Page 3293 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 13 November 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
I note that the current cost for a permit to keep sexually entire animals is $288. This is slightly more than the average cost of a desexing operation, which will, we hope, encourage people to have their animals desexed. It is important that the staff at Domestic Animal Services clearly explain this to people so that they can make a choice about the best course of action for their own situation rather than having to be brought before a court. I know from personal experience that there is money available to assist people on Centrelink benefits, and perhaps those on other low incomes, to pay for desexing operations. It is worth the government remembering that paying something like $200 once is going to be an awful lot cheaper than dealing with brood after brood of unwanted pups and kittens later. I hope that this will continue as a service to animal owners and to the whole community.
How well this part of the legislation is monitored will determine the legislation’s effectiveness. We need to monitor how many people take up the alternative of a desexing operation. If not enough people are taking it up, we might need to twitch the legislation.
While I applaud the government for the way the regulations are heading, I would have liked to see them go a little further and reduce the number of exemptions from the requirements. The fact that one is in the business of selling dogs and cats should not be a defence for a failure to act responsibly. If anything, those that profit from the animals should bear a higher responsibility for their actions. To say that an industry ought to be exempt from doing the right thing because it might not make as much money out of it is fundamentally unacceptable.
As with so many other issues, when it comes to deciding the best outcomes I consistently say, “Ask the experts.” What do the people who have to deal with these problems tell us is the best way forward? For gambling issues we should be asking groups such as Lifeline, for instance: they are the ones who have to pick up the pieces when things go wrong for people with problem gambling issues. In the case of domestic animals, it is the RSPCA who must deal with many of the problems—
Mr Hargreaves: What about Domestic Animal Services?
DR FOSKEY: I have talked about them for the first two pages of my speech, but I will mention them again: Domestic Animal Services. And I understand that the RSPCA was consulted to some extent in the preparation of this legislation. In deciding the best policy direction, we should rely on the advice of these groups. I am assuming that Domestic Animal Services had a great input into this legislation, because they are at the coalface; they are the people who have to deal with not only the dogs but also the dogs’ owners when they come to claim them, if they do. To this end, it would have been nice to see some stronger controls around the keeping of undesexed dogs and to see a clearer initiative to prevent people from breeding puppies and kittens in their backyards and selling them.
One has only to look in the Canberra Times each Saturday morning to see how many litters are being bred, either accidentally or with the intention of making a few quick dollars. It is these dogs that often end up in the pound and euthanased because there is
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .