Page 3290 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 13 November 2007
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I turn to the question of nuisance dogs. Unfortunately, we do not see enough capacity in TAMS to proactively check for nuisance dogs or dangerous dogs. The onus to alert the authorities should not be only on citizens. Yes, they have a role to do that, but this should be a partnership role with a proactive dog patrolling initiative. We are concerned at the lack of capacity in this legislation. We do not want to see that become an excuse for running down further ranger capacity for proactive dog patrolling. With the 2006 rationalisation of government services, we feel that some of our front-line services in various departments have been run down. We hope that that will not be the case here. We will be watching to see whether TAMS has the capacity to ensure that proactive dog patrolling can continue—for two purposes: identifying nuisance dogs and identifying dangerous dogs.
I go to the question of cat desexing. We support this amendment, provided veterinarians are aware and trained suitably in the desexing of younger kittens. We would hope to see some regulations on the procedure side of things. I note the offer off assistance by Victorian veterinarians in this regard.
We agree with the government’s proposed new section 74A regarding “sexually entire dogs and cats”, if I may use that quaint term. We agree with the provision here that it is important that, if a distributor sells a dog or somebody gives a dog away, and that dog is known to be “sexually entire”, the appropriate notification should be given to the department so that the department can track where that dog—or cat—has gone. That is extremely important.
We agree with the government’s new licensing for the keeping of multiple cats. The provisions are that you can keep three cats on one property, but if you go beyond that you are going to have to seek a licence to hold multiple cats. From time to time we have heard the odd horror story, though we do not have a plague of unhinged multiple cat owners in the ACT. But these circumstances do evolve in some places. We do not want to see neighbourhoods concerned about a plague of cats because somebody is not taking appropriate measures to look after their cats.
The new provision in this legislation allowing the seizing of cats is very important, because it tightens it up and makes it very clear to the public that this can happen. Cats can be seized in just the same way dogs can be seized.
On the question of dangerous dogs, the opposition likes the provision that any dog can be deemed dangerous by its proven actions—any dog. I presume that can also mean a chihuahua. If a chihuahua is known to be chewing people’s socks off and giving people a difficult time, it is certainly a nuisance dog, if not a mildly dangerous dog. It can be dangerous to children. We support the government’s initiative on that.
It is good to see that the government will tighten up its regulations for owning a dangerous dog. However, this still does not address a range of serious issues relevant to dangerous dogs. The focus has been and continues to be more on the owners of such dogs. We believe that we need to see the focus put back on the dangerous animal; consequently, I will be seeking to amend this legislation accordingly.
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