Online and postal voting to elect two members to the Australian Turf Club board has closed ahead of an annual general meeting that promises to be the latest battleground in a controversial proposal to sell Rosehill.
Ten candidates are vying for two seats on a seven-member board that is already fractured because of concerns surrounding governance issues and the valuation attached to plans to sell the club’s richest asset for housing.
The meeting on Thursday afternoon at 2pm (AEDT), where in-person voting will wind up the election process, has been billed as the most significant in the ATC’s brief history.
The ATC confirmed it will likely be closed to media outlets as has been the practice for "some time".
The ATC board is made up of seven directors. ATC members elect four and three are state government appointees as independent directors.
It’s been almost 12 months since the NSW Premier Chris Minns and ATC chairman Peter McGauran announced a “once-in-lifetime opportunity” they claimed would result in a $5 billion windfall for a club whose financial funding model is under extreme pressure as a wagering downturn starts to bite.
Since that joint press conference, the ATC has been under fire on numerous fronts.
An information session outlining a roadmap for Rosehill’s sale turned into a public relations disaster when leading racehorse trainers Gai Waterhouse and Chris Waller led to backlash over the plan.
Amid the intensity of industry reaction, the ATC cancelled two other scheduled membership meetings.
Bren O’Brien
However, if the club hoped to escape scrutiny on the deal, that was brought undone when a parliamentary hearing was established to investigate the terms of the ATC’s unsolicited proposal to the state government.
The Rosehill furore was already highly politicised within racing’s bubble before the committee hearing opened in July, leading to the formation of the “Save Rosehill” group.
Led by prominent industry figures such as former board member Julia Ritchie, the group’s campaign for a Rosehill sale to be abandoned has moved to another level since ATC candidates were announced.
The group endorsed two members standing for a board seat, David Walter and Annette English.
Walter, a lawyer specialising in insolvency and restructuring, insists he can’t find one logical reason why the Rosehill proposal should go any further.
Warwick Barr
He has been especially outspoken about the lack of transparency in the process.
Development consultant Brad Harris and accountant Heath Stewart are also board candidates opposed to the sale of Rosehill.
Lindsay Murphy, Brigid Kennedy, Symon Brewis-Weston, Lynette Bruce and Brian Cunningham are also running.
Murphy has arguably the highest public profile among all the candidates as a former long-time employee of the Sydney Turf Club until it merged with the Australian Jockey Club (AJC) in 2011.
He was general manager of racecourses for the ATC before retiring in 2019 when he became a member.
RACING INDUSTRY GRADUATE PROGRAM
Your chance to work with Gai Waterhouse, Ladbrokes, Racing Victoria, Inglis and Magic Millions
The ATC has a membership of about 12,000; under the club’s constitution, directors are voted in for four-year terms.
Vice-chair Tim Hale is seeking re-election with the support of Waller, Warwick Farm trainer Bjorn Baker and former AJC chairman Bob Charley.
Hale is a lawyer with property development, company and commercial legal expertise who appeared before the Rosehill inquiry where he questioned the much-publicised $5 billion valuation of the racetrack.
He told the hearing a HillPDA valuation was presented to the ATC board in April, which placed the Rosehill project at $1.6 billion.
Bren O’Brien
He said it was a figure “entirely consistent with my approach to the valuation of the land”.
McGauran subsequently told the inquiry: “I’m yet to find any valuer or large-scale experienced property developer who disagrees with $5 billion.”
While Minns is fully committed to turning Rosehill racecourse into a suburb to help solve a Sydney housing crisis, he has maintained that the ATC membership will make any decision on the racetrack’s future.
With that in mind, a members’ vote on the proposal was due to be held this year.
Insisting that further due diligence is needed to consider planning, environmental and engineering reports, the ATC has pushed back an extraordinary general meeting until April 3.
During his evidence before parliament, Hale said that most ATC members would vote against the proposal.
In a follow-up submission, Hale confirmed there was still “significant work to be done” before final details of the deal could be presented to members.
While Hale is bidding for re-election, Angela Belle McSweeney is stepping down after serving a mandatory maximum term.
