Page 1407 - Week 04 - Thursday, 12 April 2018

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ANU community towards a fellow student at Ursula Hall last year. Vice-Chancellor Schmidt is absolutely correct to observe that this type of bullying takes place in the shadows and prospers in silence. I am delighted that the vice-chancellor has made such a strong and powerful statement of the university’s values, and I want to endorse that statement and put on the record that Canberra, as Australia’s most LGBTIQ-friendly city, shares those values.

This city, like the ANU, holds the principles of equality, inclusion and acceptance at the core of our values, and we should not stand in silence when issues like this are identified. I commend the vice-chancellor and the Australian National University for the work that I know they will do to address this issue on their campus at this time.

Greyhound racing—cruelty reports

MR PARTON (Brindabella) (4.29): I rise to correct the record in regard to a statement that the Minister for Regulatory Services, Mr Ramsay, made in this chamber yesterday.

MADAM SPEAKER: Are you correcting your statement?

MR PARTON: I am correcting him. Yes, I am. I am not going to go as—

Ms Cheyne: That is not correcting the record.

MR PARTON: It is correcting my record. I will not go so far as to suggest that the minister has misled the Assembly, but to me it is very clear that—

MADAM SPEAKER: No, you would do that through a substantive motion, Mr Parton.

MR PARTON: That is correct, Madam Speaker, but to me it is very clear that some statements made by Mr Ramsay in this place yesterday were indeed incorrect. In this place yesterday the minister said:

… if you look at the footage of Mr Parton’s syndicate’s dog’s last race meet in Canberra, a dog in the race immediately prior falls horribly. This dog is trained by the same person as the syndicate dog, and I wonder how long before poor Nugget … falls, fractures a bone in his leg and no longer has any value to the syndicate that owns him and is also put down.

“Also put down”; that is the quote. Mr Ramsay very clearly implies that this other dog, whose racing name is Vast—his friends call him Cheech—fell, had horrific injuries and was put down.

This afternoon, just before question time, I posted a video of Cheech frolicking around in his backyard, playing with a ball. That video was taken this afternoon. The dog underwent a vet inspection half an hour after his race on Sunday night and no injury was recorded. I would certainly appreciate at some stage in some form, whether it be in here or otherwise, a retraction from the minister on that front.


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