Page 868 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 20 March 2019
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Unfortunately, in recent weeks Ms Lawder has sought to make a virtue of her proposed legislation, two bills that are not evidence based. The second bill, which was recently debated, would have seen no fee apply for dog registrations for a dog that completed a training course at an age before any professional would train a dog. Then she launched a campaign outright opposing the recommendations of the independent expert review in relation to registration. Her legislation would have doubled the cost of a dangerous dog licence when we have already increased the cost and that is already resulting in many dogs subject to such a licence being surrendered to DAS and then being euthanised. Her legislation also proposed to legislate a fee waiver that is already provided by DAS.
There is always more that can be done, but we need to use an evidence-based approach to improvement. We will continue to monitor the effectiveness of the legislation that we have, but we will not rush into either unnecessarily cruel or unimplementable laws. We will also continue to monitor the effectiveness of our front-line resources, of our approach to compliance and of our approach to education.
Domestic animal services receives reports on a full range of incidents, from a situation where a dog makes a person uncomfortable or they feel threatened or harassed to a full-on dog attack. Reports are a positive indication of an educated and informed community that takes reporting seriously and holds irresponsible dog owners to account. Seeing a large increase in reported incidents whilst seeing not as big an increase in actual attacks is positive—positive because it means our new laws that we put in place in December 2017 here in the Assembly that require reporting are working and Canberrans are confident about how to report suspected dog attacks.
City services has a dedicated dog attack investigations team who are committed to achieving the best results for the community and using our strong legislation to uphold public safety as a priority. Each of the attacks in 2017 and 2018 was investigated and each attack was treated with the utmost seriousness and professionalism by our dedicated staff. I am confident that they will thoroughly investigate the Mimosa alpaca incident as well. Our government has already increased resources for DAS by introducing eight additional officers, which is double their previous numbers, to support domestic animal work and reduce the number of dog attacks.
In 2019 TCCS will take a more targeted approach to enforcement. We are enhancing education and awareness activities to promote responsible pet ownership through a dedicated education and awareness strategy, which was a recommendation from the independent expert review. Later in the year I will bring forward the Canberra model for dog management, which was also a recommendation of the recent review. This will build on strong action that is already underway and is ongoing.
Over 200 fines were issued to irresponsible owners last year. Over 90 of these were for a person who owned a dog that attacked or harassed someone, and over 30 were for people who were keeping a non-desexed dog. Already this year over 40 fines have been issued. Strong compliance action is and will continue to be a focus, along with responsible dog ownership. Our government is committed to achieving a best practice
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video