The Racing Integrity Commissioner’s Report was released in September 2023 following a joint request by HRV, GR, and RVL.
It aimed to assess complaint handling and victim support across the racing industry.
The report exposed serious cultural issues, silence, power imbalances, substance misuse, and a lack of welfare focus.
Nine recommendations made, including:
- Stronger complaints frameworks
- Better support services
- Education and cultural change
- Calls for leadership and trust-building across the codes.
HRV remains committed to working with partners to implement meaningful reform.
Recommendation
Action Items
Status
Senior leaders of each VRI body publicly acknowledge past harms and commit to driving change in prevention and response efforts.
- HRV issued public statement
- Publish Commitment Statement
Establish a VRI Stakeholder Implementation Steering Committee.
- The VRI appointed Mr Mark Gepp.
- Quarterly meetings are held.
Establish an independent restorative engagement framework and scheme for current and former industry participants.
- HRV has developed a Restorative Engagement Program framework and has identified an external provider to facilitate.
- The program will launch in late 2025.
Develop and implement a code-specific prevention plan.
- Undertaken a risk assessment to identify key integrity and welfare risks associated with HRV.
- Developing a whole-of-industry prevention plan.
Implement a safe behaviours education program within harness racing in Victoria.
- New training courses have been designed and will sit within HRV’s SafeTrac system. They are:
– Expected Behaviours
– Child Safety - Course completion will be required as part of a participant’s license renewal.
Establish the Racing Integrity Commissioner’s office as an independent reporting body.
- Established ORIC as an independent reporting mechanism.
Standardise participant complaint handling processes.
- Developing a new integrity framework to replace existing policies and better define participant complaint management processes.
- Draft policies include:
– Child Safeguarding Policy
– Member Protection Policy
– Complaints, Disputes and Disciplinary Policy
Develop and implement adequate wellbeing, participant protection and child safeguarding support for participants and staff.
- HRV is currently designing a series of educational workshops for clubs, which will focus on key areas of participant protection and child safeguarding services.
- These workshops will be delivered in face-to-face sessions, with the rollout set to commence mid-year.
Develop and implement a monitoring and evaluation framework.
- HRV has commenced the design of an interim solution to strengthen its complaint management process, ensuring immediate improvements while a comprehensive, long-term system is developed.