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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Wednesday, 3 March 2004) . . Page.. 700 ..

In terms of enforcement, a point Mr Smyth did not seem to take on board, is that once a cat was found in the nature reserve they would be treated as a feral cat, like any other feral cat found in nature reserves across the ACT. We already have enforcement procedures for those cats, and I see them quite simply applying in this case.

I am glad that this debate has been concluded in time for people who are looking to move into Forde and Bonner to have the full information about the restrictions on blocks of land and so that we can work to protect our native bushland and our native fauna to the best of our abilities.

Question put:

That Ms Tucker’s amendment to Mr Stanhope’s amendment be agreed to.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Amendment agreed to.

Question put:

That Mr Stanhope’s amendment, as amended, be agreed to.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Amendment, as amended, agreed to.

MR SPEAKER: The question now is that Ms Tucker’s motion, as amended, be agreed to.

MS TUCKER (6.13): I would like to make just a few concluding comments. The opposition are furiously opposed to this so-called policy making on the run. Well, I cannot help it if the Liberals have not chosen to look at this issue before. It has been an ongoing discussion in Canberra since 1992, but also in more recent times. I was going to put this up last sitting week, so this is hardly taking the Liberals by surprise. At that point the government were not ready. So of course there has been opportunity for the Liberals to do their work on this. If they have not, I cannot take responsibility for that.

One of the points Mr Smyth made was about how we will manage this. He asked whether we would be going into houses to see if there is cat food there. Well, my understanding of the amendment from Mrs Dunne was that the Liberals were more inclined to support a ban than to support what the government has amended my motion to give us. If Mr Smyth is so concerned about the enforcement of a ban, that makes me even more confident that we have done the right thing here today. There are arguments for both a ban and the containment of cats, but I am hearing Mr Smyth argue against the ban, which is what Mrs Dunne was giving me as the temptation to support this amendment. So there are clearly different views in the Liberal Party about this.

If we can get something happening today, the difference between the two is not that significant. There are arguments both ways. I take the argument that Mr Corbell put

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