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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Wednesday, 3 March 2004) . . Page.. 694 ..

I am not a big cat lover and have recently inherited a cat through marriage, which is very interesting. Cats have an impact on the environment, and we need to come up with solutions, but I wonder whether cat-free zones in the suburbs are the answer. How do you work out in which part of a suburb a cat-free ban would be most effective? Indeed, some suburbs on either side of these suburbs are closer than parts of Forde and Bonner.

Declaring two suburbs to be cat free is illogical when the exclusion zone needs to be 500 metres from the edge of a reserve and all of the six new suburbs in the northern part of Gungahlin border on to reserves. The question is: are we setting a precedent for making all new suburbs that border on to a reserve cat free? You can then ask the equity question: if my new suburb borders a reserve, what about the old suburbs that border reserves? Suburbs that have cats also have problems. I guess you can say, “Precautionary principle. Let’s not make the problem worse than it is at the moment.” But if we are going to have a debate about cats, let’s have the fair dinkum debate instead of a Clayton’s debate where we ban cats in two suburbs.

The suburb on the other side of Mulligans Flat is Throsby; Throsby will border on Mulligans Flat. Why doesn’t this mention Throsby? The answer may be that Throsby is not on the agenda—

Ms Tucker: We’ve worked it out, and we got took.

MR SMYTH: Ms Tucker, so rude! There goes democracy out the window!

Ms Tucker: I’m offering you a choice!

MR SMYTH: Ms Tucker’s out of turn with it because they have worked it out. I can stop talking. I am glad you’ve worked it out, Ms Tucker. I look forward to the wisdom that the Assembly is about to be given through consultation. But it is an important issue. The cat population of the country, not just of the ACT, must have some impact on bird life and marsupial life. We know that.

As an aside—and perhaps I will be accused of being flippant by those who are in favour of the Human Rights Bill—last night we passed clause 13, which is freedom of movement. Mr Deputy Speaker, I know you are an ardent fan of human rights. Freedom of movement says that everyone has the right to move freely within the ACT and to enter and leave it and the freedom to choose his or her residence in the ACT—

Ms Dundas: A cat is not a human.

MR SMYTH: No, but an owner of a cat can be affected by human rights. I wonder whether the first case arising from the new Human Rights Act 2003 will be from a cat owner demanding to live in Bonner or Forde—another question for members to consider. Given that we have the wisdom that the issue has been solved, I will take my chair and await the wisdom of the Assembly as to the outcome of cats in ACT suburbs.

MR CORBELL (Minister for Health and Minister for Planning) (5.46): The issue of the impact of cats in adjacent nature reserve areas is important, and the government wants to make sure that we get the approach right. The discussion paper put forward by the

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