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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-03-17 Daily Xml
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Bills

National Parks and Wildlife (Ban on Hunting Protected Animals) Amendment Bill

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (17:15): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (17:16): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I rise to speak on this bill to ban duck hunting in South Australia. I do so knowing that this weekend when, despite ongoing opposition from the community, the open season for duck hunting will begin, spanning from 20 March to 27 June 2021.

From a small volunteer group through to the RSPCA, along with the broader South Australian communities, there is much support for this duck killing to end. For many of us, the introduction to these birds, these ducks, comes when we are young children: in our storybooks, in cartoons and in real life at the edges of lakes and rivers. We are encouraged to adore and make connections with them. We go to feed the ducks at our local park or pond with our grandparents and remember those times very fondly. Juxtaposed with this, of course, each year for several months in South Australia the ducks that many of us are raised to adore are being killed, maimed and traumatised.

Tragically, our ministers for environment, who can end the killing and help us reconnect with wild birdlife in kinder ways, have chosen not to. Those who spend their life working to save wild ducks are disappointed year after year, while the general public asks, 'Are we still doing this?' It beggars belief that our government is choosing to perpetuate another so-called sport based on the suffering of animals. Duck hunting is a relic of our past and, frankly, that is where it should remain.

In 1996, the then Director of National Parks of South Australia accepted as a reasonable estimate that one duck was wounded for every duck bagged. However, as indicated in 2018 report from the Animal Justice Party, it is the more accurate duck shooters who wound rather than kill more ducks than shooters who cannot shoot straight. Their aim might be more accurate, but they often fail to kill ducks outright and poor shooters actually do not usually get close enough to wound the ducks.

This fact often surprises people, as many would think—and I think it is a natural assumption—that these hunters are firing a single bullet one at a time to try to kill a duck. That is simply not the case. Ducks are shot with shotguns, sometimes called scatterguns. They fire 100 to 200 pellets a time and, depending on size—these are not single bullets—many ducks will be hit but keep flying, not to mention the potential collateral damage for the other species in the air who are often caught in that crossfire.

Pellets have a similar diameter to a roofing nail, so when they are driven into the body of a duck they will cause extreme pain and suffering. They can break wings, legs and beaks. Given the size of ducks and the speed at which they fly, they may be hit by only one or two pellets, which is often not enough to kill them.

Those ducks that are shot and injured severely enough to bring them down may die slow and painful deaths if the shooters do not retrieve them. If they are retrieved, hunters will often break their necks to kill them by swinging their bodies around and around, otherwise they might throw the wounded ducks to their dogs to finish them off. They, of course, can do nothing and simply allow them to struggle until they die from these injuries.

In mainland Australia, South Australia and Victoria are the only states left that allow this blood sport to continue. Western Australia banned duck shooting 30 years ago, with the then Premier of WA, Dr Carmen Lawrence, summing-up the archaic nature of blood sports in these terms:

Our community has reached a stage of enlightenment where it can no longer accept the institutionalised killing of native birds for recreation.

I fail to see that WA is so much more enlightened than South Australia. Indeed, I think it is just our parliament that has not reached that level of enlightenment. It is community expectation that this cruelty should have been ended in the last century rather than continue into this century.

The WA bans were followed by similar ones in New South Wales in 1995 and in Queensland in 2005. So here we are, not just years but decades behind some of those states. In Victoria, duck shooting is permitted on public lands and many volunteer rescuers and veterinarians risk their safety to rescue those injured and maimed ducks that the hunters leave to die in agony.

In South Australia, shooting is permitted on private land, so there is no supervision and rescuers will be arrested for simply going onto those private wetlands to try to save those birds. In the words of Laurie Levy, a long-term campaigner to stop duck shooting in Victoria, from his own eyewitness experience:

Duck shooting is not a sport. It is a cowardly, violent, antisocial act. Sport is an equal contest between humans, such as football, hockey, tennis, athletics, etc. Waterbirds cannot defend themselves let alone fight back against shooters armed with powerful weapons, dogs, whistles and decoys. It is a one-sided cowardly activity.

I introduce this bill today noting that, over 10 years ago, now Premier Marshall was on Hansard representing his electorate of Norwood calling on the then state government to 'immediately undertake a parliamentary inquiry into duck and quail hunting in South Australia'. Indeed, he stated further:

If the reports about these slow and painful deaths are true then they are at odds with the law set out in the Animal Welfare Act 1985.

The then member for Norwood, now Premier, went on to say:

I strongly support the right of those opposed to duck and quail hunting in South Australia to a thorough inquiry to establish the facts.

So what is stopping the Marshall government, now in office, from taking decisive action to do just that? Members of the South Australian community are distressed that this continues to happen and that our Minister for Environment, who does have the power to put this barbaric practice to an end, continues to allow for it to happen each year. They write to the minister only to be fobbed off with responses like the one following:

In considering an open season, I seek an appropriate balance between the ecological value of waterfowl and the social and cultural values of the people; and in doing so also ensure that the conservation status of game bird and other species, and the welfare of animals, is protected. An open season is declared only if environmental conditions permit, and it is based on a set of open season conditions which include measures to address animal welfare concerns.

I cannot imagine how this can actually be the case if we consider that our country burned while enduring its hottest and driest year on record in 2020, yet Minister Speirs still gave the go-ahead for that year's kill. What social and cultural values do shooters have that allowed them to carry on their shoot in defiance of one of the most extensive ecological and health crises that this land has yet faced?

I ask again: why are we perpetuating this barbaric blood sport? Further, what sort of social benefit does the government think is achieved by allowing people to hunt and shoot defenceless ducks? In the state government's glossy marketing of killing animals, entitled Modern Hunting in South Australia, Mr Tony Sharley, Chairman of CHASA, in his foreword lists 'maintaining mental health and wellbeing' as a benefit of hunting. If hunters and shooters are faced with genuine mental health issues, then ongoing support is needed, not a binge of killing.

During a protest against duck hunting last week, one of the protesters outside on Parliament House steps made an excellent point. He said, 'A rifle in the hands of a person who needs to kill to feel better is not my idea of prescription medication or a therapeutic program.' I could not agree more. How many ducks does that mean would need to be killed each year to maintain the mental health balance of these hunters?

Unlike Mr Sharley's doubtful claims, what I do believe is that there are more mental health benefits from caring for animals than from callously taking their lives. Equally, I have no doubt that volunteer wildlife rescuers and carers, as well as veterinarians, are more likely to suffer from mental health problems, especially in the aftermath of that 2019-20 conflagration that swept this country, from having to care for the wounded animals.

I would like to offer the following quote from a South Australian vet who has been involved in duck rescues in both South Australia and Victoria:

There is no way to humanely shoot a flying animal. I have personally tried to care for ducks with their wings blown off, with bones sticking out, I have watched them quietly await death as if they would welcome it compared to the pain they are in. I have x-rayed many and shown the wounds that we see are only part of it, that many have pellets from previous years still embedded in their muscles. I have treated all the legal and illegal species and the species itself doesn't matter. What united all of them was the pain and suffering that they were experiencing.

Local, national and, eventually, international tourists wanting to visit natural beauty areas like the Coorong or Poocher reserve near Bordertown over Easter are probably going to be shocked to learn that they need to be prepared to hear gunfire while visiting these scenic holiday destinations. They may need to be warned that their families may come across dead or injured birds while out walking along the waterfront.

So there is not even an argument, in terms of tourism benefits, for keeping duck hunting in our state of South Australia. Indeed, its very presence can often be a deterrent when tourists learn that their idyllic visit may be interrupted by the sound of gunshots in the distance. The community has strong feelings about this and a South Australian ReachTEL poll conducted earlier this year found that over 70 per cent of respondents were deterred from visiting an area where shooters were present, that they wanted duck and quail hunting stopped and that they would support their local MP to push for this.

With that in mind, I hope we can say that the 2021 duck hunting season will be the last one in our state. There is a lack of community support for duck hunting to continue. It does not benefit our society. It causes untold harm to ducks and other wildlife, and it is certainly not a sport; it is recreational cruelty and we must put an end to it. With that, I commend the bill.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. D.G.E. Hood.

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