It’s High Noon in the Beehive - Minister’s pre-Budget announcement to be live streamed

Minister For Racing Winston Peters will make a pre-Budget announcement tomorrow on the racing industry.

Peters will speak at noon in the Beehive theatrette before the Prime Minister’s daily COVID-19 update.

It is expected the Minister will announce the first tranche of financial support for the beleaguered industry.

The Minister’s speech will be live streamed on his Facebook page, coverage which is certain to be watched by industry participants worried about their livelihoods.

The Racing Industry Transition Agency, already $45 million in debt to the bank, and with its turnover smashed by the coronavirus, today furthered its plans to cut staff by 30%, long time and passionate Trackside personnel among those set to be let go.

Stakes have already been slashed for the rest of the season and RITA has been unable to advise the three racing codes what they will look like for the new season, starting in August, until the Government responds to its pleas for help.

Peters is expected to give the industry a rev - in October, 2018 he revealed the recommendations of the Messara report, which he commissioned because he said the “once great industry had been sitting on its hands for too long, and was being killed by inertia.

“We are staring at a downward spiral from which we may never recover,” he said. “The vital signs of our industry are dreadful. It is in a self-perpetuating decline which is nothing short of terminal.”

Peters said the industry had been given a liferaft of reforms and it was a now or never moment - sink or survive and flourish.

Eighteen months down the track and the industry is in a far worse position, effectively insolvent.