Page 1608 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 12 August 1992
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MR HUMPHRIES: He knows; he knows that I am late if I am not there. Madam Speaker, again we come to the problem that we do not define what undue distress means. Let us be aware that we have now passed clause 7 of this Bill in the form that is there before the Assembly, with the penalty that the legislation originally foreshadowed. So, there are separate provisions dealing with cruelty. Anything which is clearly cruel to an animal will be covered by clause 7.
If I put a dog in a three-foot box and he is a small Great Dane, or something, clearly I am committing an act of cruelty under clause 7. That is clearly covered by that. But confining animals in other circumstances will often cause distress, and we just do not know what that means. We cannot quantify how often or to what degree distress is due or undue under this provision. Therefore it is impossible to say whether a person could reasonably cause distress to an animal, and how far the distress can go before they are liable for a fine of $10,000 or a year's imprisonment. It is too woolly, and it ought to be deleted in favour of simply saying "causes injury or pain".
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and Training, Minister for the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (5.24): Madam Speaker, we are in the business of interpretation. Undue distress could well be the case that came to my attention some little time ago when a dog had been confined under the house of its deceased master. It had been confined there for a very considerable period. It was obviously distressed. I think it was also clear that it was undue distress. I think it can be fairly clearly defined when stress is beyond any limits. I do not think that inspectors, in the first place, and courts maybe subsequently, will have particular trouble interpreting that.
MR STEVENSON (5.25): It is a fair explanation from Mr Wood, but one wonders whether we should introduce a clause that talks about such a thing. When you look in the dictionary you have things like misery and great unhappiness.
Mr Lamont: But that is a 1958 dictionary, the same as the old legislation.
MR STEVENSON: Do you mind? It is a 1948 dictionary. The reason I do not bring my two-volume World Book Dictionary down here is that this is a lot better. I like this one. Different people have a different idea of what distress is and what undue distress is. When an injury is caused to an animal it is obvious at the time if pain is caused, although, obviously, there are degrees of that. When words like "distress" and "undue distress" are used it is very difficult to get a standard as to exactly what that means.
There are so many different reasons why various animals would feel distress, or undue distress. Once again, how do you tell? Is this a report from somebody? Unless the magistrate is with the animal at the time, he cannot necessarily tell what distress the animal is in. He would be relying, presumably, on somebody else's statement as to what they thought the animal was suffering at the time. That is where we get some of the problems about what stress is, or what undue stress is, or the reporting of it. I think it would be better to leave the clause with the words "that causes injury or pain to the animal" rather than get into this more nebulous area of distress, be it undue or otherwise. Really, animals can get distressed, terribly distressed, when their masters are not there, when their owners are not about. So, is that something that should be an offence? We are really getting into troubled waters with that definition.
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