Page 4094 - Week 11 - Thursday, 21 September 2017

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The Assembly voted—

Original question, as amended, resolved in the affirmative.

Sitting suspended from 12.31 to 2.30 pm.

Questions without notice

Animals—dog attacks

MR COE: My question is to the Minister for Transport and City Services. In your ministerial statement this morning, you said:

From these millions of interactions for the years 2016 and 2017 the Domestic Animal Services received only 389 reports of incidents involving a dog.

Minister, why are you trivialising the fact that there were 389 incidents in Canberra?

MS FITZHARRIS: Far from trivialising it, I think the extensive statement that I gave, and statements that I have given previously, to the Assembly show the seriousness with which I take these issues.

MR COE: Minister, how many of these 389 incidents resulted in the death of an animal or in a person needing to go to hospital?

MS FITZHARRIS: With regard to those incidents in 2016 and 2017, of the 389, 88 involved incidents with a dog and a human, 176 a dog with another dog, 82 a dog with another animal, 31 a dog with a human and another animal, and 12 were reported but found not to be an attack or harassment. I note, as I believe I did in my statement earlier, that this can also include people and their own dogs. I will take on notice the specific question about how many of those resulted in a presentation to hospital.

MR WALL: Minister, are you happy with the current level of enforcement by domestic animal services?

MS FITZHARRIS: Yes, I am, but I would note that oftentimes an attack and enforcement are not necessarily related. In fact, often an attack or an incident involving a dog may not have come to the attention of domestic animal services previously.

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