Retired New South Wales greyhounds will continue to be rehomed overseas despite an independent review of the racing industry finding the practice is “distressing and sometimes fatal”.
The state government has also rejected a recommendation to suspend the sport if the operator, Greyhound Racing NSW (GRNSW), fails to determine new race track standards by the year’s end.
Lea Drake has called for a sweeping restructure of the sport after leading a year-long inquiry, which was prompted by a GRNSW employee’s 2024 warning the industry had become an “unsustainable morass of exploitation and suffering”.
Releasing the report on Tuesday, the NSW government announced it would require heightened oversight, but stopped short of committing to key recommendations.
Six greyhounds have died either in transport or during preparation to travel to the United States under a rehoming program opened in 2023, Drake wrote.
Three of the dogs were found dead in their crates upon arrival in the US, with the inquiry hearing evidence their deaths had been caused by stress or heat exposure during long-haul flights.
Another dog was euthanised at Sydney airport after being found with a spine fracture after an escape from a transport van. Former GRNSW chief veterinarian Alex Brittan attributed the death to an accidental collision with a fence, saying the van’s kennel would have resembled a starter’s box to the animal.
In her report, Drake called for an end to the practice “as there can be no meaningful oversight of exported greyhounds, [and] it is distressing and sometimes fatal for the dogs”.
The government will only require GRNSW to prioritise domestic rehoming programs “where possible” under a new operating licence to be granted next year.
On Tuesday, the NSW minister for racing, David Harris, said oversight of greyhounds sent overseas would be an “operational issue” for GRNSW.
Emma Hurst, a NSW upper house MP with the Animal Justice party, said the government’s response fell “short of the desperate need to end the greyhound racing industry”.
The chief executive of GRNSW, Steve Griffin, said on Tuesday that “the government has got the response correct”.
He said the dogs that died during the US rehoming program represented just 0.4% of the 1,400 animals rehomed under the scheme.
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The report said this was still 10 times higher than GRNSW’s target for fatal injuries during races, which is less than one dog in every thousand.
The government will also require greater oversight by GRNSW of greyhound rehoming programs and reporting on greyhound deaths from unknown causes. It did not commit to a cap on the number of greyhound births, urged by Drake to ensure dogs “do not live out their lives after racing in kennels”.
The report said the number of births was effectively unregulated and had stayed stable at about 3,800 a year since 2016, when the industry faced the threat of a ban under then premier Mike Baird that was reneged on after industry backlash.
It found many greyhounds were spending long periods in kennelling, while poor tracking of retired dogs may have not identified cases where people adopted but then euthanised greyhounds.
The report also accused GRNSW of poor personnel management and “high and wasteful” expenditure and found it had failed to bring racetracks up to the standards it set.
No NSW race track has ever complied with the state’s minimum standards since GRNSW set them in 2020.
On average, at least one dog has died and 300 have been injured in races in NSW each month this year, according to statistics from regulator the Greyhound Welfare & Integrity Commission (GWIC).
Drake’s report, handed to the government in August, recommended new track standards be set by the end of this year and implemented by the end of 2026, calling for the suspension of the sport if either of these deadlines is not achieved.
Harris would not commit to this suspension timeline on Tuesday, saying the government would continue to work with the industry.
“We will then make a decision in 12 months’ time about how many tracks are meeting those standards, and then obviously, we’ll look at those issues moving forward,” he said.
Griffin said the review’s timelines for implementing minimum track standards were not achievable.
The 722-page report’s 65 recommendations follow the inquiry’s more than 1,600 public submissions and more than 80,000 documents, as well as 31 days of hearings between September 2024 and February last year.
The review recommended much greater oversight by regulator GWIC and giving it “full responsibility” for welfare issues contained in the review.
The government has also not committed to another recommendation of the review – a new statutory greyhound racing industry inspector to oversee both GRNSW and regulator Greyhound Welfare & Integrity Commission (GWIC).
The Minns government released the report on the day it announced its plan to demolish and redevelop the site of the greyhound racing track at Wentworth Park in Glebe into green space, to support more than 7,000 homes in the area.
The decision could see greyhound racing relegated to regional NSW, but the premier, Chris Minns, said on Tuesday the government wanted to “keep the industry going”.
This month, a ban on the sport in Tasmania passed the state’s lower house. In August, the Victorian government has said it has no plans to end greyhound racing after an independent analysis found the move could save the state almost $500m over 10 years.
