Insulting Baird government email deems greyhound owners 'largely illiterate'
Official Baird government documents have been deemed as insulting to greyhound owners and trainers, after emails labelled them as 'largely illiterate'.
The Daily Telegraph reports a “creative brief” sent out for the NSW State Government’s greyhound advertising campaign, claimed they were largely illiterate.
The document was reportedly issued by the communications director of Deputy Premier Troy Grant’s Justice Department and was penned by the department’s director of strategic communications Catherine Parker.
It read: “Take into account the intended audience. A large number of the target group potentially has low levels of literacy.”
Ms Parker reportedly said: “The target audiences are very broad and include the whole of the NSW community, greyhound racing participants, industry stakeholders and animal welfare groups.
“We recognise that within such a large target group there will be a proportion of the community who have low levels of literacy.”
In another email from Ms Parker to an advertising agency she requested a pitch addressed the issue of regional versus metro attitudes.
“In regional areas people are more likely to be more accepting of small animal deaths (live baiting) because their lifestyle means they have to kill rabbits etc,” it reportedly read.
News Corp claims Opposition Leader Luke Foley described the tone of the emails as confirming the “elitism” of Premier Baird’s decision to ban dog racing.
“Mr Baird and Troy Grant have just added insult to injury. Not content with wiping out an entire industry with a Facebook post... it just shows what they really think of the people whose livelihoods they are destroying.”
