It’s generated lots of debate, but it seems that the Lismore Race Day will again become a half day public holiday – at least for the next two years. 

At the first Council meeting of the year last night, Councillors voted to approve the Lismore Turf Club’s application for the Lismore Race Day to be a local public holiday. 

Council will now officially apply to the Minister for the Public Service and Employee Relations for gazettal of a part day public holiday for the Lismore Local Government Area, from 12 until 6pm on Thursday, September 24, 2020 and Thursday, September 23, 2021.

While it was generally understood that Council decided not to go ahead with the Race Day holiday at a meeting in December last year, the issue came back to Council again due to a technicality. 

The December meeting saw heated debate over two separate motions regarding the holiday, but neither motion was approved, and a decision was not actually made. 

A rescission motion filed after the meeting by three councillors was overturned and declared invalid due to no official decision having been made. 

The two motions were again discussed at last night’s meeting.

After Councillor Adam Guise’s motion to stop the application going ahead was defeated, Councillor Darlene Cook put forward a motion in support of the Race Day holiday, but with some clauses. 

These were that Council acknowledge the changing community expectations in regard to animal welfare concerns as expressed in submissions to the Lismore Chamber of Commerce; and that Council write to the Lismore Turf Club and Racing NSW encouraging them to ban the use of whips and tongue ties. 

Councillors Cook, Battista, Smith, Bird and Moorhouse voted in favour of Cr Cook’s motion, while Councillors Lloyd, Casson, Guise and Bennett voted against. Councillor Vanessa Ekins was absent from the meeting and Councillor Neil Marks abstained from voting and left the chamber due to a conflict of interests.

Cr Cook said her support of the race day holiday was about “trying to find a half-way point between those who support a race day and those who find it difficult to have in this town”. 

“This will give us two years to have a conversation about supporting an old tradition, or move on and find more relevant festivals for us to support,” Cr Cook said.

“In the interim I move that we support it, but acknowledge the community expectations in favour of animal welfare concerns.”

Read Cr Cook's blog: Darlene Cook: Is a Race Day public holiday still relevant?

But don’t hold your breath, because there’s always a possibility of another rescission motion being filed to overturn the decision. 

In the Council Meeting business papers, the official meeting agenda addressed the issue of no clear decision having been made at last year’s meeting.

It stated “it is worth noting that good meeting procedure will require Council to formally adopt a particular position on many matters. The consequence of not adopting a clear position has the potential for Council staff to be unable to act on Council decisions, or applicants being denied appeal rights and other opportunities to ensure natural justice and procedural fairness”.