Page 1152 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 10 April 2018
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ownership and public safety extend to greyhounds. For example, the registrar will have to consider public safety and whether an owner can demonstrate responsible dog management, care and control before granting a racing greyhound controller licence.
I am happy to clarify for Mr Parton and anyone else in this room that the legislation does set out that owning a greyhound is not an offence. An individual may register to own a racing greyhound. However, racing or trialling a greyhound in the ACT is an offence, regardless of whether or not the greyhound is registered. Those people who own retired greyhounds will be able to alert the registrar if their greyhound is retired, and it no longer needs to remain on the register.
The proposed amendments also clarify some definitions, including adding a new definition of the term “breeding”. Under the act currently there are a number of provisions relating to breeding. Notably, it is an offence to breed dogs or cats without a licence. However, the term “breeding” is not explicitly defined. As you might imagine, this creates some grey areas around whether or not someone is indeed a breeder. Since there are multiple stages across the process of insemination and birth, it is helpful to be clear and precise on this issue.
The new definition of “breeding” incorporates all stages of pregnancy, birth and the first weeks of life. In particular, it defines breeding a litter from a cat or dog to include inseminating the animal or doing any other act intended to make the animal pregnant or assist the animal in becoming pregnant, assisting the birth of the litter, and whelping or weaning a kitten or pup in the litter. Animal welfare is paramount and we want to ensure that anyone involved at any stage of the breeding process is properly licensed.
In addition, amendments in this bill will now also mean that a breeding licence must comply with any relevant breeding standard or mandatory code of practice under the Animal Welfare Act 1992. By linking breeding licences directly to the Animal Welfare Act, we can ensure that the licences always keep pace with the latest standards in animal welfare.
We have made considerable changes to our domestic animals framework over the past 12 months to better serve the goals of animal welfare and public safety. We are clarifying our system so that it is easier to use by taking bold and important steps in animal safety, and we are ensuring that the ACT registrar and others in the domestic animal services team are equipped to appropriately handle dangerous situations.
The amendments before the Assembly today further clarify and strengthen the improved dangerous dogs framework that we introduced last year. I commend the bill to the Assembly.
MS FITZHARRIS (Yerrabi—Minister for Health and Wellbeing, Minister for Transport and City Services and Minister for Higher Education, Training and Research) (11.40), in reply: I thank members for their support today. I would like to start by drawing members’ attention to the revised explanatory statement, which simply corrects the numbering contained in the statement. The revised statement now correctly references clauses against the correct numbers. I understand that the
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