G'day Tony,
It bothers me greatly that over the years Harness Racing here in NSW has periodically suffered as a result of it being used as a political football.
Up until the current Board of HRNSW it has virtually always been a bit of a Jobs for the Boys routine to varying degrees. IMO the GHRRA Board were by both word & deed...shall I use the term 'politically sympathetic'?...to the Labor Government of the day and I sincerely hope the incoming Board of HRNSW, whomever they may turn out to be, are sympathetic only to the wants, needs and desires of the NSW Harness Racing Industry and NOBODY ELSE.
The very fact that their applications are being collected & vetted by OLGR does not fill me with any great hope for an independence of Government however.
IMO it's akin to claiming that a Chicken is Free Range...when in fact it is simply living in a large cage.
On a related note, you can guarentee that various levels of desk pilot within the Department of Gaming & Racing have used the recent upheavals within the Industry to fend off Premier O'Farrell's widely foreshadowed reductions to the NSW Public Service, instead using it as an exucse to butress their numbers and perhaps even increasing them. It's all about empire building and has little or nothing to do with the longer term well-being of the Harness Racing Industry.
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