ERIC CRAMPTON: A Christmas wish

When everything had gone wrong and Homer Simpson couldn’t afford Christmas presents for the family, he took a punt. He went to the dog track and bet on a promisingly named greyhound: Santa’s Little Helper.

The dog lost, but the Simpsons won. Santa’s Little Helper went home with Homer, saving Christmas. It was the very first episode of The Simpsons, which aired at Christmastime 1989.

New Zealand’s greyhound clubs will not be having a festive holiday season.

Legislation before Parliament bans greyhound racing over animal welfare considerations.

Buying out the industry, shutting it down, and rehoming the dogs would seem right if you thought animal welfare warranted it.

The legislation instead proposes shuttering Greyhound Racing New Zealand and an assortment of private racing clubs. Their net assets will be handed to a new Greyhound Racing Transition Agency. That Agency will wind down the industry and rehome dogs, with no requirement for compensating either dog owners or clubs.

After the wind-down, the Transition Agency’s remaining assets will be redistributed – but not to anyone whose business was destroyed by the racing ban. Thoroughbred and harness racing codes get the proceeds instead, despite the deaths of fifteen horses last year and injuries to over three hundred more. I wish I were joking.

Let’s put this plainly: The Bill proposes stealing the assets of greyhound clubs, using the money to cover some of the government’s costs in shutting down the sector, and handing anything left over to the Minister’s preferred horse racing codes.

Some unenlightened folks might call it corruption that would embarrass even Springfield Mayor “Diamond” Joe Quimby. I say instead that it could be the start of a new and wonderful Christmas tradition.

New Zealand has numerous clubs. Some have assets that some Minister might think could be put to better use.

Dissolving the monasteries and confiscating their assets wouldn’t get you much nowadays, but what about golf clubs? Pulling a King Henry VIII move there could work wonders.

The government could ban golf, seize the clubs’ properties, and upzone them. A Golf Transition Agency would reconfigure golf carts for retirement village use. Any ‘remaining’ assets, plausibly worth about fifty billion dollars, could be handed over to social housing providers.

If your Christmas wish is a family dog, consider rehoming a greyhound. The Simpsons loved theirs.

I have a different Christmas wish. That a government claiming to like property rights would stop proposing such awful legislation.

Eric Crampton is Chief Economist with the NZ Initiative. This column was sourced from their weekly newsletter.