Parliamentary Committees

Natural Resources Committee: Duck Shooting Prohibition

Ms THOMPSON (Davenport) (11:03): I move:

That the eligible petition presented to the house on 13 November 2025 from 22,500 residents of South Australia requesting the house to urge the government to prohibit duck shooting in South Australia be referred to the Natural Resources Committee.

This is the largest petition received by this parliament this term, calling for an end to recreational shooting in our state: 22,000 South Australians from every region and every walk of life all saying with one voice, 'This outdated cruelty must end.' This is an extraordinary act of civic participation and it deserves recognition in this chamber. These signatures were not gathered online with the click of a button; they were collected by hand—thousands of conversations and thousands of moments where everyday South Australians stopped, learned more, shared their concerns and chose to act.

I would like to acknowledge the tireless work of the RSPCA South Australia, Birds SA, the Conservation Council SA, South Aussies for Animals, and every volunteer who has spent the past five months standing outside shops and markets and local events collecting handwritten signatures. You have brought this issue from the wetlands to the very steps of Parliament House. This is people power in its purest form. Many of these volunteers have told me stories that have stayed with me, like the grandmother who signed because her grandchild asked why ducks cry out when they are shot. These are the lived experiences that do not make it to the technical reports but they do matter deeply.

In 2023, a parliamentary inquiry into native bird hunting examined this issue in depth. It heard from hunters, scientists, conservationists, wildlife carers and animal welfare experts, and the evidence was sobering. The inquiry found what many in our community already knew: that monitoring and enforcing compliance across vast wetlands is almost impossible, and that too many birds are wounded, not killed outright.

South Australia has only a small number of compliance officers available to monitor vast and often remote wetlands. Even with the best intentions, there are simply not enough boots on the ground to ensure humane standards are met, and when oversight is impossible, cruelty becomes inevitable. The RSPCA presented footage from the very first day of the 2023 season, footage not taken by regulators but by independent observers, showing wounded ducks left flapping on piles, dogs encouraged to snap at still-living birds and inhumane attempts to kill injured ducks by windmilling them by the neck or stomping them into the ground.

What I found particularly heartbreaking from this footage was that this seemed to be some kind of father-son activity: 'Let's take our boys out to the wetlands and let's teach them how to do this practice'—a practice that I only learned about recently called windmilling, where they literally spin live ducks around by the neck. Those kids were aged nine, 10, 11, and this was supposed to be a fun experience with their parents. I think what was particularly concerning was that they were not good at this practice, so they did not really achieve the outcome they were hoping for, and often it took quite some time before that duck was put out of its misery.

These are not isolated incidents. They are scenes that are witnessed year after year, and the scale of suffering is significant. The RSPCA estimates that as many as 10,000 ducks each season may be left to suffer slow, painful deaths after being shot. One experienced hunter told the committee he refuses to shoot ducks at all, not because he is against hunting but because the wounding rate is simply too high.

For those who have never witnessed it, it is important to understand what duck hunting actually involves. A shotgun does not fire a single bullet; it sprays hundreds of tiny metal pellets into the air, a wide cloud of shot aimed roughly towards a moving bird. Some pellets will hit vital organs, but many do not. The birds on the edge of that spray are struck in their wings, their legs or their backs. They are injured but they are still alive. Some will fall into the water and struggle, and others will fly on with pellets embedded inside them, only to die slowly hours or days later from pain, infection or predation. It is not clean and it is not quick. As even hunters told the inquiry, wounding is inevitable, not because the shooters lack skill but because the very method makes cruelty unavoidable.

Beyond the animal welfare concerns, though, duck shooting also disturbs fragile wetland ecosystems. Repeated gunfire disrupts breeding cycles, scatters migratory species and impacts other native wildlife. Wetlands are some of our most precious ecological assets and their protection has to be part of this conversation.

When we talk about sport, let's be honest about what that actually means: hundreds of lead pellets scattered through the air, hitting living creatures at random. Duck hunting in South Australia is carried out by less than 0.05 per cent of the population—711 permit holders in a state of 1.8 million people—yet we keep protecting this activity. Each of those hunters can legally shoot up to 10 ducks per day across a three-month season. It is a pastime for a few but suffering for thousands, and the vast majority of South Australians, as multiple polls have shown, want this cruelty to end.

Three independent polls in recent years found around 70 per cent of South Australians support a ban and almost 90 per cent of South Australians say that, when animals are killed, it should be quickly and humanely—something that just cannot be achieved with duck shooting. As the RSPCA points out, we do not talk about wounding rates in abattoirs because humane killing requires control, precision and certainty. Shotguns in a wetland just cannot deliver that.

Other states have also grappled with this same question. New South Wales, Queensland and WA banned duck shooting decades ago. South Australia remains one of the few states that still allows the recreational shooting of native waterbirds. Those states that ended duck shooting have not looked back. Their wetlands remain open for birdwatching, photography, education, tourism—activities that create far more economic benefit and community participation than a short hunting season ever could. These are models that we can all learn from.

Every year, volunteers from rescue groups and the RSPCA spend their weekends retrieving wounded birds, comforting the dying and witnessing suffering most of us will never see. They do this because they believe in the lives of our native wildlife, and their evidence—their lived experience—needs to be part of the conversation.

As the Conservation Council has noted, people living near wetlands are tired of the gunfire, tired of injured birds washing up on their properties, tired of seeing habitat disrupted and breeding disturbed. As Birds SA has said, 22,500 signatures send a clear signal about what South Australians consider decent, civilised behaviour in 2025. As South Aussies for Animals put it so simply: 'Why is this still allowed?' And I have heard many kids from primary schools in my local area also say that same thing: 'Why is this still allowed?'

We are a state that prides itself on fairness, empathy and evidence-based decision-making and, when 22,500 South Australians speak with this level of clarity, we have a duty to listen. If cruelty is recognised, what level of suffering are we willing to accept? Government must always base decisions on evidence, consultation and fairness, but part of that responsibility is listening deeply to our community and being open to evolving expectations. Young people, in particular, are watching what we do here. When school students write to MPs asking why our laws still allow native animals to be shot for recreation they are not asking technical questions, they are asking moral ones; and they are asking us to lead, and they expect us to.

So, today, as I table this petition, I do so with deep gratitude to the RSPCA, to all partner organisations and to every South Australian who has signed their name to this cause. With 22,500 signatures—22,500 voices—our community has spoken.

Motion carried.