Melbourne Racing Club (MRC) committee member John Kanga and his fellow board members Alison Saville and Caitrin Kelly had a legal victory over the Melbourne Racing Club committee colleagues that Kanga claimed had been trying to use a disciplinary process based on alleged breaches of a “Code of Conduct “ to silence him and potentially prevent him and his colleagues voting for the new MRC chairman and office bearers and prevent Kanga becoming the new chairman.
The Kanga group committee members applied for a Supreme Court injunction to stop what Kanga referred to as a “kangaroo court” MRC disciplinary hearing going ahead on the day of the MRC Annual General Meeting, run by the very people he had sought to remove. He had asked that the hearing be pushed into October and the MRC conceded in a humiliating backdown, rather than risk being on the end of an injunction.
This happened after a MRC board election for two board seats, which will deliver new committee members that Kanga hopes will be more receptive and aligned on the three issues that Kanga has been agitating for, being abandoning the failed new Caulfield mounting yard and returning it to its original position in front of the winning post, scrapping plans for an expensive white elephant Caulfield grandstand and retaining racing at Sandown.
Kanga stated: “The MRC committee members we have sought to remove unfortunately appear to be tone deaf and in denial about the reality that the MRC members want them gone. They have wasted hundreds of thousands of the Club’s money trying to prevent members voting on removing them at the special general meeting we requisitioned and have been seen to be using desperate tactics to keep their positions. Going forward, if the new board members vote with us and support me as chairman, we can then stop the delay of the special general meeting and move to remove the remaining board members that the MRC members want gone. If there are any shenanigans, I will have no hesitation in taking Supreme Court action and am confident we will again prevail.“
