Page 1087 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 5 April 2016
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animal and taking the steps a reasonable person would be expected to take in the circumstances. The provisions will impose no onerous requirements on people who keep or care for animals. To ensure the requirements are reasonable and consistent with our human rights framework, new section 6B includes definitions of “appropriate”, “reasonable steps” and “treatment” to allow the court to determine whether a person has failed to take reasonable steps to provide appropriate care or treatment.
This will require a court to have regard to all the circumstances, but it does not create ambiguity in the operation of the law. Rather, it reflects our confidence in the judiciary to determine questions of fact and law having regard to all the circumstances. A person who fails to feed their animals on one day because of a serious and temporary illness is not going to be captured by these amendments. These amendments, however, will capture the owner who goes to Queensland and leaves their animals starving and without water. They will capture the owner who leaves their Rottweiler tied to a trampoline with a 20-centimetre chain and no water in the middle of summer. And they will capture the owner who fails to seek veterinary treatment for their puppy after its skin has been melted off by cooking oil.
Amendments to section 14 improve the definition of “spurs”. Under the amended provision a person commits an offence if the person uses a prohibited item on or in relation to an animal. The amendments respond to concerns that other items are being used on or in relation to animals so the animal can cause greater damage to another animal in a match or fight.
The new definition of “prohibited item” clarifies that prohibited items include not only spurs with sharpened or fixed rowels but also cock fighting spurs and any device that is made or adapted to be attached to an animal that lets the animal cause injury to another.
Amended section 14(2) provides that a person commits an offence if the person possesses a prohibited item. The maximum penalty for this offence is increased from five penalty units to 20 penalty units to provide a more effective prohibition. The offence will not apply to a person if the person possesses the item only for display or as part of a collection that is not intended for use on or in relation to an animal.
The bill amends sections 82 and 84 of the act, which set out the powers of inspectors and authorised officers. Under the amendments inspectors and authorised officers will be able to seize dependent offspring when seizing their mother. These amendments clarify an area of uncertainty in the law and ensure the safety of very young animals that still need to feed from their mothers.
Other amendments to sections 82 and 84 update the act and ensure it is consistent with the powers that are exercised by authorised officers in equivalent circumstances under other territory legislation. These amendments reflect the territory’s obligation to ensure officers performing compliance and enforcement functions have the minimum powers necessary to discharge their functions effectively and safely. The amendments allow an inspector or authorised officer to require a person’s compliance with a requirement made of them, for example, to move away from an animal or an exit so
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