Page 1471 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 11 August 1992
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ANIMAL WELFARE BILL 1992
Detail Stage
Clause 4 and the proposed amendments thereto
Debate resumed.
MR WOOD: Mr Moore referred to the clause in the legislation that enables me as Minister to make decisions about primates. I can assure you that so long as I am Minister I will be taking a great interest in that.
Mr Humphries raised the matter that is perhaps the core of the debate. He said that we on this side of the house could not conceive that circuses provide humane treatment to animals. They are roughly the words as I wrote them down. He said that we cannot understand that circuses could be good to animals. I do not think they can be. The fact of life is that, by means of caging, hobbling, confining, restricting and training, an unceasing reign of cruelty is imposed on animals. That is a matter we raised in the in-principle debate. It is simply not compatible with what in this day we should regard as humane treatment.
Mr Humphries further suggested that maybe we should treat exotic animals and domestic animals the same. The point was made by one of my colleagues that you can turn domestic animals out; they do not create a crisis when they are out in the community.
Mr De Domenico What about camels or feral cats?
MR WOOD: Feral cats are feral cats. I might say that feral cats are one issue on which animal welfare Ministers agreed - or cats in general. In this day and age there is a new vision in front of us, and what has been accepted as routine, normal treatment over so many centuries is no longer so regarded. This is a different world.
Mr Humphries: Then set higher standards. Do not ban them.
MR WOOD: Mr Lamont disputed that, and I agree with him. The cages are still the same; the chains are still the same. Nothing has changed in that respect. Mr Lamont was quite correct when he said that zoos have changed or are changing, but circuses have not. Further, Mr Humphries said - and I note this point - that we on this side of the house did not go and see the children enjoying themselves in Tuggeranong last week. I do not have any doubt that the young children enjoyed themselves.
Mr De Domenico: The parents did, too.
MR WOOD: And the parents, yes. But in this legislation we are looking at the animals. On this occasion, it is not the children we are considering. Over the centuries - I am stretching it a little - people have gone to circuses of a different nature, such as in the Colosseum, and witnessed all sorts of acts that we have subsequently decided were quite inappropriate. Our basic argument is that exotic animals in circuses are no longer appropriate.
Mr De Domenico asked why there have been no prosecutions. There are a couple of answers to that, and the first answer I have just given. It is in the realm of community perception of what is normal and proper, and we are moving from
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