Page 1484 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 11 August 1992
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and make new finance plans. The circuses are no different. If they have to start amending their acts to exclude those animals, at least give them some time. Therefore we have included in our amendment "beyond the year 2000". We feel that that is a reasonable time for the circus people to make up their minds about what they can and cannot do with their animals. A lot of those animals could not go in zoos, not even the great Western zoos. Some of those animals would not be accepted by zoos. Therefore, we believe that it would be far more humane to the animals and to the humans who relate with those animals - that is the circus owners - to give them a reasonable time. We believe that that is not unreasonable.
Irrespective of the debate from both sides of the house, circus people today do not think as they did 20 or 25 years ago. The circuses have their own voluntary code of ethics. I have a copy. In the old terminology, it is an inch thick, or 2.5 centimetres if you like. As we have said here before, in the last few years not one circus has been convicted of an act of cruelty. They are allowed to have domestic animals such as horses and dogs in the circuses. The exotic animals are no different from the animals that are so-called domestic animals.
Furthermore, this whole thing is supposed to be about cruelty. Horses carried in a horse float have far less room than the animals had in those semis that were parked here. They go from Sydney to Melbourne with two drivers. They change in Albury. They do not stop but go straight through for eight hours. Greyhounds spend most of their time in their cages. The only time they are let loose is on the track. Some concerned owners might exercise them for an hour down the street. They are continually muzzled. As I said before, if this Government is genuine, let them include all domestic animals, such as horses and greyhounds. The cruelty to those animals is no different from the so-called cruelty to the exotic animals.
I have here some photos of elephants exercised in Sydney - one of February 1990 and one of February 1992. It was said before that those animals do not get any exercise.
Mr Lamont: Once every two years is not bad.
MR WESTENDE: They have taken photos once in two years because they did not think they needed proof for people like Mr Lamont. They accepted that people knew for a fact that those animals get exercise. I cannot see any difference between so-called exotic animals and so-called domestic animals as far as treatment is concerned. Madam Speaker, if you devise a national code of ethics, if you want a bipartisan approach to animal welfare, we are more than willing to cooperate, as I have already indicated to Mr Wood. The law should be equal to all animals. It should make no distinction between exotic and other animals.
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (10.28): Madam Speaker, I have not taken part in the debate tonight. I think it was Mr Wood who complimented you on allowing the debate to run so widely. In fact, I take the opposite view. Much of the debate that has taken place tonight should have taken place before this Bill was agreed to in principle. I would hazard a guess that, had it done so, the Bill might not have been agreed to in principle. However, that did not take place, and it did not take place for a number of reasons; but I will not go into that.
Right now one would never know from the debate that has gone on tonight that we are, in fact, debating clause 4. We have been all night, according to the rules of debate and the standing orders of this house. Clause 4 has to do with
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