DEAKIN UNIVERSITY
PLAIN LANGUAGE STATEMENT
Plain Language Statement
l
Date: 1 August, 2014
Full Project Title: The effectiveness of Owners and Breeders Incentive
Schemes (OBIS) operating in the Australian Thoroughbred Code
Student Researcher: Terence Edward Clarke
Dear Member of QTBA
Racing Queensland and Thoroughbred Breeders Queensland Association (TBQA) have given their
approval from me to invite you to participate in a research project which investigates the
effectiveness of racing administrators in Australia using Owners and Breeders Incentive Schemes
(OBIS) by conducting a case study of the Queensland Thoroughbred Incentive Scheme (QTIS). The
project is being undertaken as part of the requirements for the award of the degree of Doctor of
Business Administration in the knowledge that there has been no published research undertaken on
any OBIS in Australia and as such m research will provide suggestions for how racing administrators
might improve the effectiveness of QTIS.
It is claimed that the strategy of distributing the bonuses by adding them to stakesmoney otherwise
on offer for local racing is designed to create a direct link to the local breeding industry. The
research is motivated by evidence at the national and state levels in Australia, and research on OBIS
in other countries, which suggests OBIS bonuses do not impact on either the quantity or quality of
locally bred horses to the extent desired by racing administrators based on two indicators. First,
despite increased funding of the schemes both the number of registered broodmares and foals
decreased significantly in the 12 years to 2010/11 and, second, breeders own partially or fully 85% of
all thoroughbred horses racing in Australia.
At a state level evidence submitted to the Economic Development Committee of the Victorian
Parliament in 2005 indicated that Super VOBIS had failed to meet the objectives set by racing
administrators on three accounts. First, it failed to achieve a target for horses registered in the
Scheme to share in the bonuses. Second, many smaller breeders (those with less than five
broodmares) and hobby breeders had failed to register otherwise eligible horses. Third, breeders
were sending their broodmares to NSW to be served by stallions making the resultant foals eligible
for the BOBS bonuses. At the international level the capacity of OBIS bonuses to generate interstate
competition by attracting broodmares from other states is identified in findings about factors that
impact on the effectiveness of similar schemes operating in the USA.
Having regard to the foregoing a number of features arising from how OBIS are typically structured
will be reviewed as they have the potential to bear directly on how effective the schemes can be in
influencing the decisions taken by breeders. Specifically the case study aims to determine:
1. The extent to which the potential to earn monetary bonuses available under QTIS affects
your decisions about the quantity and quality of horses to breed.
2. The extent to which the answer to question 1 varies depending on the whether you
participate as a commercial or hobby breeder and the influence of factors such as yearling
specific features, the state of the economy and the non-monetary benefits of breeding
and racing.
3. The importance of other factors that may reduce or negate the effectiveness of QTIS.
The case study will involve interviews with the executives of Racing Queensland responsible for
funding and administering QTIS and through completion of a questionnaire by those members of
QTBA who choose to do.
The questionnaire should take between 20 and 30 minutes to complete. It is stressed your
participation is voluntary and, unless you agree to participate in a follow-up interview (as provided
for in the questionnaire) you are not required to include any details which would identify you. To
this end the questionnaire is being emailed or mailed directly to you by QTBA so that I do not have
access to the names and addresses of members. Your consent to participate in the case study will
be given by you completing and forwarding the questionnaire to the researcher’s email or postal
address.
In addition all information used in the thesis by the researcher will be aggregated so that no
individual’s contribution can be identified. All questionnaires will be kept by Deakin University for
five years, and then destroyed.
The benefit to members of QTBA will come from the opportunity for Racing Queensland and QTBA
to draw on the conclusions from the information you provide as a breeders and the wider research
on the effectiveness of OBIS operating in other countries. This provides you with an opportunity to
contribute to improve the effectiveness of QTIS for you as a breeder. Improvement in the
effectiveness of QTIS should also benefit the wider community through an increase in local breeding
and racing activity. In this respect the data gathered from TBQA members will be released only to
Racing Queensland and TBQA and in aggregated form.
The ethical aspects of this research project have been approved by a human ethics panel at Deakin
University. If you have any complaints about any aspect of the project, the way it is being conducted
or any questions about your rights as a research participant, then you may contact:
The Manager, Office of Research Integrity, Level 1, Building EA, Deakin University, Elgar Road,
Burwood Victoria 3125, Telephone: 9251 7129, Facsimile: 9244 6581; researchethics@deakin.edu.au. Please quote project number [BL-EC 17-14].
Thank you for your time
Terry Clarke