The ongoing battle between Racing NSW and bookmakers got very personal yesterday when private correspondence was published on its web site.

The contents of a letter sent to media personality Alan Jones by bookmaker Robbie Waterhouse were published together with prolific and revealing comments made by Racing NSW CEO Peter V'Landys.

One can only imagine that the highly unconventional move of publishing someone else's letter with such comments was considered and approved by the Board of Racing NSW, with full regard to the risks involved.

Apart from the obvious issue of the appropriateness of such publication, Racing NSW's commentary exposes strategies employed which go to the heart of its defence in current litigation in the Federal Court.

It is never a good idea to comment publicly on cases before a Court, if only because such commentary could be considered contempt of court. Racing NSW has never been what one could call "good in court", with a string of failed cases in its wake over the past few years.

The current cases, where Racing NSW is being sued by Betfair and Sportsbet, have rightly been described by it as the most important issue facing the governing body in its history.

Under such circumstances, one can only wonder how its Chairman, experienced lawyer Alan Brown and Racing NSW's legal advisers could condone such reckless comments being made by V'Landys.

Among other things in the commentary, V'Landys:

Asserted that the race fields levy was not a tax but a commercial fee. "Commercial" implies a fee agreed by negotiation between the parties. This fee was imposed without negotiation and non-payment is a criminal act. "Tax" seems to be the better description.
Implied that journalists supporting bookmakers were being paid via secret wagers (to which I take great exception).
Complained that smaller TAB's were paying rebates of 6% to big punters. Perhaps Racing NSW could explain the rebates being offered by TabCorp to those same punters with its full knowledge.
Said that the punter needs to meet the "cost of production" of NSW racing. Why when there are so many inefficiencies in racing (as evidenced by the AJC/STC merger push) should punters be required to finance such largesse?
Dogmatically asserted that Racing NSW will win its cases against Betfair and Sportsbet despite the inappropriateness of commenting on a case before the courts and a conspicuous lack of success in these cases so far.
Said "In what other industry does the user or consumer set the fee for the product?" In what other industry is non-payment of the fee enforced by an Act of Parliament requested by the product provider?
Admitted that while TabCorp was paying the Race Field Fee (its executives don't want to go to jail either) it wanted to deduct that amount from what it is paying already, thus casting doubt on the prominent assertion on the Racing NSW web site that TabCorp pays 6.2 cents in the dollar on turnover to Racing NSW.
Agreed that the Race Field Fee was analogous to a license fee for intellectual property. In other words a copyright fee. Copyright is the preserve of Federal legislation and states cannot legislate in this area.
Pointed out that the imposition of a turnover based Race Field Fee was to prevent the transfer of turnover from higher margin operators to lower margin operators. A dangerous admission.
Implied that interstate wagering operators were artificially reducing their profits by backing winners after the race. Not sure how that would reduce their profits, but the obvious implication is that they are less than honest in their declaration of profits and therefore guilty of defrauding the Federal government of income tax and GST, as well as Racing NSW if it adopted a gross profits regime.
Fudges the point that TabCorp pays its fees to Racing NSW based on gross profits.
Confuses the issue of NSW State Government taxes on bookmakers with the ability of Racing NSW to impose levies and fees as a private corporation. Having government backing does not make you a government department.

All of this material is now in the public domain and doubtless a number of lawyers are currently poring over it.

Given the high level crisis meeting to be held in Sydney tomorrow, the luminaries present should ask themselves if they really want to be directed by a Racing NSW which adopts such tactics.

Clearly racing in New South Wales needs to be led by a body with more common sense than is currently being demonstrated.