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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-03-21 Daily Xml
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RSPCA South Australia

Ms THOMPSON (Davenport) (15:25): The Malinauskas government has provided a 70-year lease to RSPCA SA for the seven-hectare site located in my electorate of Davenport on Majors Road at O'Halloran Hill. This fully integrated animal care campus is a game changer and will be a centre of excellence for animal welfare in our state. It will include the state's first 24-hour wildlife hospital and for the first time enable the RSPCA to care for a far more diverse range of species. It will be somewhere our community of animal lovers will want to come to learn and to take up opportunities of making a difference in the lives of our wildlife.

It will provide a huge economic boost to the southern suburbs with more than 500 new jobs expected to be created through the construction of this $26 million campus. It is exciting to see the RSPCA's vision become a reality with the foundations being laid next month, the first buildings expected to go up in July and completion due by February next year. This site will make leaps and bounds for animal welfare and protection in this state.

You may have seen in recent media reports that the RSPCA at Lonsdale was recently forced to shut its doors to new intakes as the shelter was exceeding maximum capacity. This morning I spoke with the new CEO, Marcus Gehrig, who advised they currently have more than 600 cats and 120 dogs in their care at Lonsdale patiently awaiting adoption, and a further 600 to 700 more in foster care also waiting for their new forever home.

The new CEO says that it was a tough call to make to shut its doors but that the volume was creating a welfare issue for animals and for their staff and volunteers. He said the growing need for adoptions is due to a number of factors, the rental crisis being one of these. Rental properties are hard to come by as it is, but trying to find one that is pet-friendly is almost impossible at the moment, so people are having to surrender their family pets just to keep a roof over their own heads. Hopefully this is something that we can address through the residential tenancy legislation.

Mr Gehrig says that cat management is another contributing factor and believes there needs to be statewide consistency on how this is managed, rather than relying on councils to set their own by-laws around cat containment. He is also keen to see more free cat desexing clinics rolled out across the state. In my time as Mayor at the City of Onkaparinga, I worked with the RSPCA to implement a free cat desexing and microchipping program at Lonsdale. It was a huge success and saw almost 1,000 cats desexed in the south. Sadly, that program has finished, but the RSPCA are keen to reinstate more programs like this one to address the root cause and stop more unwanted kittens being born.

Right now the RSPCA needs the help of South Australians who are in a position to either temporarily foster or provide a forever home for a new furry family member. So, if you are able, please head to the RSPCA website, social media pages or shelters to start a conversation about adoption or foster care. I am pleased to have such an important and esteemed organisation like RSPCA SA within my southern suburbs electorate.

I would like to take this opportunity also to acknowledge the tireless efforts and good work of Bev Langley and her incredible team at Minton Farm Native Animal Rescue Centre in Cherry Gardens. Minton Farm is a not-for-profit, non-government organisation run entirely on community goodwill and volunteer time. The objective of the centre is to educate and enrich the lives of our community through the rescue and care of injured and orphaned native animals—and boy do they have their hands full.

For a long time, Bev and her team have been passionately advocating for new laws that would see domestic cats contained to the properties, just like dogs are, to stop the devastating impact that they are having on our wildlife. Each time I have visited Bev at the rescue centre, I have witnessed multiple ringtail possums and small birds being brought in by local residents who have rescued them from the mouths of their own cats.

Bev would have treated thousands of cases like this. A quick look at their Facebook feed will show you the trail of destruction that is frequently left behind by roaming cats. Those roaming cats, often not desexed, are also adding to the problem that the RSPCA is left with. It is time to take a serious look at cat management, both for the welfare of our family pets and, importantly, the protection of our native wildlife.

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