Page 1461 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 11 August 1992
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at the Sole Brothers Circus, Rocky was killed when a tree crashed through powerlines at Prince Alfred Park. I have evidence here that at that particular time the wind gusts were officially registered by the bureau at 79.7 kilometres per hour on 16 January 1978. The Sydney Morning Herald's lead story the next day was headed, "Worst January winds in 70 years", and said that several people were killed in related incidents around Sydney. I have the weather chart on that one. So perhaps it was a little unreasonable to suggest that that was a problem with circuses.
In this list item 6 says that in February 1980 the Monte Carlo International Circus was prosecuted by the Victorian Ministry for Conservation for failing to conform with minimum cage requirements. Unfortunately, that should not have been there because that was not an Australian circus. It did not involve Australian circus animals.
Mr Lamont: Yes, it is. It is an Australian circus.
MR STEVENSON: It is an overseas circus. Mr Lamont said that it is an Australian circus involving Australian animals, but I have been told that it is an overseas circus. It was not approved by the Circus Federation or the Circus Fans Association of Australasia for cage sizes. Not only was it not an Australian circus; I have been told that protests by the circus people to the Primary Industries Department quarantine section and the Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed that Australia was obliged to accept these conditions as part of a cultural exchange program sanctioned under United Nations protocols. To include any of these instances that involve overseas circuses under a title saying "List of incidents involving Australian circus animals" is unfair and misleading and does no-one's concerns any good at all. No Australian circus was involved in that one.
Item 8 relates to August 1980, when Ashton's elephant Abu escaped and headed for an Ingham cane field. Two years later to the day she repeated her escapade in the same cane field. That is actually a publicity stunt that goes on every time that they go up there. All elephants who travel to North Queensland know exactly where the nearby sugar plantation is and all are released to find their own way to it. One reporter, I am informed, did not understand that that was an annual event and wrote it up as though a circus animal had escaped and was a problem.
Incident 9 is when the so-called World's Greatest Circus Spectacular was fined $4,000 on charges of cruelty relating to cage sizes. Once again, that was not an Australian circus but an overseas circus. The local circuses had complained and tried to get something done about that but were unable to do so. There are six incidents in this list where overseas circuses were involved. There are many more. They are, unfortunately, quite misleading. I intend to put the details out and ask for detailed explanations of them.
MR LAMONT (8.54): I indicate that I will be speaking most assuredly against the proposal tabled by Mr Westende, which has the effect of postponing any prohibition by at least eight years, and I wish to address the proposal in Mr Moore's amendment to exclude primates.
Madam Speaker, when I presented my amendment several weeks ago I said that it was impossible for me to argue with the likes of Mr De Domenico on this issue. What I believed was base cruelty he thought of as entertainment. There seemed little point in trying to debate an issue where there was apparently no
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