Page 1462 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 11 August 1992
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commonality in our fundamental positions. In the weeks which have followed, absolutely nothing has changed to make me think that Mr De Domenico is any more a sensate being now than he was then.
When the Independents insisted on deferring the legislation so that, according to them, there could be a fuller debate, I imagine they were hoping that the Liberals would present some kind of rational argument to the community. Instead, we have had nothing but the same farrago of nonsense which they trotted out several weeks ago. The Opposition has continued to push several big porkers: First, that my amendment is an extremist position and that it is designed to destroy circuses completely; secondly, that it is the thin end of the wedge which will create problems for horseracing and other activities - Mr De Domenico has even claimed that it will mean the outlawing of budgies in cages; and, thirdly, that there is a great ground swell of public opinion against my amendment.
Let us look at these issues in turn. The first is the so-called extremist position. I have said it innumerable times, but I will say it once again in the hope that those opposite will actually get to understand what has been said to them: The recommendation to ban the use of these animals, on which my amendment is based, was made by the Animal Welfare Representative Working Group - AWRWG - which guided the ACT Parks and Conservation report on animal welfare that was presented to the Government in October 1990. Just to remind you, there was a specific statement on page 54 of that document recommending the outlawing of exotic animals in circuses in the ACT. It apparently has not mattered to members of the Opposition that the AWRWG was made up of a wide cross-section of community interests. It has not mattered to them that on radio talkback after radio talkback the huge majority of callers have supported the ban. Then again, it has not mattered to them either that when Mr Kaine was the leader of the Alliance Government he endorsed the recommendations of the report.
Mr Kaine: I do not believe that that is true.
MR LAMONT: Mr Humphries was also here in attendance, Mr Kaine. Everyone supporting this, according to Mr De Domenico and Mr Westende, is an extremist who would take away the fun from small children and have you give up your budgie. Mr Perry has even tried to equate banning tigers and lions with a ban on line fishing. That is about as rational as saying that we should not have stopped public hangings because school children were still getting the cane at school. That is the length of your rationality about these issues.
The fact is that Mr De Domenico, Mr Westende and the circus lobby have been involved in a shabby and stupid scare campaign which they believed they could harness to whip up huge opposition to the Government. Mr De Domenico thought it would be an issue of mass popular support that would see him in the role of the people's man, which he could use in his laughable aspiration to replace Mr Kaine. The crassness and opportunism of the Liberals, and Mr De Domenico in particular, in seizing this issue was pointed out pretty succinctly by Peter Clack - who, I might add, does not necessarily support the amendment - when he said in the Canberra Times on Sunday:
The Liberal MLAs have struggled to find a cause and have latched on to the animal welfare issue, affecting circuses, with a will.
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