Peter V’landys has defended his position at the top of the rugby league and racing industries, claiming he has personally delivered more than $500 million for thoroughbred racing while being on the board of the Australian Rugby League Commission.
In his most strident response to a parliamentary inquiry into the potential sale of Rosehill racecourse, V’landys took umbrage at questions about his own performance and the culture of Racing NSW and hit back at the description of him by NSW upper house MP Mark Latham as a “part-time” CEO.
Racing NSW chief executive Peter V’landys is under fire over the fate of Rosehill Gardens.Credit: Rhett Wyman
In response to one question about whether attractive women were unfairly promoted at Racing NSW, V’landys said “to assert that women have been promoted because they are good-looking is one of the most degrading and disrespectful accusations that I have witnessed”.
V’landys has also been chairman of the Australian Rugby League Commission since 2019 and a non-executive director since 2018.
In answers to supplementary questions put to him stemming from the Rosehill inquiry, V’landys was forced to provide responses to a range of issues, including entertaining government and media representatives in a corporate suite at Royal Randwick.
He vehemently denied that juggling his high-profile roles was a detriment to thoroughbred racing, insisting “the success of both sports during my tenure is testament to my effectiveness in performing both roles”.
“During the time that I have been on the board of the ARLC, I have personally procured over $100 million per annum in new revenues for the NSW thoroughbred racing industry,” he wrote.
The Rosehill parliamentary inquiry has called upon a range of government and horse racing powerbrokers to provide evidence about plans to raze the western Sydney racetrack for a 25,000-home mini-city to help alleviate Sydney’s housing crisis.
Racing NSW spent $250,000 with corporate advisory firm Moelis Australia to explore the potential sale of Rosehill, which V’landys believes could be worth $23 billion if sold in stages over the next two decades.
The inquiry has heard other evidence the land could be worth as little as $1.6 billion.
But the plans, which were announced by Premier Chris Minns late last year, have received staunch opposition from leading horse trainers Gai Waterhouse and Chris Waller, and will ultimately be decided by a vote from members of the Australian Turf Club, which owns the racetrack.
Mark Latham has led the charge on the Rosehill inquiry committee in taking on V’landys and Racing NSW.Credit: Dean Sewell
The inquiry has also turned the blowtorch on the functions of Racing NSW, with V’landys repeatedly objecting to questions he believed were being asked outside the scope of the inquiry in his latest responses.
He described a series of questions asked of him by the inquiry as “false and defamatory”. They included queries about whether he interfered in stewards’ inquiries and whether Racing NSW carried out electronic monitoring of staff – allegations he has strongly rejected.
He provided an email chain from 2015 to show “innuendo” regarding a supposed non-disclosure agreement being signed with a former employee who was promoted on the basis of her looks was “false and fabricated”. He said he only met the employee twice in more than six years of her employment at Racing NSW.
V’landys also addressed the coterie of government and media representatives who are invited into the directors’ room at Royal Randwick for feature race days, including executives from the Herald and Nine Entertainment, the publisher of this masthead.
He said the “crucial communication lines to key stakeholders” was part of the reason horse racing was able to continue throughout the COVID pandemic and stay-at-home orders.
Latham has led the charge on taking on V’landys but crossbenchers Cate Faehrmann of the Greens and Emma Hurst of the Animal Justice Party have also been scathing of the regulator, with Hurst telling parliament last month she concluded “those within Racing NSW believe they are a lawless organisation that have no accountability to the NSW government or anyone else”.
Racing NSW is also facing scrutiny from Macquarie Street’s privileges committee, which is assessing claims the organisation tried to identify whistleblowers who provided evidence to the Rosehill inquiry.
V’landys has dismissed allegations raised by the crossbenchers as a smear and said there is a campaign in the inquiry “to get rid of me”.
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