Page 678 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 31 March 2021
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
From July, registered owners will be required to update or confirm their dog’s details each year at no extra cost. The registration renewal date for each dog will be calculated using their original registration date. If you registered your dog on 1 February 2014, your registration renewal date will be 1 February each year and so on. Importantly, the bill places the onus on the government to provide reminder notices to dog owners to inform them of how they can comply with the annual registration requirements. We recognise that life is busy for many people and so the bill has been drafted to minimise the requirements on dog owners.
At present, people registering a dog pay a one-off fee of $57.55. To be clear, when the new system comes into effect from July 2021, there will be no additional cost to owners to update their registration. All registered owners will now receive a reminder notice from Domestic Animal Services at least 14 days before the end of the dog’s annual registration.
The new scheme will take effect from 1 July 2021 and transitional arrangements will apply for dogs which have been registered on any day in July or on 1 August. For dogs with registrations on these dates, the registration renewal date will be one month after the next anniversary of the registration date. For example, a dog registered on 14 July 2015 will have a registration renewal date of 14 August each year.
The reminder notice will include all the key information needed to ensure that owners clearly understand their obligations under the annual registration scheme. Each notice will state: the date the dog’s registration ends; the information a keeper must confirm or update and how to electronically access that information; details on how the keeper can comply with the notice; and the consequences for non-compliance.
Owners will be required to comply with the reminder notice by confirming or updating their pet’s details. Failure to do so will result in a strict liability offence. People who do not comply with the reminder notice will face a maximum penalty of 10 penalty units or an infringement notice of $150. We do not anticipate that this penalty will need to be used often; the overwhelming majority of Canberrans who own a dog have it registered and are responsible pet owners.
Another important component of the bill is the expansion of information recorded on the register about both the dog and their owners. This includes recording a keeper’s contact details, information about a dog’s former owner, and details regarding whether a keeper has been subject to any findings of guilt or convictions in relation to an animal welfare offence or offence under the act. This is an improvement on the current relationship with microchipping data, which becomes outdated overtime under a lifetime registration system. The registrar will be able to request information about registered keepers as reasonably necessary, to carry out the administration of the act.
We have also invested in a new IT system, our digital dog database, which will support and streamline the annual registration process. Owners will receive a reminder notice via email or text message and update or confirm their registration details on the database in only a few clicks. There will also be an option for people to do so in person via Access Canberra shopfronts, if that is their preference. The work
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video