Page 1598 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 12 August 1992
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We can see a deficiency in the way this legislation has been drafted and we are trying to fix it on the run. We have no other way of fixing it because there is no referral of this matter to a committee at this stage. We have to try to fix it on the run, and I say to you: If this is flawed, let us try to find some way of removing those dangerous provisions. Under the present legislation, which this amendment is based upon, we do not have prosecutions of jockeys and horse handlers. Let us make sure that we do not have them under the new Act because of the broad way in which it has been drafted.
MR DE DOMENICO (4.47): Madam Speaker, I asked the Attorney-General before whether he could tell me what the maximum penalty was under the Dog Control Act if a dog ran out into the street and bit a postman.
Mr Berry: Here we go.
MR DE DOMENICO: Yes, here we do go, Mr Berry. If that dog happens to run out of the yard and bite you while you are on your daily run, you can fine the owner of that dog under the Dog Control Act.
Mr Lamont: A magistrate can fine the owner.
MR DE DOMENICO: A magistrate can fine him. That offence is punishable by a fine not exceeding $200. But, Mr Berry, if you were to protect yourself from being bitten by the same dog and you kicked or bit the dog back, which you might be inclined to do, you could be liable to a $10,000 fine or one year's gaol, or both. It is not on the same scale, Mr Berry. That is why the Opposition will stand up here and say, "Listen, you have got the thing wrong. You have got it all wrong. It has to go back to the drawing board because this is very bad and very flawed legislation".
We have talked about the racing industry. Mr Colquhoun is not a member of the Liberal Party. He is, as I said, the chairman of the Racing Club and also the chairman of the TAB. Mr Colquhoun said of the Animal Welfare Bill:
The Bill as drafted will repeal the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1989 ... and will replace the Act.
The Act was one which the horse racing industry could live with because it defined precisely what constituted an "act of cruelty" to an animal.
Mr Colquhoun is also a lawyer, and a very prominent one, I am told. He said:
Some conduct which occurs during a horse race will prima facie be an act of cruelty.
That says to me, notwithstanding what the fine is or what the fine may be, that things that occur on a horseracing track or a training track, in a local backyard shed, at a horse club at the weekend, on a daily basis, or anything that is done to a horse quite regularly, could be subject to a maximum penalty, imposed by a magistrate, of a $10,000 fine or a year in gaol.
Mr Lamont: Prima facie; could, may, might.
MR DE DOMENICO: Prima facie, okay.
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