Australian greyhound breeders have declared war on the New South Wales government, saying they have millions of dollars to fight a ban on greyhound racing in the state.



The national Greyhound Breeders, Owners and Trainers Association (GBOTA) has hired the former solicitor-general of Australia, barrister David Bennett, to head its legal battle and warns the issue could bring down the Baird government.



“We have tens of millions of dollars to put to this case to fight it,” the GBOTA spokesman and Dubbo Greyhound Club president Shayne Stiff said on Sunday.



Earlier he had a warning for the premier, Mike Baird



“I was part of a union movement that brought down a government and it can do it again. The people of NSW will fight for this,” he told the ABC.



“The pain is unbearable for a lot of participants. I’ve had a lot of grown men crying yesterday, livelihoods, lives, family blood ... I don’t think the government realised how many people this is hurting.”



Stiff said the industry would examine all possible grounds for appeal, including aspects of administrative and constitutional law.



Baird has blamed the industry’s culture of deception and mistreatment of animals for the ban, to come into force from July next year, and insists it’s incapable of true reform.



The ACT has since followed his lead but has not said when its own ban will be enforced.



The Australian Workers Union says Baird is wrong to claim the industry can’t change, and he’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater.



“Thousands of people are going to be put out of work and the majority of those will be in regional NSW where the unemployment rate is twice what it is in metropolitan areas,” the AWU state secretary, Russ Collison, said on Sunday.



“The prospects for other employment in these areas are very, very minimal.”



Collison said some in the industry were already telling their staff they would have to knock on the government’s door for financial help.



He said greyhound workers at Sydney’s Richmond racecourse had been told: “You won’t be getting any redundancy off us – the government made the decision and if there’s any money to be paid you’re going to have to get it off the government.”



The Baird government has promised an adjustment package for industry participants, but so far the details are sketchy. It has also announced a plan to rehome racing dogs.



The ban followed a damning report on the NSW industry that found up to 68,000 greyhounds deemed “uncompetitive” had been slaughtered in the past 12 years.



It also found overwhelming evidence of systemic animal cruelty, with nearly a fifth of trainers using live animal baits.



The NSW Nationals MP Katrina Hodgkinson says she has received despairing calls from industry members in her rural electorate of Cootamundra, who are telling her they no longer have a reason to get up each day.



They told her their dogs were their lives and used to be worth something, but not anymore.



Meanwhile, in Adelaide, RSPCA South Australia wants evidence that the local greyhound industry is good, clean and safe following comments from the racing minister, Leon Bignell.



Bignell said SA would not follow suit because there was no evidence of similar behaviour in the state.



The RSPCA SA chief executive, Tim Vasudeva, says he’s repeatedly requested Greyhound Racing SA publish statistics relating to the number of greyhounds bred, raced and killed in the state.



“If Mr Bignell is confident the industry in South Australia is clean and safe for animals he needs to reveal the evidence to support his claim,” Vasudeva said on Sunday.



Greyhound Racing SA said it was disappointed with the NSW decision that came without consultation with the industry.