Page 882 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 16 June 1992
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Madam Speaker, it seems to me that we have in front of us a very important piece of legislation and an important amendment circulated by Mr Lamont; but we must not lose sight of the principle of consultation, and it is appropriate at this stage that there be enough time for consultation about the specific amendments that are to be put by Mr Lamont.
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and Training, Minister for the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (10.18), in reply: I thank speakers for their comments. I would like to draw together the positive views that were expressed. All speakers indicated their general support for the legislation and indicated that it would be supported. Mr Westende had some reservations that he detailed, but he did not indicate that the Liberal Party is opposed to the Bill. No doubt he will raise his issues of concern further in the detail stage. I particularly thank Mr Moore and Ms Szuty for their comments, which were universally supportive, save for the matter of circus animals.
Mr Westende had some concerns, and I think the operative word is "some". He suggested that maybe there was some overreaction by Animal Liberation people and others to styles of control of animals these days. I suggest that perhaps what happens universally in the community is that we become inured; we accept old patterns of behaviour because that is what we have grown up with. Very often those patterns of behaviour are quite unsatisfactory; but we do not understand that, because we are so familiar with them.
It may be - in fact, I am sure it is the case - that people such as animal liberationists are opening our eyes by presenting to us a different view and, I expect, a valid view in respect of animals. It is frequently cited that slavery was accepted for centuries and it required some inspired people to turn the community's view around. I suggest that our treatment of animals has been based purely on what we have observed, what we have grown up with, and is not always with the best for those animals in mind. I think it is totally unsatisfactory that tigers should be encompassed in a cage the length of about two of these desks for almost their entire life and released into a larger cage, that I can only imagine the style of, for training and for performance.
I agree with the Chief Minister, if she does not mind my repeating something that she said when we were discussing this. She said, "While I had not been to a circus in 25 years and had no intention ever of going, it was not until the 1989 or 1990 rugby league grand final, when I saw that disgraceful incident of a tiger being pulled around the Sydney Football Stadium in a cage, that I was convinced that I had moved too slowly in this area and it was time for something to happen". That tiger's head and tail were, I suppose, a foot from the ends of the cage. That was the standard cage in which it lived. That was a disgraceful incident, and it was the one thing that marred what was a very good day.
Mr Connolly: It did not help Balmain, anyway.
MR WOOD: It certainly did not help Balmain. I think we take that sort of thing for granted. On the television tonight, as one of the stations previewed Mr Lamont's amendment, I saw circus animals, wild animals, performing. I think it is demeaning of the animal and of the human population. I do not think we should accept that any more.
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