Page 1485 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 11 August 1992
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definitions. What Mr Lamont seeks to do is insert a new definition. Mr Westende is trying to amend that definition. I think that we should focus on this. A lot of the debate has been totally irrelevant to the point at issue at this stage.
People have been using words like "exotic". Exotic animals are not defined in this Bill, so when people talk about exotic animals I do not know what they are talking about or how that relates to this Bill. There are about four or five definitions that do relate to animals. First of all, there is a definition of "animal". It says that an animal is an amphibian, a bird, a fish, a mammal and a reptile. It does not include humans. There is a definition of the word "domestic", which, we are told, in relation to an animal, includes captive animals. There is a definition of "feral animal", and that is an animal, other than wildlife, that does not live in a domestic state. There is a "pest" and that does not include a domestic animal or wildlife. "Wildlife" means an animal that is wildlife within the meaning of the Nature Conservation Act. So when people have been talking about exotic animals tonight, what do they mean? It does not mean anything in the context of this Bill.
Mr Wood: Yes, it does.
MR KAINE: No, it does not. Presumably, by definition in this Bill, there are only domestic animals and other kinds of animals. If an animal is a captive animal it is, by definition, a domestic animal. That means that elephants, cheetahs, tigers and lions that are in captivity in a zoo are, by your own definition, members of the Government, domestic animals.
Mr Lamont belatedly, after his Government drafted this Bill, suddenly had a better idea. It is interesting that he had to persuade his own Cabinet that he should amend their Bill. It was not a part of their original proposal, so now he comes along and he tries to define prohibited circus animals. By his own definition, by the definition of this Government in their Bill, all of these animals have something in common with all other animals - they are all domestic animals. So what on earth are we talking about? There has been some debate about treating some animals differently from others. In fact, we are now, by your own definition, treating some types of domestic animals differently from other kinds of domestic animals - by your definition, not mine.
What Mr Lamont has tried to do is very interesting. His definition had to be amended anyway because, amongst other things, he defined prohibited circus animals as meaning, for example, bears, cheetahs, giraffes, leopards and pumas. As far as I am aware, there are none of those animals in any zoo in Australia. So why are we making them prohibited animals? There are none in zoos. Mr Lamont has gone just a little bit over the top. If we really look at what he is saying here, he is saying, and we have amended it already, that he does not want primates, elephants, lions and tigers to be allowed in zoos.
Mr Humphries: Circuses.
MR KAINE: Circuses. But he goes further and he says that an animal prescribed under section 51A shall not be allowed in a zoo either. He does not know what that means and I do not know what that means. I will bet that none of you in this room know what that means. But it will allow the authority appointed under this Act to identify any animal under section 51A as being an animal that cannot be put in a zoo.
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