Page 1019 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 2 May 2006
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release; section 12, administering poison; section 12A, laying poison, section 13, electrical devices; section 14, spurs; section 15, transport and containment, section 16, working with unfit animals; section 19, medical and surgical people other than vet surgeons. Some of those offences may be not particularly heinous, but some are—section 8, pain; section 9, confined animals. In my days as a prosecutor, unfortunately, on occasions, I had to prosecute people for some pretty horrendous acts against animals.
There are other sections that need to have their penalties increased too. I am very concerned that this is a case of the government playing catch-up—the government that was not capable of ticking off a good idea because it came from the opposition and perhaps wanted to do something itself. I know that surprised a number of people. People I talk to in the RSPCA and animal liberation were most concerned, indeed a bit confused, as to why something they would have thought was fairly simple, lifting penalties for cruelty to animals in a number of areas, should be such a problem.
In 2004, the government knocked back my initial bill. It was rejected on 3 August 2004. That would have increased a number of penalties, including those in section 7, from one year’s imprisonment to five years imprisonment and/or a fine of $20,000. The government’s excuse at the time was: “That is making it more than common assault on a human.” Yes, it is, but common assault on a human can be slapping someone across the face, pushing someone, with a maximum penalty of two years. An assault occasioning actual bodily harm on a human—where you might break someone’s nose or cut them, so there is a bit of blood drawn—carries a maximum of five years.
Surely five years for the most heinous acts against a poor, defenceless animal is not too much of a maximum penalty, remembering that on only one instance in the ACT has the court ever given a maximum penalty for an indictable matter. Five years would have made it indictable. But the government said, “Common assault, two years.”
With the RSPCA’s blessing, I brought another bill in, and that was rejected on 22 June 2005, which was when the government flagged this. That increased the maximum penalty for a number of offences to two years from one. That was not as much as I would have liked, but I thought, “Okay, if the government has got a problem with five, two at least is better than one.” The government’s excuse then was somewhat disingenuous because the opposition to the bill I introduced did exactly what they were complaining about in our first bill when they thought five years was too high. We then have this particular bill.
One has to think that the government wants simply to introduce its own bill; it could not credit an opposition with having a good idea here. Its response was somewhat unfortunate. I can remember the previous government adopting a good idea of yours, Mr Speaker, in relation to an industry training board or long service leave for an industry back in about 1996 or 1997. It adopted another good idea of yours in relation to providing six monthly reports on how Aboriginal students in our schools were going with literacy and numeracy. It is churlish, indeed, of this current government that it will not recognise good ideas regardless of where they come from.
Funnily enough, if you think you do not get any credit for it, people see us as one big, amorphous blob. We may be only 17 people, so it may be one little amorphous blob.
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