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Speaker 1: Good Nigga seven after five and a huge shock for

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Speaker 1: the racing industry. The government has announced a ban on

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Speaker 1: greyhound racing this afternoon. The racing will be phased out

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Speaker 1: over the next twenty months, but they have moved quickly

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Speaker 1: from announcement to Parliament and urgent laws are being passed

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Speaker 1: right now in our Parliament and Wellington to prevent the

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Speaker 1: unnecessary killing of racing dog dogs. Winston Peters is the

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Speaker 1: Racing Minister. Minister welcome to the program. The industry says

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Speaker 1: they've been basically blindsided by this. Was that the intention, No, it.

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Speaker 2: Wasn't the intention, and they shouldn't have been blindsided given

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Speaker 2: that there have been three reviews two thousand and thirteen,

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Speaker 2: two seventeen, twenty twenty one which all pointed to the

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Speaker 2: need to act in the interest of the dogs.

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Speaker 1: How many of them are dying or being injured?

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Speaker 2: Well, the percentage is far too high. It's about sixtyen

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Speaker 2: and a half percent higher than would be any acceptable rate.

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Speaker 2: And those are the most recent findings comparative over the

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Speaker 2: last few years. And as a consequence, we've had to

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Speaker 2: do the responsible and the right thing.

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Speaker 1: How does that compare to say, horse racing.

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Speaker 2: Well, they're totally different animals, that's the point, and you

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Speaker 2: know they're not the same. There are injuries always in

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Speaker 2: all sorts of racing, so to speak, as there will

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Speaker 2: be in any leisurely or recreational use of animals in

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Speaker 2: that context. But these levels of injury and things going wrong,

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Speaker 2: we're just too high, too unacceptable. And the hands in

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Speaker 2: report in particular, that's spelled out what had to be

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Speaker 2: done and that wasn't done.

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Speaker 1: So just to be clear that the death and injury

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Speaker 1: rates in greyhounds is higher, much higher than it is

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Speaker 1: for horse racing.

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Speaker 2: It is in this context, so they're different animals entirely.

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Speaker 2: But we also had animals being unaccounted for paperwork not

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Speaker 2: being done and we were alluded to that and we

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Speaker 2: asked that this will be fixed up. And there were

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Speaker 2: just too many things that weren't done properly.

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Speaker 1: And a half percent of economic output for the racing

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Speaker 1: industry generally. Do you know what that is in dollar terms?

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Speaker 1: What it's going to cost.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's about one fifty million, but that'll be spread

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Speaker 2: over the rest of the industry over the next ten years,

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Speaker 2: where we hope to be bringing more than a billion

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Speaker 2: dollar sixtra into the racing industry. And don't forget, when

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Speaker 2: we're talking about dogs, we're talking about serious injuries here

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Speaker 2: some days, so that they've got to be put down.

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Speaker 2: And that sort of record was just too high.

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Speaker 1: When you talk about the money, what about the people,

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Speaker 1: the thousand people who are employed in this area.

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Speaker 2: Well, don't forget, that's about three per dog, so one

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Speaker 2: per three dogs, and as a consequence, many of those

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Speaker 2: are casuals. But we've given them twenty months who reposition themselves.

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Speaker 2: The rest of the season will continue. Then one last

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Speaker 2: season mid twenty five to twenty six to the middle

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Speaker 2: twenty six and it'll be over and they'll have time

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Speaker 2: to relocate. Two new forms have been work and including

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Speaker 2: some of the existing industry embracing that still survives.

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Speaker 1: You've announced this and your rushing legislation through the House

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Speaker 1: this afternoon very quickly. Why is that to.

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Speaker 2: Ensure that dogs are not euthanized by people at home

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Speaker 2: and they're going to be required to do that by

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Speaker 2: BET in the future. All the safety messages who the

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Speaker 2: dog's welfare has looked after and we've got one hundred

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Speaker 2: and twenty two verts in Parliament Cross pays bought for

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Speaker 2: that to happen.

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Speaker 1: Is your confidence in this industry so low that you

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Speaker 1: don't trust them even if you left it a week

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Speaker 1: that they wouldn't euthanize their own dogs at home.

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Speaker 2: There are, of course people you can trust, and then

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Speaker 2: there are some people that don't want on trust. That's

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Speaker 2: the record, and our job is to ensure that the

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Speaker 2: over or welfare of the industry is treated as a collective,

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Speaker 2: not just in individual cases.

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Speaker 1: Minister, thank you very much, you try and really appreciate it.

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Speaker 1: That's Winston Peters, the Racing Minister. For more from Hither

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Speaker 1: Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to news talks it'd be

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Speaker 1: from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio

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Speaker 1: out