Mimi Bekhechi, PETA Australia
A little over two years ago, a special Commission of Inquiry into the Greyhound industry found ‘damning’ evidence of the ‘unnecessary slaughtering of tens of thousands of healthy dogs’. The NSW government did the right thing and banned the industry, but subsequently backflipped, betraying the hopes of thousands of compassionate supporters.
Now the NSW government has exacerbated that betrayal by handing over millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to prop up this rotten structure. Having already promised $41 million, the government this week has offered another $32 million, a total over $70 million dollars.
Greyhounds are gentle dogs who want nothing more than to snuggle and spend time with their people and be included in their families. Instead, the racing industry treats them like machines. Many are ‘discarded’ as puppies in the name of ‘selective breeding’. Others are shot, bludgeoned to death or simply abandoned to fend for themselves when they’re deemed too old, injured, slow or exhausted to continue racing profitably.
All over the world, people no longer want to support an industry that subjects these gentle, sociable animals to a life of servitude and misery. The greyhound racing industry – like many of the dogs used in this cruel sport – is dying.
The people of NSW deserve better than to see their tax money wasted on propping up a cruel and immoral industry, and the dogs certainly deserve better than to be used and abused and then discarded like old betting slips.
