s only spoken to six people, so it’s quite funny if he stands up and says “oh there’s 40,000 participants in the racing game and I’ve spoken to six of them and the six of them are representatives from the companies that he put in place to run each of the codes. So the minister a few years ago wanted three companies – Queensland Racing, GRA (Greyhound Racing Authority) and the harness company to run those Boards, they used to have a Chairman and a CEO. In the case of the thoroughbreds it was Bob Bentley and Malcolm Tuttle and I’m not sure about the other codes other than I think Bob Lette might be Chairman now at harness.

So when he consulted, instead of actually going and talking to the people who he says he’s interested in protecting, which are the, you know, some 40,000 participants (some of whom are) in this room, all he did was go and talk to the blokes that he put there in the first place and none of us ever had a say in them getting there anyway, and furthermore they are the same people whose interests are protected in their longevity being secured. And the other thing is to make the observation, that ah, especially on the thoroughbred side, that five directors umh, I’d say if they didn’t have a role, some of them, ah, on Queensland Racing, they’d actually be classed as non-participants, because they don’t own a horse, they don’t race one, they, you know, I don’t know what they do.

In regards as I say, just getting back, I’m probably hopping all over the place here, but in regards to the merger of the three codes we probably should look at the example what happened to the Brisbane Turf Club and Queensland Turf Club at Doomben and Eagle Farm as a great example. Now that merger was something Stephanie (Houghton) talked about – dumping the assets, held by both those entities, into one pot. Now once they’ve been dumped in that one pot, it is going to be extremely difficult to take them out. A huge concern at the time was from the Doomben people that (there) had to be something go into their constitution that protected Doomben from ever being sold. So through about 18 months of negotiation and discussion and a hell of a lot of information going to participants, public meetings at both clubs, joint public meetings, the whole lot, we were able to address all the concerns of the members of both clubs, especially as I say that key one relating to Doomben until it came to be in the constitution, where in the end everyone voted on it and I think there was an average of 90% of the people voted in favour of it. So it’s a bit like this one (the current amalgamation of all three codes under one Board) they say okay, and this amalgamation might be the best idea, I don’t know, it could be, because the minister never properly explained it to us, but what we do know, with the new Brisbane Racing Club ultimately being a success, what we do know, is you actually sit down and you talk to people with it. You say ‘what are your concerns?’ and Stephanie (Houghton) talked about it’s the right of the codes to hold their assets in perpetuity. What that means is that instead of Bob Bentley being able to come and sell Albion Park and dump that money into Eagle Farm, that that money, say if Albion Park was to be sold, that money stays within the dogs and trots, excuse my old language, I should say harness and greyhounds to be politically correct. But there’s things like that, that you say well geez hang on, that would be pretty easy wouldn’t it, you know if we went in there and said well here’s our starting point, we all get together, that’s the first thing we do, so alright well if you own something now, that can stay in that pot. And it might be that the best way to manage this whole thing is to have a new Board run over the (indecipherable word) top of us and look at the whole State, but we’re not seeing that consultation at the moment.

My background is that I grew up in Bathurst, which is a trotting town, lived in Canberra, I used to be a racing steward and I went to thousands of race meetings around country New South Wales and I still go to one country Cup meeting every year, but I’ve seen what’s happened in that sector in the racing game. Towns like Cooma used to have eight race meetings (a year), now they’ve got one, Goulburn used to have 14 bookmakers, now they’ve got one. Most of the non-TAB clubs in Queensland, (for example) Kilcoy, Nanango and those places have had meetings chopped from them all in the name of progress, so generally what happens when you throw in small people with big people the big people win out. Like there’s five thoroughbred people and one each from the other two codes and I actually said to one of their (Queensland Racing Limited) directors, who I won’t name, ‘so what’s going to happen at the Board meeting when someone from the Ipswich greyhounds comes up and complains about the running of the 497-metre race last week’ and he just sort of laughed and said ‘that would be interesting.’ And why wouldn’t he, he’s not actually a racing bloke, the bloke I was talking to anyway, but you can soon see that they (Queensland Racing Limited Board) are going to prioritize the agenda and issues that would be big issues in a smaller code, are going to be less relevant when you take into account, you know, big issues that might be happening at Eagle Farm or Doomben.

Further to that, the people that are getting appointed to the code, and funny enough the minister knows who they are, even though he hasn’t seen the constitution, but that’s another one we can’t work out, the minister, the department, put up on the 14^th of April a thing that said well the constitution says A, B, and C. We wrote in saying have you got a copy, his office says yes he’s got a copy and we said well can you give it to us and the minister says ah no, I haven’t seen it. What he did say, when he didn’t see it, when he did see it, was that Bob Lette, for instance, talking about just the harness (industry), Bob Lette would be the person that goes forward to sit on the (new) Board. Now Bob (Lette) is not going and neither are any of the others, not picking on Bob (Lette), but none of those people there are going to represent their code’s, they are going there to represent all codes, but Bob Lette is the only person on that (new) Board that I’m aware of, that has any harness racing experience or knowledge, or interest more important. So then you say okay, look at the example of Bob, once again I’m not picking on Bob (Lette), so when Bob (Lette) retires and says ‘okay I’ve had enough I’ll get out’, how does the next person come there, how does (the) harness (racing industry) get their seat at the table? How do they know that someone at the (Board) table is looking after their interests and isn’t just a fat thoroughbred bloke wanting to, you know, sell Albion Park like they did want to sell Doomben. And how it works is that the Chairman of, there’s three people get to pick, there’s no election, none of the trainers associations, none of the breeders associations, none of the owners associations get to have any say in who goes forward. So Bob (Lette) resigns for instance and they say what happens (now) - so well three people get to chose, one of them is the Chairman of Racing Queensland Limited, whose currently, will be Bob Bentley, he’s in the constitution that the minister’s seen and hasn’t seen. Ah, the next one is a person nominated by the Australian, ah, by the Institute of Company Directors, who is an independent person and the third person will be a person appointed by the Director General of the department responsible for racing, in other words the minister, so three people have a pick to decide who goes on (the Board to replace Bob Lette), from the selection panel – Bob Bentley, the (racing) minister if its still Peter Lawlor, and someone else we don’t know. So the harness representative is no longer there, he’s retired. Why can’t we have in the constitution, which we haven’t seen, a guarantee that says if it a harness bloke that retires, a harness bloke replaces him, because they could finish up picking the bloke that runs Tip Top Bakeries or something? Some great businessman who has probably never been to the trots, hasn’t had a greyhound and might have been to Eagle Farm once on Melbourne Cup day and so at least now you know, with a, as I say especially in the smaller codes and the country (racing) sector is the same, at least you know, when you ring Harness Racing Queensland, you’re going to talk to someone who understands what you’re talking about. They’re going to understand the difference what a Class 1 is in the trots and um, ah they’re going to be able to answer all the different sort of trotting, ah harness I should say, specific questions. My theory is that when you get to (the new look) Racing Queensland Limited they are going to have one Racing Manager and you say I want to talk about a Class 1 at the trots, which is different to a Class 1 at the gallops – and no one will know what they are all talking about, so that’s something where the biggest drawback is for the smaller codes. We know that a draft constitution exists, Mike Kelly (Executive Director) from the Office of Racing has told us so, Shara Murray (Legal Compliance Counsel/Company Secretary) from Queensland Racing said she’d sent it to Mike. Shara, I asked Shara for a copy she said ‘oh when it’s approved you can write to ASIC and get it’ and it costs, I know that would cost us $49.50, so that’s the sort of the contempt that we are being treated with, with at the moment.

I haven’t much else to say. My points are that I think that at the end of this meeting I’d be suggesting that as I say at the bottom of that letter, if people are comfortable to sign it, I’ll be happy to post them (that is) that (firstly) we request the minister to provide all the participants with a copy of the draft constitution and business plans. That’s a beauty the business plans. Putting a company of seven people in charge of a four billion dollar industry with, you know, billions of dollars of assets and they haven’t got a business plan. The minister keeps telling us that he’s, ah, they’ve managed to, they are going to save all this money, well how? You know thoroughbred racing in Queensland, I’ve been here five-and-a-half years and they (Queensland Racing) haven’t put one strategic plan on the table. Since I’ve been here, New South Wales has had two. In Victoria it’s compulsory for Racing Victoria Limited to consult monthly with its industry groups, the trainers, the owners and the race clubs. What we need to know about their constitution is, is that stuff going to be there, at least (then) we can get to look at it and talk about it, we can say ‘this is what we think needs to be in it’ and (we can) go from there. We want the minister to meet with us to discuss the proposed changes. Is the minister here today (at the meeting)? Are there any of the directors from Queensland Racing here today, or Racing Queensland Limited? Are there any staff, or executives, from Racing Queensland Limited, or the Office of Racing here today? (No one raised their hand in the affirmative) Shows how much they care.

Interjector from within the ranks of the attendees, namely a former metropolitan premiership winning trainer “Is (Chair) Kerry Watson here from the greyhound industry? Interjector again ‘I asked if Kerry’s here’? ‘No’ (Kerry's not here - from Stephen Ferguson).

(Back to Stephen Ferguson speaking) I’ve been suggesting that we instruct the existing control bodies and the Board of Racing Queensland Limited to consult with us. It’s interesting that the minister said that he’s not allowed to look at the constitution until the bill goes through. What we actually, Kevin Dixon and I, the Chairman of Brisbane Racing (Club), who apologies for not being here today, we went and met with the minister and one of the specific things we raised with him was the protections for country thoroughbred racing in the constitution. What’s happened there is that in the current legislation there’s specific terms relating to country non-TAB thoroughbred racing and there’s certain protections in it. What the minister said was, so they’re no longer in the Act, they’ve been taken out – the minister said ‘they’re in the constitution’, this is the constitution he says he hasn’t seen – and then (he) accuses us of not trusting him not to change it. So, but anyway. So what he’s done is he’s said there are those protections in that in the constitution for country thoroughbred non-TAB racing. We’re saying ‘well hang on a minute, it’s much harder to change an Act of Parliament to get the legislation changed, than to change the constitution, which only requires the ministers approval. We’re saying well actually we prefer, on behalf of the country clubs, that that stayed in the Act of Parliament. Not that we don’t trust you minister, but we have got a higher level of trust if there’s all the Parliament involved in this – and he (Racing Minister) said ‘No’, so I’d be interested to know what’s (going on with) all that.

The last bit in this letter would be to say we asked the minister to not progress the bill in Parliament until all the above has been completed, so I’ll leave that with you.

Tomorrow or Thursday, on either Justracing or Brisbaneracing, what some of the other speakers on the day had to say will be placed here. The questions and answers sheets which were handed out at the meeting, that were provided to the meeting by Queensland Racing Chairman Bob Bentley, who had sent an apology for his being unable to attend – will also go up here.