It is hard to tell what is going on behind the scenes with the ACT TAB. No doubt the racing industry is hoping that the public face of the NSW and ACT negotiations on setting up a new TAB link does not reflect the underlying reality.
In the face of the VITAB fiasco and Victoria giving notice that it will end the ACT’s link with its super-pool, ACTTAB stands to lose a great deal. Medium and large punters will avoid ACTTAB unless it is linked to a major state pool. On its own, the ACT pool is not enough to sustain reasonable odds on many small races. The input of a single medium or large punter could be enough to distort the pool on a given race. The result is erratic returns, often lower than those interstate. With 008 telephone numbers it means the ACT will lose customers.
The ACT now asked NSW to establish a link. NSW has rightly demanded that the ACT sever its arrangement with VITAB which presented the possibility that Australian customers would be wooed off-shore.
However, the NSW Minister for Sport, Chris Downy, has issued a couple of provocative statements saying things like “”NSW TAB door stays shut”. Let us hope that this is the mere extraction of the maximum political mileage for his ACT Liberal colleagues rather than a considered statement of government policy.
The ACT Minister for Sport, David Lamont, has suggested that not only can the ACT TAB go it alone, but it could undercut the other states to attract greater market share and thus still maintain government revenue. That would be courageous, but ill-advised. He also threatened to withdraw the $100,000 grant from the ACT to regional race clubs from bookies’ turnover tax. Let us hope these puffs are merely putting on a brave face while being held over a very uncomfortable barrel.
To his credit, Mr Lamont has done his best to glue together the post-VITAB shattered bits of the ACT TAB, and appears to be working towards a viable long-term solution.
Over the years the ACT and surrounding NSW race clubs have built up reasonable co-operative arrangements with each other and with all TABs. It has not all been plain sailing, but in general the racing industry in the region has been (pre-VITAB) a stable job and recreation provider and tourist attracter. Cutting the ACT adrift cannot be in the interests of NSW, and risky schemes of the ACT taking on the other TABs will do the ACT no good.
The ACT Opposition acted properly, with some diligence and in the public interest in exposing the VITAB folly which if continued would probably have cost the Australian racing industry dearly, and the Government has done its penance with the demise of Wayne Berry.
But to allow the issue to fester politically will not help the industry and punters in either NSW or the ACT. It is now time for Mr Lamont and Mr Downy to put politics aside and come up with a workable linking arrangement between NSW and the ACT before the arrangement with Victoria expires on July 31.