Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have previously spoken in this place about my support for a joint local campaign in my electorate of Swan between Greyhounds WA, stakeholders and the community to gain appropriate funding and a lease agreement to keep their racing track at its iconic Cannington location. I am pleased to update the House about this campaign, which recently came to fruition when the Western Australian state government, via Racing and Wagering WA, answered their call for an additional $13 million in funding. I have worked with Greyhounds WA, Racing and Wagering WA and the Western Australian Greyhound Racing Association since 2008 to keep greyhound racing in Cannington.

At this time I made representations to the Western Australian Premier and the minister for sport to prevent greyhound racing being moved to a single venue in Mandurah, and to secure a new 30-year lease agreement with the landowners—the Canning Agricultural, Horticultural and Recreational Society—at the site of the old trotting training track behind the existing course. If the greyhounds had been moved to Mandurah, many thought that it would have seen the death of the greyhound industry in Western Australia. Despite the lease agreement being signed in July last year and $13 million in funding being granted by RWWA and WAGRA for the stage 1 works for the new facility, uncertainty had surrounded the track's future, with funding for stage 2 works unable to secured. That would have spelled disaster but now we have the Western Australian state Liberal government giving the further $13 million required—and I congratulate them on their decision.