Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - Madam President, I will make a very short contribution here. Some of the issues raised by the member for Western Tiers were raised by me of course during the budget process about the number of events in this State. There were concerns about the number of meetings and the number of races in each of those meetings and the racing fraternity generally, particularly the thoroughbred owners and operators, are concerned that they have the animals here but they do not have the events they can participate in to make the industry even stronger and better. I guess when we are selling a product we need to ensure that we have a very professional product that is becoming stronger as time goes on and that we can in fact cater for the people involved in this industry. That is an issue.

There are only two other issues I want to raise. There is a comment made here about TOTE's return to the racing industry of $20.4 million during the year 2006-07. It would be interesting to know just what has been done with that $20.4 million. I suspect perhaps that part of it has been spent on Tasman Park with all the upgrading there. I do not know who has been there recently but there is a huge amount of work going on there with the racetrack being pulled out and resettled et cetera, and it is really starting to look good. It will be a great track. Perhaps some of that money has been returned there, and I suspect that would have been around the period when it was interfered with by the equine influenza epidemic, I would think - 2006-07. It is interesting that we got the highest return ever during that period. I hope that things are looking very good for this year if there is no recurrence of the influenza epidemic, which we hope will never happen again, of course.

Mrs Rattray-Wagner - That was in mid to late 2007, the equine influenza.

Mr DEAN - Was it? I thought it would have captured a part of that financial year - so that might be reflected in the next return.

Mrs Rattray-Wagner - It was definitely around October, because there was some concern over the cancellation of the Flinders Island horse events and that is in October of each year.

Mr DEAN - It could well have been the case, too. You are probably right there.

Mr Hall - A genetically-modified vaccine.

Ms Forrest - That's correct - that they didn't use at the end of the day.

Mr DEAN - The other comment I was going to make is that with the new CEO of TOTE, Mr Craig Coleman, I have every confidence in where we are going with the racing industry because I have confidence in Mr Coleman as a leader in that area. He is a very astute person and I think we will see some good things happening in this area.

Mrs Rattray-Wagner - You'll get a free ticket to something this week.

Mr DEAN - No, not at all.

Mr Aird - There's not much on this week; I'd save it for another week.

Mr DEAN - Not at all.

I think the member for Launceston has probably answered my next question and the Treasurer might like to comment on it. This act may not be, of course, enacted for a long period into the future, but I am told that the court cases referred to here have now been settled.

Mr Aird - No, there is another lot of legal action. The High Court one in Western Australia has been settled.

Mr Wing - Yes, that's the one I've referred to.

Mr Aird - But there's another round in front of the Federal Court.

Mr DEAN - So when is it expected to be concluded, because I think that you are saying that this will not be enacted until such time as that case is concluded, so we could be looking at 12 months, perhaps longer even, I would suspect?

Mr Aird - No, I reckon it'd be this calendar year. You don't know with courts though, do you?

Mr DEAN - No, of course not. That was the only contribution I wished to make and certainly I will be supporting the bill, Madam President.