‘There were definitely conversations as to why I shouldn’t appear at this inquiry’
Explosive claims as parliamentary inquiry into sale of Rosehill gets underway
Champion trainer Gai Waterhouse and her Randwick-based Group 1-winning peer John O’Shea have explosively claimed they were pressured not to appear before the Upper House Committee inquiring into the proposed sale of the Sydney racecourse Rosehill.
The pair have been strongly opposed to the Australian Turf Club’s (ATC) unsolicited proposal to redevelop Rosehill into housing prior to Monday’s opening of three sessions before the ten-person bipartisan panel.
During the day-long opening of three planned sessions, the governance of the state’s industry regulator Racing NSW was continually questioned by a number of witnesses who appeared before the committee which was chaired by shadow planning minister Scott Farlow.
During the public hearings, Waterhouse and O’Shea doubled-down on their objections to the proposal and criticised administrators for continuing to push for the sale of Rosehill, which could be sold for upwards of $5 billion and redeveloped into housing and a metro train station.
It was during questioning from the panel that O’Shea extraordinarily revealed they had come under pressure from individuals to not put forward submissions or appear on Monday.
O’Shea, however, would not speculate on their identities or from what organisations they may work for.
“Well, from where those people, their origins, is speculatory because there would be no confirmation that wasn’t alluded to me as to where they came from,” O’Shea said.
“But there [were] definitely conversations … as to why I shouldn’t appear at this inquiry.”
Waterhouse and O’Shea also claimed other witnesses had also received calls not to appear before the committee.
Waterhouse said: “Well, I’m here because I was asked to come and I’m very pleased to be here to state the case of the licensed people and the members. But I think there are others that may have had pressure on them.”
It is unclear whether other witnesses have bowed to alleged pressure not to appear before the inquiry.
In response to the dramatic revelations, Latham said: “Chair, can I suggest that it’s been put to the committee, there’s a very serious breach of parliamentary privilege here. It’s a very serious matter to urge someone not to appear at a parliamentary committee. It’s more serious than urging someone not to appear in a court of law.”
The chair agreed to take the hearing into a deliberative state once O’Shea and Waterhouse had completed their session.
In her opening statement, Waterhouse absolved ATC board members Caroline Searcy and vice-chair Tim Hale from their involvement in the body’s push to sell Rosehill. She said the pair had “behaved more than fairly having members’ interests at heart”.
“Because much of what is received by the clubs from Racing NSW is by way of a loan, consequently Racing NSW has effective control over the clubs,” Waterhouse said before the committee.
“The Australian Turf Club is broke, owing Racing NSW, I believe, over $200 million, hence the need to sell Rosehill.”
There were multiple claims made by witnesses on Monday that NSW race clubs had been financially crippled by the fact that the bulk of wagering revenue was now received by Racing NSW rather than the clubs as had been the case prior to the rise of corporate bookmakers.
The trainer of 29 Group 1 winners, O’Shea would not be drawn on the almost 20-year tenure of powerful Racing NSW chief executive Peter V’landys after questioning from animal justice party MP Emma Hurst.
“No, I’m not here to discuss the tenure of the CEO of Racing New South Wales. I’m here to discuss a proposal at Rosehill,” he said.
Hall Of Fame inductee Waterhouse, though, called for new leadership at the state’s peak racing body.
“I think there’s time for change and we wouldn’t be here today if there wasn’t because things aren’t right in the state of Denmark,” Waterhouse said.
“That’s your problem. There are things that are very, very wrong here and we have to, well you have to address them.
“That’s why we’re here today.”
David Hall, chairman of the then-Australian Jockey Club from 2005 to 2007 and a current racehorse owner, also referenced the alleged role of Racing NSW in the decline of the ATC’s financial fortunes and he suggested that the governing body’s level of “accountability and transparency” was “appalling” during his morning stint as a witness before the panel.
“It certainly doesn’t comply with ASX standards of presentation and detail, nor general accounting standards and annual report and governance,” Hall said, before later expanding on the machinations of Racing NSW.
“I think the big thing about it is Racing NSW has now deprived the clubs of all authority and basically any decision-making of any serious consequence, certainly in relation to major policy, even down to the naming of races, has to be submitted for approval.
“The former STC [Sydney Turf Club] chair, Ralph Lucas, shortly after the release of this announcement, made the comment that Rosehill should never be sold.
“If any track had to be provided for as a contribution to housing, it should be Canterbury.”
NSW Racehorse Owners’ Association director Darren McConnell also fronted the committee. In questioning McConnell, who became a director in 2022, Latham alleged that Racing NSW withdrew $50,000 funding in 2020 “to teach them a lesson”.
McConnell, under questioning from Hurst, later said the owners’ body has and would continue to have its awards ceremonies with or without Racing NSW funding.
Western Sydney Leadership Dialogue chief executive Adam Leto and executive director of Business Western Sydney and former state Labor MP David Borger, who both admitted under questioning to receiving funding from the ATC of about $30,000 and $18,000 respectively, as well as chief economist for the Centre For Independent Studies, Dr Peter Tulip, appeared before the panel in the afternoon session.
Thoroughbred Breeders NSW (TBNSW) president Hamish Esplin, the second-last witness to appear before the bipartisan panel on Monday, also voiced his frustration at the operations of Racing NSW.
TBNSW does not specifically hold a view about whether Rosehill should be sold, but Esplin said the board questions how the money would be spent from a “once-in-a-generation” proposition.
“Racing NSW has a huge effect downstream for a massive amount of people involved in the industry,” Esplin told the hearing.
“Throughout this process we have become largely disillusioned with how the decisions were made and the people that were making those decisions as a broad group.”
Esplin added: “We don’t say it’s our position to dictate the policy of moving racetracks or creating new racetracks, save for that it is extremely expensive to build new racetracks.
“And we wouldn’t want money that’s returned to the industry to be misspent in any sense. If that means you’re spending money on upgrading racetracks that are hardly used at the moment in terms of metropolitan racing like Warwick Farm and Canterbury, then, no, we don’t think it should be spent that way.”
Earlier in proceedings, O’Shea said keeping Rosehill, the geographical centre of Sydney, was pivotal to securing the long-term future of the industry, which is currently experiencing a decline in wagering revenue.
“Racetracks have always been a reflection of their communities, right? And that’s why there’s a racetrack in every small town in Australia,” he said.
“But what’s happened with Rosehill is because of the amalgamation of the clubs, there’s no connection between the Parramatta community and Rosehill itself.
“We need to get back to what Gai’s been discussing and what we’ve traditionally always done was engaging our communities.
“At the moment, we’ve just got this massive big funding model for big days and we’re forgetting they are grassroots. And if we don’t start to reinvest in our infrastructure and engage our communities, we will decline.”
Waterhouse, O’Shea and Hall all cited the sale of Sydney city trotting venue Harold Park, which received members’ vote of approval in 2008, as one of the reasons for the declining interest in the sport of harness racing.
The Victorian harness racing industry’s shift from inner Melbourne’s Moonee Valley to Melton was also referenced.
Waterhouse said: “As it happened in Menangle, when they moved it to another area they didn’t have the followers and it’s been a disaster.
“They had a vibrant trotting industry and site in Harold Park and when they moved it, gone.”
O’Shea and Waterhouse agreed that Warwick Farm was not suitable to host Group 1 races even if it was upgraded with monies raised from the sale of Rosehill while the brickpit site at Homebush, floated as a site for a new Sydney racecourse, was was branded as a “myth” by Hall and O’Shea called the plan as “bordering on preposterous”.
Elio Celotto, the campaign director for anti-racing body, the Coalition For Protection of Racehorses, was the final witness who said Racing NSW was the most difficult Principal Racing Authority to deal with in Australia.
Celotto used his time in front of the panel to once again outline the Coalition For Protection of Racehorses’ opposition to the use of the whip.
The next Legislative Council hearing will be on August 9 with the third one scheduled for September 12.
Rowe-View Analysis
By Tim Rowe
It was supposed to be about the potential $5 billion sale of Rosehill, one of Sydney’s premier racetracks, and the government and the Australian Turf Club’s involvement in an, up to now, clouded process.
But soon after 10am on day one of the Upper House inquiry at Parliament House it became clear that its scope was going to be much wider than just about a possible redevelopment of Rosehill.
For many members on the bipartisan committee – and some of the witnesses called – it was about the governance or lack thereof of racing in the state going back many years.
Racing NSW and its polarising chief executive Peter V’landys, who has ruled the sport of thoroughbred racing for almost two decades, were squarely the principal targets.
Allegations of undue pressure placed on trainers, including first-up witnesses Gai Waterhouse and John O’Shea, to not appear before the Upper House committee were levelled and undertones of reprisals for those within racing who dared to question Racing NSW or V’landys were put on the public record by members of the committee, particularly Animal Justice Party MP Emma Hurst.
All witnesses had questions put to them either about their relationship or their opinion of V’landys’ management style with his length of tenure also queried.
A suggestion that the government could compulsorily acquire Rosehill for housing was put to three Western Sydney advocates in the early afternoon session.
The trio said they opposed compulsory acquisition, including Dr Peter Tulip, the chief economist for the Centre For Independent Studies, who then almost without drawing breath suggested that Rosehill should be rezoned so that it can be taxed at its $5 billion valuation.
That would be a tax of at least $80 million a year and, as Tulip indicated, such a figure would force the ATC to sell Rosehill in any case.
Thoroughbred Breeders NSW president Hamish Esplin publicly outlined the breeders’ frustration in being unable to break an impasse on the Pattern and the future of black-type racing in NSW and Australia more generally.
He was then asked about his relationship with V’landys where he revealed a recent email exchange between the pair.
“I’ve communicated with him once about black–type. I’ve communicated [and] we exchanged emails a month or so ago about an issue arising about the … late registration of foals. I felt Peter didn’t handle it particularly well, in my opinion,” Esplin told the committee.
“We need to look into it, but it was really [suggested that I was] in terms of me personally being antagonistic and someone who doesn’t like racing in NSW.
“So, I took umbrage at that.”
There were eye-watering revelations from start to finish as the Upper House politicians of all persuasions probed and, at times, pestered the witnesses for answers.
Even the veracity of Elio Celotto’s evidence made late in the day on behalf of the Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses was questioned.
He produced a whip to illustrate his point about the “cruelty” of the persuader used by jockeys in races.
Celotto says he bought it in Melbourne some years ago and he stated that the whip has never been used on a horse. MP Mark Latham said the whip could be 20 years old while Nationals MLC Wes Fang wondered aloud about the wear and tear of the unused whip.
It was then revealed, by Celotto himself, that he keeps the whip in Sydney with a friend because he can’t take one on a plane.
“What are they using it for?” where the raucous cries from some members of the panel in querying why the instrument had so obviously frayed. Celotto has taken a question on notice as to when he did in fact buy the now infamous whip.
The closing remarks illustrated that Monday’s hearing really did have it all.
And those witnesses who appeared on day one may not have even taken the shine off the new ball with two more hearing days still to go.
Premier Chris Minns, V’landys and the ATC board and executive may yet be called before the committee where they are sure to be peppered with a barrage of searing verbal bouncers delivered by the panel, particularly ardent racing fan, owner and breeder Mark Latham.
It’ll be worth watching, particularly if V’landys is sent out to bat on either August 9 or September 12 to witness just how good his hook shot is.