Page 2310 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 23 June 2010
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Last Saturday’s Canberra Times carried a front-page story announcing the start of a new kangaroo cull program in eight nature reserves across the ACT. According to the story, the government gave less than 24 hours notice that the gates of chosen reserves would be closed in readiness for the program. The government has become ready for the animal rights and welfare activists. It posted notices on the nature reserves warning that fines of up to $5,000 would be levied on anyone who trespassed in the reserve during the cull period, which runs until 31 July. This is decisive action, and it is decisive action that was needed.
Mr Stanhope now is an expert on managing kangaroo culls. He has been there before, and he has endured the wrath of activists. It is interesting to note, in the history of the ACT, how difficult it has been to conduct kangaroo culls in the ACT. I remember that when Ms Follett was the Chief Minister and Bill Wood was her intrepid environment minister, proposals for kangaroo culls were met with unbelievable cries of outrage from the community. I remember a rather amusing Pryor cartoon at the time: a kangaroo had made its way into a car driven by Ms Follett, and Mr Wood was in the passenger seat; they had a kangaroo in between them and it was causing them considerable difficulty—as was the issue in the public domain.
As members know, I worked for Gary Humphries in this place over a period of time. When he was the minister for the environment, we, too, had to manage kangaroo culls and were confronted with real problems from animal activists on those occasions. On occasions, animal activists attempted to put themselves between marksmen and kangaroos, a very dangerous thing to do. It was very disruptive; it was very difficult for the parks and conservation rangers involved; it was very difficult for the contractors involved; it was difficult for the police; and it was unnecessarily dangerous.
With the Googong cull a few years ago—which I think was when Mr Stanhope cut his teeth on culling—the same issues arose. We had animal activists squirreling themselves away during the daytime, only to pop up at night and put themselves in great danger. Just imagine what would have happened if someone had been inadvertently wounded or killed because of the reckless behaviour of a group of activists in this area.
As a result of the very hard work that successive governments have done, we are now getting to the stage where there is sufficient work and sufficient rigour in the process that underpins the decision to cull. And there has been sufficient conversation in the community that there is much less heart in the community for outrageous and dangerous stunts on the part of people to try and disrupt these culls.
When I was talking to officials yesterday, they pointed me to the various types of research that have been done, which now seems to indicate that less than 10 per cent of people in the ACT are opposed to a cull under any circumstances. That shows that we are now in a situation where the community has come to realise the necessity for this somewhat difficult decision. It is time that members of this Assembly join in a tripartite way and support the officials and the contractors who have to do this difficult work. That is part of the reason that I have put this motion on the notice paper today.
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