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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-10-16 Daily Xml
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CAT MANAGEMENT

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (12:11): I move:

That this house commends the Rann government for advancing the development and implementation of cat management policies and laws.

Members would be aware that I have been trying to get cat management laws in place in this state for sometime. I introduced a bill but the government did not want to support it, and the opposition did not support it. In fact, I do not think the opposition even spoke on it, which I thought was a little unusual. It was opposed to it but it did not put its position on the record. Anyway, things have moved on since then, and another bill I put in lapsed during prorogation.

That bill was a modified version, which would require councils to put information regarding their cat management plans on the web and to do other things. So, it was a more gentle approach than the original one, which did allow for councils to have identification requirements to make sure that cats were not wandering, and so on.

Following my lobbying on this issue, the then minister responsible, the Hon. Gail Gago as minister for the environment, required the Dog and Cat Management Board to become active on this issue. I have been critical of the Dog and Cat Management Board because I think the name is a bit of a misnomer. I do not think it has managed much in relation to cats; and in relation to dogs it has done a lot more than it has done in relation to cats.

Cats are wonderful creatures. I do not have anything against cats, but I want to see effective management and control of them. I have spoken to vets who say that when they came under proper management control, the number of dogs being injured on the roads, and so on, dropped dramatically. What we have now is a situation where hundreds of cats are destroyed each year in Adelaide alone, let alone those that are shot outside the metropolitan area by farmers and others because of a significant problem with feral cats. I do not see how anyone could be pleased with the fact that, in total, thousands of cats in this state are destroyed every year. I do not see how anyone could rejoice at that.

I notice that Christine Pierson, who is an activist, I guess, in regard to cat issues, has indicated that, basically, you round up stray cats, desex them and then release them again. That does not deal with the issues I want to focus on now, which include the nuisance factor to people—cats urinating on their property and cars and disturbing people at night—but also cats killing wildlife.

One of the reasons we do not have as much wildlife left is because of cats. For anyone who wants to dispute that, I can provide detailed statistics showing what feral cats do. The Department of Primary Industries of Victoria website gives statistics showing that pet cats kill an average of 16 mammals, eight birds and eight reptiles every year. According to its calculations, 29 million creatures are killed every year by pet cats. Then it adds feral cats and says that a feral cat needs to eat the equivalent of seven native bush rats or 10 native birds each week, so 200,000 feral cats by 10 wild creatures by 52 weeks runs into the millions; the figure given here is 104 million. Stray cats in cities kill on average five creatures each week: 300,000 cats by five creatures by 52 weeks, and so it goes on. If any member wants to challenge what cats do, whether they are feral or stray, I can show them a fairly illustrative photograph of the gut contents of a cat caught in and around Roxby Downs. The photograph shows starkly what is in the intestines of those cats.

As with people who are foolish enough to deny the holocaust or that climate change is occurring, people who deny that cats do not kill wildlife are being foolish. There is the nuisance issue as well. People have a right to keep cats, but there is also an obligation for cats to be properly cared for. I cannot see how anyone can claim that their cat is being looked after if it is wandering the streets and annoying other people. Even in my own street there is a household a few doors up which has a cat that wanders, and they say, 'Just shoo it back.' The cat gets on people's roofs and all sorts of things. Another neighbour, who has since moved on, had a cat that used to tear baby possums to bits and they would just say that it is natural. It is not natural. Cats' instinct is to kill, but it does not mean that you should have them killing whatever they like, whenever they like; that is a silly argument.

The Dog and Cat Management Board has been consulting with councils, and it is taking quite a while. I hope the current minister will swiftly follow in support of what the Hon. Gail Gago did (the current minister is the Hon. Jay Weatherill) to ensure we get action, because the Dog and Cat Management Board, stirred into life and acting on this issue after a lengthy time, is inviting submissions to comment on its draft options paper. It is inviting submissions up to 12 December this year. That is a fairly generous response time. I am pleased that something is happening. I want to see action, and do not want to see the situation dragged out so that in the lead-up to the next state election we are trying to debate an issue like this in the heated environment close to an election. When the Hon. John Hill was minister for environment he was fantastic in trying to get this measure underway, but it fell on stony ground and not much eventuated. Over many years little has happened.

Some councils such as Norwood, Payneham and St Peters have argued that their cats do not do anything anywhere else, in terms of killing creatures in the Torrens and so on. I do not know how people can believe that sort of argument. Some councils are vulnerable to people who want to put a bit of pressure on them, but the overwhelming majority of the community want sensible, realistic cat management laws. They want cats to be properly controlled, properly identified and preferably desexed so that they are not out there multiplying ad infinitum.

This approach is not difficult. Other states have done it. The City of Sydney Council does these things. I do not know why South Australia always seems to be tail-end Charlie when it comes to a lot of these issues. Why do we lag behind other states and other jurisdictions?

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: We wait to see what works in other jurisdictions. It is the glory of having a federation.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH: The Attorney says we see what happens elsewhere. Well, that is a very different approach to the Dunstan era when the Dunstan government actually led the country in a lot of things, and we had a lot of people like Hugh Hudson, Don Hopgood and Len King. You had people who were intelligent and capable and who actually led the country. We should be leading, not being the caboose—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Tail-end Charlie was the word you are looking for.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH: No, I didn't want to use the same word—the political caboose that is at the end of the train. So, the government is moving. It has stirred. I was going to say that the lion has roared, but I think it is more that the pussycat is meowing. The Hon. Gail Gago got things going. They are moving slowly. The Dog and Cat Management Board has awoken from its slumbers and is starting to do something. I am sure that the Hon. Jay Weatherill will love to get his hands on this issue and drive it after having to deal with some of the complex issues he had in his former portfolio. This will be an issue that I am sure minister Weatherill will handle with skill.

On the one hand, I congratulate the government on getting things moving. I also request that it gets on even more quickly and gets this issue resolved so that we can have a situation where people who love their cats can have them, keep them and look after them, and those who are irresponsible can no longer disregard other people or the environment. I commend this motion to the house.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (12:23): I indicate that our side of the house will not support the member for Fisher's motion, principally because we feel that the local government sector is trying to drive this and we should give them adequate time to get on top of it and do something about it. It is a pretty interesting day to talk about a cat bill and fur flying after the radio this morning and the stories about what is going on inside the Labor Party with the Hon. Bernie Finnigan—there is plenty of fur flying there, apparently.

Coming back to the member's motion, this whole issue of cats has indeed floated around for a long time. I can tell you here and now—and I have placed it well and truly on the record—that I am no lover of cats, because I have seen regularly what they do, as the member for Fisher indicated, to wildlife. Indeed the cat population in one part of my electorate particularly—Kangaroo Island—is diabolically wiping out the native birds, lizards and anything else that you happen to want to mention.

Indeed, a character by the name of Ronnie Bott, who is a cray fisherman and has a small property, has set about ridding the world of multitudes of feral cats. Ronnie has a very simple solution to the cat problem: he shoots every cat he sees and he places them on a post along the side of the road and, at the last count, I think he had about 18 strung out there. Some of the local cat lovers became a little uptight about that. Another fellow, by the name of Mr Green who resides at American River, turns feral cats into hats; so that is a pretty good outcome for them as well.

In my view, the sensible, common-sense, balanced measures that are taken by Mr Bott, Mr Green and others, both in my electorate on the island and on the mainland around South Australia and probably in the rest of Australia, are a very expeditious way of getting rid of a frustratingly criminal activity, in my view, of people dumping kittens and letting them turn into feral cats that devastate wildlife and also pass on disease through the sheep population.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

Mr PENGILLY: I'm going very well. How's Bernie going in the upper house, Mick? Has he had a good week? Returning to these cats: it is important to realise what a smart creature the cat is and how highly intelligent cats are and what an absolute killing machine they are when they are not contained properly. If people want to have domestic cats and will look after them, keep them inside, put bells on them, microchip them, register them and everything else, that is fine. There are a great number of people who have a cat and do look after it in that way, but I can tell you from my own experience in the little place that we have in Adelaide that the next-door neighbour has two cats that prowl all the time.

Despite repeated requests for them to be locked up, they are still prowling. They are constantly going around the backyards, and there is hardly a bird in the immediate neighbourhood; they have taken out all the birds. We have a small goldfish pond there, and they have had two of the goldfish out of the pond. I would seek to do something about them fairly expeditiously if I had my way, but my wife says that I am not allowed to bring the rifle to Adelaide (which is a bit of a pity).

So, it is the irresponsible cat owners who are the major cause of our having to discuss a motion such as that raised by the member for Fisher today. Local government has struggled to come to grips with this matter. I think the former minister did nothing about it, but I am hopeful that the Hon. Jay Weatherill will do something about it now. The issue for us is that we must give local government the opportunity to come up with the answers on it in the first instance and to do something about it. They are still talking about it and they are still debating where they are going to go, but if we allow local government to do it, we have to give them the necessary financial resources. We cannot cost shift and just pass it on to local government again.

No doubt the natural resource management boards will want to have a look at it. The way they operate, they will put in place 55 different committees, they will prepare 127 different reports, use all the experts in the world, spend tens of thousands of dollars and do nothing, because that is where the natural resource boards are failing on issues such as this, I am afraid. They are doing good work in some areas, but they are so bound up in bureaucracy that they are not able to tackle these things properly.

We do not support this motion as it stands. We do, indeed, ask that local government be given the opportunity, through the Local Government Association, to tackle this issue, and we plead that something be done about the cat problem—and it may have to be radical. I go back to what the member for Fisher said regarding Christine Pearson's comments that overseas they are getting these cats in, desexing them and letting them go again: I have never heard anything so stupid in all my life. Just because you desex them and they cannot breed, it does mean that they will not go out—

The Hon. S.W. Key interjecting:

Mr PENGILLY: We desexed the koalas, but they are still eating. It is just ridiculous. What a totally stupid thing was in the paper. I cannot believe that people in the community think that the answer to the cat problem is to neuter them and then let them go. It is just madness. They should get a vet in the country—and probably one in the metropolitan area—to catch a feral cat and slit it open to see what comes out of its stomach—birds, lizards, skinks. That is what comes out. They are devastating the country. The Pengilly option is to blast them away with a .22 at every opportunity—and I do not draw back from that.

Mr Kenyon: Use something bigger!

Mr PENGILLY: I might get the member for Newland to accompany me on cat patrol. We should fix it up very quickly. Although I respect what the member for Fisher is trying to do with this motion, the reality is that it will not achieve what he wants. Once again, we ask that the Local Government Association be given some encouragement. Unfortunately, the former minister for the environment is now the Minister for State/Local Government Relations—so that is probably a bit of a disaster. We should give the Local Government Association an opportunity to get its act into gear and do something about the appalling problem of loose cats in the community, the city of Adelaide, regional areas, the bush of South Australia and the wider Australian community. They should fix it up once and for all. I am a zero cat man and the sooner there are zero cats in the wild, the better.

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (12:32): I want to support the member for Finniss in relation to this motion. I understand the member for Fisher's desire to do this, but, like many others, I am not a cat lover. I love dogs but not cats. They are a killing machine. As a lover of nature and living in a country region, there is nothing worse than feral cats to destroy the beautiful bird life. We have not had a cat on our farm for many years. When we have visiting cats, we always make sure they have a bell around their neck.

Mr Pengilly: A bullet through the head.

Mr VENNING: It is amazing how feral cats can breed quickly. We have a regular campaign to get rid of them because they are an introduced species. There is no such thing as an Australian native cat. Of course, they are a killing machine—they climb, run, smell and hear. They are a lethal machine in relation to native wildlife. I support anything that brings this issue under some scrutiny. I note that the member for Fisher has raised this issue on more than one occasion. As a former member himself of local government, I wonder why he is not pushing this matter through local government avenues.

The Hon. R.B. Such: The Dog and Cat Management Board is working with local councils.

Mr VENNING: I can understand his frustration. I, too, am a former councillor, and having this debate probably cements a position, but I will not support our doing this because I believe it is an area of local government. Issues such as this are their responsibility—absolutely and totally. I support an expansion of this power for local government. Sometimes rules such as this should not be blanket rules because they do vary, particularly in relation to certain animals. What is a cat? A cat is not necessarily a cat. There are big ones, small ones, tabbies and show cats—all sorts of cats. I believe it is up to each council to consider, say, a local government by-law in relation to cat management and then to finetune it for its area. The laws for inner city Adelaide should be different from those for Crystal Brook or Tanunda. They should be quite different.

I understand the frustration and the desire of the member for Fisher in this matter, but I support what the member for Finniss has just said. I appreciate that the paper from which I am reading was prepared by the member for Finniss. I recognise that this issue has been raised before this instance. I also understand the government is opposing it. If I was the member for Fisher, I would not be totally nonchalant and upset with this. I certainly would be supporting local government to address this issue. I do not support the motion.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.

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