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Tasmania’s commitment to stop subsidising greyhound racing raises questions as to the real value of an industry that draws tens of millions of dollars in public funding across the country each year. By Hannah Bambra.
Tasmania’s greyhound racing pledge sparks national debate
This month Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff, in a bid to shore up his minority government, pledged to stop funding greyhound racing in his state by 2029, citing concerns about animal welfare and harms from gambling.
The move follows a report issued by economist Saul Eslake, who is an adviser to the federal Parliamentary Budget Office, on the financing of greyhound racing in Tasmania. While the industry claims to make a significant economic contribution to the state, Eslake found it actually contributes just 0.2 per cent of gross state product and employment.
Official inquiries have raised similar questions about the economic benefits of the sport in other Australian states and territories. This month, a new policy costing by the Parliamentary Budget Office showed that Victoria could save $50 million annually over the next 10 years if it also phased out greyhound racing.
The racing lobby’s estimates of the financial returns in states and territories across the country are “egregiously exaggerated”, Eslake tells The Saturday Paper.
“The racing industry hires a consultancy called IER who go around for each state at five-yearly intervals … purporting to show the enormous contribution that the three brands of racing – thoroughbred, harness and dog racing – contribute to the economy, especially in rural and regional areas.
“They appear to make stuff up to exaggerate the benefits,” he says. “Greyhound racing is only about gambling.”
Victoria is the only Australian state that has formally estimated the social costs of gambling harm, taking into account factors such as financial losses, relationship breakdowns, mental health issues, suicides, domestic violence, lost productivity and legal costs when people go bankrupt. While the state received about $2.5 billion in gaming-related tax revenue in the 2022/23 financial year, the estimated social cost of gambling harm in Victoria was about $14.1 billion in the same period.
Nevertheless, the Victorian budget in 2025 again earmarked about $13.5 million to back the horseracing industry and in March this year the Allan government made a $4 million investment to upgrade the greyhound racing track in Cranbourne. The state has committed $72 million to the racing industry over four years.
Meanwhile, to shore up Victoria’s ailing budget, millions have been cut from programs focused on youth crime prevention, gender equity in sport and homelessness services. Victoria has among the worst-paid teachers and nurses in Australia.
“The Victorian government is cutting essential and life-saving services to Victorians while lining the pockets of racing industries,” says Georgie Purcell, member of the Animal Justice Party and representative for Northern Victoria in the legislative council. “No government should be funding the continuation of any industry built on a business model of animal cruelty and gambling harm.”
Greyhound industry data shows more than 10,000 injuries – broken legs, head trauma, spinal injuries – and at least 300 track-related deaths occur nationally each year, though welfare groups say the numbers are likely under-reported.
Purcell says a further $3 million in emergency funding for the Victorian greyhound racing industry came at a time when the sport was killing and injuring more dogs than ever, and as the state’s greyhound adoption service had its lowest rehoming figures in three years.
In Queensland, a report released this month showed fewer than half of the state’s domestic family violence calls are picked up by its under-funded helpline. Meanwhile, the government supports greyhound racing through major infrastructure investments, including $44 million on The Q racing facility in Ipswich and a $4 million track conversion in Bundaberg, and $9 million in prize money, meaning public money is effectively subsidising gambling losses.
Australians collectively lose about $31.5 billion a year to legal forms of gambling – the highest per capita rate in the world. The Australian Alliance for Gambling Reform (AGR) says gambling losses are estimated to be $3045 a household per year – more than the average amount spent on electricity and gas bills.
The majority of gambling in Australia is increasingly done online and through apps such as Sportsbet or Ladbrokes, which have boosted their advertising during family-friendly sports matches and used imagery of colourful racing events to glamorise “having a punt”.
In April, research from The Australia Institute showed that Australian teenagers are now more likely to gamble than they are to play any of Australia’s most popular sports. One in three 12- to 17-year-olds were found to have participated in gambling activities.
The Commonwealth government has taken little action on the recommendations in the June 2023 report “You Win Some, You Lose More”, from the committee chaired by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy. Among the recommendations were calls for stricter limits on advertising and a national regulator for gambling.
“Australia has been marinated in a culture of gambling,” says AGR chief executive Martin Thomas, who criticises Australia’s weak regulation of the industry. “Government funding legitimises it when they should be looking to protect their citizens.
“If we look at what we need – housing, hospitals, teachers, nurses – it is appalling that we are pouring money into something that is socially destructive.”
Greyhound racing was banned in the ACT in 2018, the only state or territory in Australia to do so, after a failed attempt in New South Wales in 2016. NSW Premier Chris Minns has downplayed the prospects of a ban despite ordering an inquiry following damning findings from a report into the dogs’ welfare last year.
The report by former Greyhound Racing NSW (GRNSW) chief veterinary officer Alex Brittan outlined serious allegations of animal welfare issues, including unreported dog deaths and misleading rehoming figures. That report was withdrawn under parliamentary privilege, after which the NSW government appointed acting commissioner Lea Drake to lead a new independent inquiry.
The Drake report had its deadline extended twice and no formal actions have been publicly implemented since its release. The inquiry’s mandates include oversight of GRNSW’s financial management, governance, operations and animal welfare concerns – but no clear focus on gambling in pubs, clubs or broader harm minimisation strategies.
A study commissioned by GRNSW stated that the industry generated “more than $809 million in value-added contribution to the NSW economy” in 2022/23.
Greyhound racing is outlawed in 44 states in America and will be phased out in New Zealand by July next year.
The Animal Justice Party is calling for a complete end to greyhound racing in Australia. “No amount of reform will ever make it safe or acceptable,” says Purcell. “However, as long as it does exist, we continue to advocate for meaningful retirement plans for ex-racing dogs, a redirection of government funding into community rescue groups, a breeding cap to end the overbreeding crisis and an end to taxpayer subsidies.”
Hundreds of dogs will need to be homed in the next three years in Tasmania, putting pressure on rescue groups and adoption services already struggling with limited resources.
Eslake says Tasmania’s Liberal leader is proposing a ban “because of changed political circumstances, not because he’s had a road-to-Damascus-like conversion on animal welfare”.
Public sentiment signals fatigue for the current Tasmanian government, as demonstrated by the return of a hung parliament following the July election. However, the opposition under former leader Dean Winter voiced strong support for the greyhound racing industry, and new Labor leader Josh Willie has made no definitive statement on the issue since he took over last week.
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on August 30, 2025 as "Gone to the dogs".
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