Source :- THE AGE NEWS
The fight for control of Victoria’s $5.5 billion racing industry took a serious twist at 3.57am on a Saturday in July.
At that moment, a meticulously crafted email, seen by The Age, was delivered to the office of Racing Minister Anthony Carbines, and contained detailed legal advice from prominent silk Peter Hanks KC provided to the Melbourne Racing Club that opposed sweeping racing governance and integrity reforms that had passed through the lower house.
The missive was sent by billionaire racing powerbroker and longstanding financial backer of the Liberal Party Jonathan Munz, who is also the vice president of the MRC.
Munz and the MRC were not alone in their opposition to the bill; the Victoria Racing Club was also against it. But Victoria’s other big metropolitan club, Moonee Valley, did not engage in the fight.
Controversial elements of Munz’s early morning email never came to pass, including a proposal that would change the way the three clubs were governed in “exceptional circumstances”. But it ultimately had the desired effect – the state opposition picked up the fight. Exactly one month after Munz hit send on his email, the Coalition pulled support for the bill, forcing Labor to water down its legislation.
Those last-minute changes caught many by surprise, including Racing Victoria chair Tim Eddy, who felt there had been a lack of consultation over the alterations, while talk of Munz’s potential to effect change on government policy burned like wildfire through sections of the racing industry.
Some were left frustrated by the MRC vice president’s perceived influence, some were buoyed by the result, while others were fearful of what could come next in racing’s ongoing power struggle.
The Age spoke to more than a dozen people across the racing industry and reviewed emails, legal advice and parliamentary records to reconstruct the battle over the legislation and detail the lobbying efforts from powerful racing figures during the crucial weeks that led to the hardening of the Coalition’s position.
The dispute began after Carbines introduced legislation on June 2 designed to overhaul governance and integrity measures across thoroughbred, harness and greyhound racing.
Among the proposed changes was the merger of two industry watchdogs into one new body for greater efficiency, and aligning the legal frameworks of greyhounds and harness racing with that of the thoroughbreds.
The legislation also included a provision that would formally recognise Racing Victoria’s function as the controlling body for thoroughbred racing, a role the government said it had performed since 2001.
This became the sticking point. Critics feared this was a secret push to transfer “untrammelled” power to Racing Victoria, the sport’s regulator, and away from the metropolitan racing clubs that have operated with considerable autonomy – or run their own race – for more than a century.
“It was a giant power grab, and no one knew about it. They never consulted anyone,” a source familiar with Munz’s strategy told The Age about the initial bill.
Ahead of parliament’s winter break, the Coalition waved Labor’s bill through the lower house with its new racing spokesperson, Nationals MP Tim McCurdy, telling parliament the Coalition planned “not to oppose the bill” and only raised concerns about the cost, timing and structure of the new integrity body.
“I am mindful that as we speak, we are still in discussions with the minister on a couple of changes to this bill,” he said.
“We thought we had an agreement on a couple of issues, and I will go into those. We still plan to not oppose the bill in this house, but we may have to consider our position in the upper house as we go forward.”
Speaking on the bill, Liberal frontbencher David Southwick was more hostile, warning that it was difficult for the opposition to support the legislation. But his publicly stated concerns centred around the independence of the integrity systems, cost shifting and whether Victoria should wait until a review of NSW laws. That state is reviewing 30-year-old laws that establish Racing NSW as the controlling body for thoroughbred racing in that state.
“I am still unsure in terms of what the problem is that we are trying to solve here,” Southwick said in June.
But he gave a “shoutout to the Melbourne Racing Club” and Caulfield racecourse, which is in his electorate, saying it was “very, very important in terms of what that provides”.
“Can I say this is another example where the government talks out of both sides of its mouth, because on one side we have the Melbourne Racing Club, which is not being properly consulted about the Melbourne Football Club coming to Caulfield and how that would affect the racing industry more generally,” he said.
At a meeting of the shadow cabinet, MPs agreed not to oppose the bill in the lower house but reserved its position in the upper house.
But after the winter break and lobbying blitz by Munz and Victoria Racing Club chairman Neil Wilson – who announced this week that he would resign from the position at the end of this year’s Cup carnival – the Coalition successfully pushed through amendments, creating carveouts for the thoroughbred sector. This would allow the racing clubs to maintain the status quo.
Racing Victoria is the governing authority that oversees the rules, scheduling and prizemoney in thoroughbred horse racing. It represents the state’s clubs, trainers, jockeys and owners. The clubs are separate businesses with their own boards, staff, strategies, operations and governance. The clubs are represented on Racing Victoria’s board.
Labor accepted the Coalition amendment to secure passage of the retained reforms.
In a statement he made after the bill was passed by the Legislative Council, Carbines said the government was “forced to support an opposition amendment” and that the minister would consider whether “a broader review of thoroughbred governance” was needed.
On Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Victorian government said the reforms strengthened racing integrity, reduced duplication and made sure regulatory framework worked “efficiently and effectively”.
Munz is a prominent horse breeder and owner, the vice-chairman of Melbourne Racing Club, which governs Caulfield, and the head of the thoroughbred racehorse owners’ association.
Many in the industry consider him the most influential person in Victorian racing, and he was behind a coup in 2024 that almost spilled the Racing Victoria board and led to several high-ranking officials leaving their jobs.
Along with MRC CEO Tanya Fullarton, who also sits with him on the racehorse owners’ association board, he hosted McCurdy at a lunch at the beginning of August, a week before the Liberals began circulating their amendments to the bill.
Munz and Fullarton also met with Carbines on April 8 to discuss “racing portfolio matters”, according to an entry in his ministerial diary, seen by The Age.
But it was the early morning email sent to the government in July that outlined Munz and the MRC’s intent, citing legal advice from “constitutional law and legislative expert” Hanks KC that argued the government legislation went too far.
“It is clear that Hanks, the VRC [Victoria Racing Club] and MRC all agree that the amending bill, as currently drafted, provides new powers to RVL [Racing Victoria] that are too broad and ill-defined,” Munz wrote.
“The internal running of metropolitan clubs should therefore not be interfered with by RVL, as the regulator, unless there are exceptional circumstances.”
The exceptional circumstances were outlined in advice that Hanks had given to the MRC, which Munz passed on his email. The proposal was for the creation of a six-person racing panel that could decide if any one of the three metropolitan clubs should be placed under Racing Victoria’s control – which could lead to a merger with another club – if they were shown to be acting to the detriment of racing or wasting too much money.
Some would refer to this as the “Moonee Valley clause”, a way to close down the home of the Cox Plate because the boutique inner-city racecourse was seen by Munz as wasting too much money on an exorbitant $220 million rebuild.
The source with knowledge of Munz’s strategy denied the Hanks amendment was anything more than a “machinery provision to avoid legal costs”, claiming Moonee Valley should be more concerned about untrammelled powers being placed in the hands of RV. Regardless, the exceptional circumstances were not included in the eventual legislation.
The Age reported last month that Munz was behind an unsuccessful push in May for Moonee Valley to merge with his MRC, a proposal that read more like a takeover bid than a sharing of resources.
Soon after that merger bid was rejected, Racing Victoria exercised its own muscles, threatening to withhold the Cox Plate and millions in prizemoney from Moonee Valley if its mega rebuild did not meet certain standards.
In June last year, The Age reported that Munz had hosted powerful figures in Melbourne racing, including Wilson, at a secret meeting in his Toorak mansion to discuss a potential merger of the VRC and MRC.
Munz has a history of financially supporting political parties on the non-Labor side of politics, providing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Coalition over the years.
The racing billionaire holds the shares in entities known as GSA International and Jayburn, which repeatedly appear on political disclosure records, including a $100,000 donation to the federal Liberal Party in the 2017-18 financial year.
The Age is not suggesting that Munz’s political donations had any relation to the Coalition’s push to amend the bill.
In 2020, The Age also revealed Munz was financing the High Court challenge against the Victorian government’s COVID-19 lockdown, with one source confirming he was expected to pour more than $1 million into the case.
In 2022, The Age revealed that Matthew Guy’s then chief of staff Mitch Catlin had asked Munz, a Liberal donor, to pay more than $100,000 to his private marketing business, on top of his taxpayer-funded salary.
Munz rejected the proposal and no payments were made. Catlin resigned as Guy’s chief of staff after the pitch was revealed.
Asked about Munz’s role and the Liberals’ decision to demand amendments to the bill, shadow minister for racing McCurdy told The Age the changes they put forward, which were ultimately agreed to by Labor, “reduced the potential for clubs to be unfairly impacted by regulatory overreach”.
Among those taken aback was Racing Victoria chair Eddy, who said his organisation was surprised by the lack of consultation around the last-minute changes to the legislation.
Eddy said RV shared Carbines’ view that part of the bill was to “clarify Racing Victoria’s existing powers and functions as the thoroughbred regulator in this state”.
“These are powers that Racing Victoria has exercised on a daily basis since its establishment a quarter of a century ago and we continue to do so representing all stakeholders and the overall interests of Victorian racing,” Eddy told The Age.
The source familiar with Munz’s strategy blamed the government for a lack of consultation from the start.
“The only way we found out about it was when [former shadow racing minister] Tim Bull sent out an email to all the clubs and shareholders, saying ‘what do you reckon of this bill, which has already gone through the lower house – first reading’?” the source said.
The source also claimed it was wrong to suggest Munz was the sole voice opposing the original bill.
“He sat down with everyone,” the source said. “And there is no possibility the Liberals would have pushed back without both the MRC and VRC being strongly on board. The whole industry had a view that the prior bill needed further work.”
The Victoria Racing Club, which runs Flemington, was seen as the first to raise objections against Carbines’ legislation, but its chairman Wilson became less visible in negotiations when Munz took up the fight.
“The VRC reviewed the draft Racing Act bill and were satisfied that the final approved version supported their position,” a VRC spokesperson said.
The rearguard action will go down as one of Wilson’s last stands as VRC chair to protect the prestigious organisation against outside influences, following the announcement last week he would be stepping away from the club’s board in December and handing the reins to Vin Cox.
The VRC, which lost $78 million across the past five years and owes $57.5 million to the ANZ bank, declined to answer whether they supported Munz’s “extraordinary circumstances” amendment. Moonee Valley declined to comment.
Munz was contacted for comment.
Carbines and Racing Victoria will now consider a broader review of thoroughbred regulation, especially now that greyhounds and harness racing have been given greater clarity. It remains to be seen whether Munz’s “extraordinary circumstances” amendment will be put back on the table.
The Victorian Liberals did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
