Caulfield Racecourse: training facility
Hon. M. P. PAKULA (Western Metropolitan)
Tomorrow night Black Caviar runs at Moonee Valley in what might be the last race she will ever run in Victoria.
Earlier this week she would have had a very early morning hit -out at Caulfield where she is trained, but this morning it was revealed that the Liberal – controlled Glen Eira City Council has released a position paper expressing support for the closure of the training facility at Caulfield.
That is an act of extraordinary bad faith by the council given that in April 2011 the club a and council entered into an agreement. The agreement involved the club spending some $2 million; it involved the club making the infield of the course available for public use 352 days out of 365. It involved the club installing toilets, barbecues, a children’s play area, parking, change rooms and a boardwalk.
It included an acknowledgement that training would continue at Caulfield in the medium term and would only move under certain preconditions, including another facility being located and the agreement of the racing industry.
That agreement was promoted in a joint media release in April 2011. That media release included comments by the member for Caulfield in the Assembly, Mr Southwick.Now his allies on the council, including councillors Esakoff, Hyams and Lipshutz, who are the council nominees as trustees, are seeking to tear up that agreement.
The council is acting in bad faith.
The Premier, who is also the Minister for Racing, should tell the member for Caulfield to have a chat to his local numbers men and women and tell them to pull their heads in.
Glen Eira Debates 
March 21, 2013 at 10:35 PM
What a total f***wit. Sticking the boots into Southwick and the libs is worth more than governance and seeing that people get some justice. They’re all a pack of useless bastards.
March 21, 2013 at 11:17 PM
He’s just ensured he gets his freebies from the MRC like all of them do.
March 22, 2013 at 7:11 AM
The ALP has stacked the Government appointed trustees. Look up the list. Past ALP national president etc. They are leaning on Pakula. Given that fact that they just shoehorned him into a safe lower house seat he owes them. Pakula failed to mention that there Lobo, Magee and Delahunty are all ALP members and they supported the motion. l. Wilfull blindness.
March 22, 2013 at 9:26 AM
Aint it amazing that the Labor Shadow Minister for Gaming and Racing can get up and make such astonishing and unfounded statements in Parliament.
Hard to say which statement I am more appalled by
. the extraordinary act of bad faith has been going on for years and is firmly the result of the State Government (regardless of it being Lib or Labor), the Council and the MRC for their blatant disregard of the “public park” and “public recreation area” purposes (2 of the 3 purposes for establishing the Racecourse Reserve – the thrid being racecourse). The fact that the MRC has spent a paltry $2m ensuring the racecourse centre is entirely suited to their needs before considering any public park aspect is the result of the C60 development which is estimated will net the MRC a cool half billion profit.
. the fact that a member of parliament, uses parliamentary priviledge, to try to influence a local Council when his own party (and the Liberals) have policies supporting the role of local Councils as being representatives of the local residents working to solve local issues together in a bipartisan manner. A reason why neither the Liberal or Labor party endorse candidates in local government electons.
. the removal of training is an issue which rears its ugly head on a regular basis – the MRC coninually makes promises (the last being the 2009 Joint Comminque by Council and the MRC promising to remove training within 10 years) which it has not intention of keeping. The reason the MRC does this is simple economics – Crown Land is cheaper than their own land and “false promises” are a cheap means of temporarily appeasing. The various governing bodies encourage this reprehensible behaviour by continually allowing the MRC to create more and more training tracks that eat into the centre of the racecourse.
March 22, 2013 at 9:58 AM
fed up on your last point I posted the following elsewhere
does anyone know why racing sold Epsom? was it because they could train on crown land for basically nothing?
see http://localhistory.kingston.vic.gov.au/htm/article/60.htm
The closure of the Epsom Training Track is the final chapter in the long and rewarding history the racing industry had maintained within Melbourne’s southern bayside communities. The 104 acres of land that the course was situated on is to be redeveloped. The VRC made the decision to close the complex as they considered the cost of training there was more expensive than at other venues in Victoria. The trainers at Epsom, of whom there were over 40 in 1997, argued that Epsom was the best training facility in Victoria and that to relocate trainers and their families would jeopardise, not only the livelihood of the trainers, but also subsidiary industries associated with racing.
March 22, 2013 at 10:42 PM
The money from Epsom went into huge improvements at Flemington. New grandstand and a new all weather track. It is one of the best in the world.
March 22, 2013 at 10:17 AM
This merely shows that when you are big enough and powerful enough all principles are forgotten. The media has a lot to answer for – statewide and nationally. Recent headlines are a case in point.
March 22, 2013 at 10:55 AM
This Council is threatening the jobs of hundreds of our constituents who are involved in horse training in Caulfield. Sack this Council.
March 22, 2013 at 11:10 AM
Rubbish! It’s easy to claim jobs for “hundreds of our constituents” without showing the figures. I wouldn’t think that any of the trainers live in Glen Eira nor too many of their handlers. Relocating the facility doesn’t mean that people lose their jobs. It means that they work somewhere else. They keep their jobs.
Your last point on sacking the council I’d have to agree with, but definitely not because of this kerfuffle.
March 22, 2013 at 11:19 AM
Yes it is all words… Parlaimentarians still receive passes to go to wherever they wish at racing functions and so do any councillors for thta matter so as they cannot vote against MRC ideals. The MRC had a gross income of about $300 million before their poor company Pagasus came to own around 800 poker machines and 12 hotels and worth $50 Million and they were able to throw people of Vic about $2m they said biut probably most of that was for the fences we wouldn’t have wanted anyway,
And GUESS WHAT STILLL THE GATES ARE CLOSED WHEN IT HAS BEEN PROMISED THEY ARE TO BE OPEN.
WE NEED A ROYAL COMMISSION WITH MORE TEETH THAN THE LANDS ENQUIRY HAD!!!! What’s the use of words and paper all the time??????
March 22, 2013 at 11:57 AM
This is a test for Hyams in how strongly he’s going to defend the council position or will he only dump on labor and forget all about his lib mates and their role in all this. I’m waiting for some real good weasel words and the libs getting onto him and the rest of the gang.
March 22, 2013 at 4:27 PM
Area locked again today and the sign saying no ball games or bicycles ppermitted to enter but a big sign saying how good the new facility will be for us. What’s the good if it’s chained and electronically locked up?
Of course noone will be able to use it… unless they climb the gates.
March 22, 2013 at 5:23 PM
If what Pakula said about the agreement between the MRC and council is correct then he is on the money here.
March 23, 2013 at 10:01 PM
There is little honourable about Martin Pakula if his statement in Hansard is what we have to go by. Now personally I don’t believe politicians when they open their mouths. Their soundbites are not intended to be examined carefully, but to sound plausible and influence the less well-informed members of the wider public.
Martin has claimed under parliamentary privilege that Glen Eira Council has acted in bad faith for…ummmm…stating publicly it wants to see training eventually removed from Caulfield Racecourse. Here’s two definitions of bad faith, just so that people can get an idea of what Martin is accusing Council of.
1. “Intentional dishonest act by not fulfilling legal or contractual obligations, misleading another, entering into an agreement without the intention or means to fulfil it”
2. “The fraudulent deception of another person; the intentional or malicious refusal to perform some duty or contractual obligation”
So what element of the Agreement has Council broken, or not fulfilled, or has no intention of fulfilling, or has maliciously refused to do? As many of us here know, almost all of the contractual obligations in the Agreement apply to the MRC, and the MRC has failed to fulfil most of them. These include the hours of access through all of the access points and the surface path from Glen Huntly Park. There isn’t prominently displayed signage from Station St. The existing fencing has not been replaced with pallisade or similar permeable fencing within 1 year of the Agreement at the corner of Queens Ave and Neerim Rd or the other 3 locations listed. There is no “new park” adjacent to the Glen Eira roundabout [Booran Rd]. The MRC has remained silent about whether “consultation on design commensurate with risk management” has commenced within 9 months of the agreement.
On the topic of horse training, which Martin has attempted to portray as controversial, the Agreement clearly states that its relocation will not happen in the short-term. Council has stated its position that training should eventually be relocated but has not demanded it be done in the short-term. The Mike Symons interview states instead that training will not be moved in the *medium* term, and defines medium term to be more than 12 years ie indefinitely, leaving it very hard to imagine what he might mean by “long-term”.
Its not hard to see who has acted in bad faith, and I’m going to add Martin Pakula to the list.