Page 417 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 2 March 1994
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Madam Speaker, this probably does not sound unusual to anybody who has owned a dog. Granted, there are significant differences between owning a dog and owning a cat. There have certainly been examples of risk to public safety from dogs. Such risk is not a real issue with cats. The real issue here is not public safety but rather preserving our environment.
Mr Humphries: Do you own a dog, Michael?
MR MOORE: Madam Speaker, Mr Humphries asks whether I own a dog. I own a dog which is desexed and confined not only at night but right through the day. Madam Speaker, the important and significant thing about the recommendations with reference to cats is that any responsible cat owner now will not find those recommendations onerous at all. They are simply reasonable measures to ensure that we do not have a transition from domestic cat to stray cat to feral cat. They are measures that have already been put into place with some success and well accepted in the Sherbrooke Shire in the Dandenongs, which the committee visited. Madam Speaker, the committee also believes that a lot of the work currently been carried out by Landcare groups in the ACT needs to be encouraged and that with some further encouragement some of our problems, particularly those with invasive plants, can be dealt with in a successful way.
One of the unusual things that this committee has done is talk about an increase in funding. We are reluctant in all the committees that I sit on - and I think there are five of them - to recommend any measures that are not either cost effective or cost neutral. Madam Speaker, in this case the committee has recommended that a minimum of $200,000 a year be sought through Federal Government funding for such programs as weed control, and that a concerted 10-year program be put into place. We are talking about $200,000 per year over a 10-year period. If that funding is not forthcoming from the Federal Government, then it is appropriate that the spending be made within the ACT Government and directed specifically to this purpose. It is the old case of a stitch in time saves nine. It seems to us that a relatively small expenditure now will save us from needing to look at a far greater expenditure in the not too distant future.
Madam Speaker, one of the other issues that the committee dealt with was the issue of kangaroos. We originally started with the notion of feral animals. A number of people in responding to our discussion paper pointed out that kangaroos were not feral animals, and that is correct. But it is fair to say that the eastern grey kangaroo has reached pest proportions on a number of occasions. We certainly saw that in a most public way at the Governor-General's residence. Madam Speaker, the committee, therefore, believed that it was appropriate to recommend the best way to deal with a species that has got out of kilter with the environment around it because of the role that people have played in changing that environment and providing a sound source of food.
The committee, therefore, recommends that the current policy which does not allow the issue of permits for the culling of kangaroos be modified to provide for the issue of such permits under very strict conditions. Those conditions are that it be established that a particular species of kangaroos is present in such numbers as to pose an economic threat to leaseholders or to be a danger to public road traffic in the ACT; that culling pose no threat to public safety; and that where culling is to take place it comply with the accepted codes of practice, including the appropriate national code of practice. Those codes of practice are well set out and quite clear. They are referred to in the body of the report.
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