Page 953 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 31 March 1993
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for the animal's well-being. Unless the dog is being kept for breeding purposes, it should also be desexed. All of that responsibility costs in terms of cash outlay and time, and people who want to have a pet dog should weigh up their commitment to that animal. It is not sufficient to purchase an adorable puppy and make no arrangements for its safekeeping and well-being. That responsibility includes ensuring that the new pet does not become a public nuisance.
It is when the behaviour of dogs interferes with the lives of others and causes them genuine fear for their safety or that of other animals that we rely upon the Dog Control Act to provide the means of removing that threat. I feel that the amendments I propose in the Dog Control (Amendment) Bill 1993 will better achieve the desired result. Firstly, I have moved to increase the powers of the dog control unit inspectors. At present, inspectors can legitimately enter premises only to ascertain whether there have been any breaches of that part of the Act, section 18A, that states that the number of dogs that can be kept on a property as pets shall be limited to three. Under the proposed amendment, inspectors can enter premises if they believe that the keeper of a dog is in breach of any section of the Act.
Subsection 25(4) of the Dog Control Act currently states that, where a keeper of a dog is convicted of an offence, including an attack on a person, behaviour leading to a reasonable fear of an attack or an attack on another animal, the court may, if it thinks fit, order that the dog be destroyed. I have felt, as have many of the people who have contacted me in recent weeks, that this has left too much discretion for the dog to be returned to its owner. Let me be quite specific: For the keeper to be found guilty, the prosecution must first prove its case, as is the norm, beyond reasonable doubt. To prove its case, the prosecution must prove that the dog was not provoked in the attack and that the attack did not take place while the victim of the attack was unlawfully on the property of the keeper of the dog.
I am not advocating immediate destruction of dogs accused of attacking but that when a dog has been proven to have attacked, as described as an offence under the Act, it should be ordered that the dog be destroyed. The amendment as proposed has the effect that, unless there are exceptional circumstances put before the magistrate, a dog found to have attacked will be destroyed. The community has this expectation, and it has become obvious in the past few weeks that much concern has been generated by stays of execution and orders to remove offending dogs from the Territory, even after the cases against the owners have been proven. After discussion with the ACT's Chief Magistrate, Mr Ron Cahill, I have included the provision allowing for consideration of exceptional and extraordinary circumstances before the order is made to destroy a dog which has attacked. This gives magistrates room to consider the particular merits of the case against destruction. However, the amendment to this section could not make the initial direction to the court any clearer.
Before it can be determined that a dog has attacked a person or animal, the dog must be seized by the dog control unit. In my amendments to the Act I have included provision to allow dog control unit officers to enter onto premises for the purpose of seizing dogs suspected of having attacked a person or another animal. Under the current Act, unless the land is that of the keeper of the dog, inspectors need the permission of the occupant of the land before they can enter, which seems an unnecessary bar to the officers in execution of their duty.
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