Million Dollar Disgrace

By Asa Wahlquist, Bays and Foreshores Convenor, Bulletin 9/2025, November

On one side of Wentworth Park Road, punters entered the Wentworth Park greyhound racetrack to watch the Million Dollar race. On the other side, in Millard Reserve, about 100 people and a dozen rehomed greyhounds gathered to protest what they called the Million Dollar Disgrace.

The protest, on 17 October, was attended by members of the Animal Justice Party as well as local Glebe residents keen to see the end to the lease held by the NSW Greyhound Breeders Owners and Trainers Association, which is due to expire in 2027, and the park returned to the community. Read more about the history of the lease. 

The speakers included activists and representatives of all three levels of government. Jess Miller, Deputy Lord Mayor of Sydney, told the meeting ‘greyhound racing has no place in modern society. It is cruel and barbaric’. She called for Wentworth Park to be returned to the community.

The City of Sydney has released a plan to turn the 13-hectare site into an urban park and sporting complex, with picnic areas and a wetland. See image below.

Emma Hurst MLC, from the Animal Justice Party, has put up a bill to ban greyhound racing. She said 1153 greyhounds died last year, 440 from accident or injury. She argued that if they were killing labradors or pugs for profit in the same way they do greyhounds, it would be banned. ‘We will shut it down’, she said.

State member for Sydney, Independent Alex Greenwich, said in addition to the animal suffering, gambling also caused human misery.

Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi called for an end to the cruelty ‘happening across the road’.