Racing Victoria members have voted in favour of amendments to the RV Constitution to reform the RV Board Director appointment process.

The new Board Director appointment process will transfer the power for approving appointments to a new body to be known as the Appointment Panel. The four-person Appointment Panel will comprise:

• a member jointly appointed by Melbourne Racing Club, Moonee Valley Racing Club and Victoria Racing Club;

• a member appointed by Country Racing Victoria;

• a member jointly appointed by the Industry Body Members; and

• a member appointed by the Minister for Racing.

The Nominations Committee, a three-person sub-committee of the RV Board, will continue to assemble a list of suitably qualified candidates from which the Appointment Panel will appoint the Board Directors with a majority of not less than three of the four Panel members required in the Panel’s voting process.

The Chair of the Nominations Committee will also sit on the Panel in a non-voting capacity and will not participate in the Panel’s final determinations.

RV Chairman, David Moodie, thanked RV’s Members for their support of the reform noting that the new Board Director appointment process would improve the governance model for Victorian racing.

“The new Board Director appointment process strikes a fair balance between the legitimate interests of the Members in participating in decisions about governance and wider issues of independence and transparency arising from RV’s public and regulatory functions,” Mr Moodie said.

“The changes remove the current capacity for Members to directly vote their preferred candidates onto the RV Board, whilst providing a more robust and transparent appointment process which is intended to ensure that the Board has an appropriate level of independence and diversity.”

Today’s approval process was conducted in accordance with the RV Constitution and the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth). RV’s Club Members unanimously passed a motion via special resolution to approve the reform, whilst RV’s Industry Body Members voted to accept the associated variation to their class rights.

The provisions of the Racing Act 1958 require that the amendments to the RV Constitution now be laid before both Houses of the Victorian Parliament for not less than six sitting days. If not disallowed by either House, the amendments will come into operation on the date the Minister for Racing publishes a certification to that effect in the Government Gazette.

Based on the current Parliamentary sitting schedule, transitional provisions have been approved to allow the new Board Director appointment process to be applied to the 2016 round of Director appointments, subject to Parliament not disallowing the amendments.