{"id":25740,"date":"2021-12-20T11:01:47","date_gmt":"2021-12-20T14:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=25740"},"modified":"2026-04-23T12:47:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T15:47:21","slug":"nick-william-slams-plan-to-ban-horseracing-in-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/nick-william-slams-plan-to-ban-horseracing-in-australia","title":{"rendered":"Nick William slams plan to ban horseracing in Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Melbourne Cup-winning horse owner said the proposal to ban all commercial horseracing is “ridiculous”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Australia.- One of the most important horse racing personalities in Australia has severely criticised the\u00a0Australian Greens party’s proposal<\/a>\u00a0to close all horseracing venues.\u00a0Nick William told 3AW Radio the plan is “ridiculous and based on misinformation.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said horseracing produces billions of dollars for the Australian national economy\u00a0and employs hundreds of thousands of people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said: “They\u2019re talking about funding it with a 1 per cent increase on gambling taxes. This is a federal policy and of course, gambling is state legislated.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When proposing the ban, Australian Greens senator\u00a0Mehreen Faruqi\u00a0<\/strong>said the sport was \u201cinhumane, deadly and incompatible with animal welfare\u201d. The party said venues should be closed through a two-step transition plan. The first step would involve the creation of a\u00a0horse betting levy<\/strong>\u00a0to fund the discontinuation of commercial horseracing. The second would involve the creation of a Horse Racing Transition Taskforce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Horse Racing Transition Taskforce <\/strong>would help those working in the industry find new employment and it would be in charge of turning horse racing venues into green spaces. It would also rehabilitate horses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Williams said Faruqi had been given invitations from the industry\u00a0<\/strong>to see what happens from the inside. He said she “has chosen not to take up those invitations, which is disappointing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Gambling Research Australia<\/strong>, the number of Australians who gambled on horse races<\/a> declined to 16.8 per cent last year, down from 22.4 per cent<\/strong> ten years earlier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Melbourne Cup-winning horse owner said the proposal to ban all commercial horseracing is “ridiculous”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":25753,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"A prominent Australian horse owner has vehemently criticized the Australian Greens' proposal to ban commercial horseracing, citing its multi-billion dollar economic contribution and significant employment. The Greens advocate a two-step transition plan, including a betting levy and a taskforce, based on animal welfare concerns, despite declining participation rates in horse racing gambling.","focusai_entities":"Nick William, Australian Greens, Mehreen Faruqi, Gambling Research Australia","focusai_location":"Australia","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.95), compliance_legal (0.85), operator_casino (0.9), affiliate_publisher (0.8), investor_analyst (0.9), gambler_consumer (0.7), supplier_vendor (0.75), journalist_researcher (0.95)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Economic Impact Analysis","query":"What is the projected net economic impact, including direct and indirect job losses and potential revenue shifts to other gambling verticals, if commercial horseracing is phased out in Australia?"},{"label":"Regulatory Feasibility","query":"How would a federal ban on horseracing, funded by a gambling tax increase, navigate the existing state-legislated gambling frameworks and jurisdictional challenges in Australia?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,158,155],"tags":[4256,233,23935],"class_list":["post-25740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-slider-home","category-sports-betting-news","tag-horse-racing","tag-sports-betting","tag-sportsbook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25740"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25758,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25740\/revisions\/25758"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}