Page 5972 - Week 18 - Wednesday, 11 December 1991
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Rather than speaking in the detail stage in relation to Mr Jensen's amendment, I say now that I will not be supporting it, because I am aware that the term is a little hard to define. I think everyone will be out there training their dog, and I guess, as we walk down the neighbourhood street, we will see every dog being trained. So, I find that it is just not possible for me to support it. Finally, as I said, I welcome the amendments that have come forward in this amending Bill. They have been a long time coming. I am sure the Canberra community welcome the long awaited amendments too, and I hope that the Bill will have a speedy passage.
MR MOORE (6.30): Mr Speaker, the difficulty with this legislation is not so much what it does as what it does not do. There has certainly been a great deal of talk in the Assembly about dog control, really since the beginning of the Assembly. The difficulty, I believe, is that what we should have is a companion animal Bill, and that is a much more important thing. In fact, the biggest problem that we have, from the environmental perspective, is not so much dogs as cats. I think that, as companion animals go - - -
Mr Berry: You are treading on dangerous ground there, Michael.
MR MOORE: I can see the Chief Minister hissing; but the reality is that there are people who look after and take care of their dogs properly, and the same applies to people in respect of their cats. Dealing with companion animals is really what we should be about, rather than limiting ourselves to just dog control. That is not to say that this dog control Bill does not do an important thing; it certainly does. Indeed, I look forward to seeing, in the next Assembly, that companion animals are taken as a whole. Where it is necessary to control dogs in a particular way and cats in another way, that would be most appropriate.
I think that something that we, as an Assembly, need to take on is the protection of our environment from cats that are inadequately cared for, so that we can deal with the whole problem. I know that many people consider dog control important, not just from an attack perspective but also from the perspective of having their front lawn soiled and so on. How much worse it is, for those of us who have small children and sandpits, to have the children playing in the sandpit after the cats have used it as their toilet. I think that this is an even more difficult situation in terms of soiling.
So, there are not only environmental aspects but also control aspects where we are going to need to deal with this issue.
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