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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2007-10-24 Daily Xml
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RODEOS, FEES

The Hon. G.M. GUNN (Stuart) (11:26): I move:

That the regulation made under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1985 entitled Fees, made on 7 June 2007 and laid on the table of this house on 19 June 2006, be disallowed.

This is a particularly nasty, ill-considered regulation. Why should volunteers conducting rodeos on behalf of their communities and raising money for the Flying Doctor or other worthwhile organisations be charged a fee for their trouble? What a miserable act in a society such as ours. Why would you want to slug volunteers? When I came into this place, we had government departments that were keen and interested in helping people and cooperating with them—the department of lands, the department of agriculture. Now we have the tentacles of the Department for Environment and Heritage wanting to make life as difficult as it can for people. What justification has the Minister for Environment and Conservation for bringing in a regulation to slug people $65 so that they can provide entertainment for people at rodeos?

In my constituency, we have a rodeo at Spalding, Wilmington, Peterborough and Carrieton. We also have the Marrabel rodeo and various other rodeos. It takes a great deal of effort and work from a dedicated band of hardworking people to run these particular events. They provide a great deal of responsible entertainment for the community and now we want to put these unnecessary bureaucratic controls in their way. The Premier has been loud in his comments about getting rid of red tape, but he has a minister who wants to create even more red tape and implement more bureaucratic controls. I put it to the house: what will they do if people decide not to pay? Will they put them in gaol? Will they send out their Sir Humphrey Applebys one, two and three—which one is it? Will they send out the director of the Department for Environment and Heritage to tell them?

I look forward to going to the rodeos this year and telling the people that this government talks about helping people in drought-affected areas, but what it wants to do is make life more difficult for them. I say, heaven help us if this is the best the government can do to help people in small rural communities but to slug them again. What will they do with the money? How much will it cost to collect this money? Here we have the minister and her advisers pretending that they are friendly towards people in rural areas and they are in favour of rodeos when they have a program to get rid of rodeos and these other sorts of events. Could the government and the minister at the table please tell me why the biggest rodeo in the world at Calgary (also the huge one at Edmonton) does not have to deal with any of this nonsense, but here in little South Australia a group of radicals (who do not like farmers, miners and most things and want to make life difficult) has infiltrated the department of environment.

I call on the government to provide a proper explanation. The speech which the minister made in the other house was the weakest effort you would ever hear. For a minister of the Crown to give an explanation like she gave, heaven help the people of South Australia! I am looking forward to going to the rodeos, and I may even be forced to say a few words because a lot of people go to these events. This is the sort of stuff that Kevin Rudd wants to force upon the people. They not only want to put a capital gains tax on people's houses and tax four-wheel drives, but there will also be more of this. We will make sure that in a few weeks the people of South Australia and the people of Grey clearly understand that they will get more of this: more controls, more charges, more bureaucrats trying to interfere with their daily lives. I commend the motion to the house.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.

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