Page 439 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 27 June 1989
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The opportunity was also taken here to remove gender specific references. When I saw that comment in the explanatory memorandum, I thought, "Ah, so we're not going to see these animals referred to as dog and bitch", but of course it concerns wildlife, so I checked the references to doe and buck, but it turned out that it was a reference to he, she, et cetera, and that the gender specific references were to people, not animals at all.
Since we have seen in this Assembly tonight the appropriate attitude to ageism and appropriately non-prejudiced attitude to sexism, one cannot help wondering whether we will ever get to the stage where we have a non-prejudiced attitude to animalism.
We draw attention particularly to the exemptions to this Bill, which you will find on page 12, in proposed new section 63A(1)(d). There are, I note, exemptions for native people, which concerns how this Bill applies to people at Jervis Bay, but particularly as far as we in Canberra are concerned, I believe the Ngunawal people are in the process now of rebuilding their attitudes to their ancestors and their pride in their background.
For those people who may find some concerns about their ability to take advantage of protected wildlife and to hunt that wildlife, let me remind you that an attitude which is universal throughout the Aboriginal people is of being at one with the land and with its plants and animals. So we can rest assured that it is so much part and parcel of their lives that there will be no threat from those people because they are so much at one with their environment and their own ecosystem.
It therefore gives me pleasure to support the amendment Bill and to put the view that the Residents Rally is very keen to do what it can to protect these different species of wildlife throughout the ACT.
MR STEFANIAK (8.19): I would like to endorse the remarks made by my colleagues Mr Humphries and Mr Moore, and especially Mr Humphries' remarks in relation to penalties. I will come to them shortly. I would also like to agree with their comments that unfortunately in China at present animals appear to be more valuable than people.
As Mr Humphries said, in relation to the Nature Conservation (Amendment) Bill 1989 there are a couple of problems with some of the penalties, especially in relation to plants. As he was speaking it brought to mind another ordinance in force in this Territory which relates to cruelty to animals, the name of which I am attempting to obtain at present, under which the penalties are grossly inadequate.
This Bill will impose substantial penalties of up to $10,000 and five years' imprisonment in relation to the killing of animals. The old Nature Conservation Ordinance
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