Page 530 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 20 February 2019
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The second part was to encourage people to deal appropriately and humanely with their unwanted dogs. The current fee payable to relinquish a dog, $60.70 as far as I am aware, would be abolished. We can discourage people from keeping unwanted dogs that they may now leave in their backyard untrained, unwanted and unattended. For some people, that fee could be a barrier. I take the point that in some cases the fee may be waived, but if you look up the information about DAS you will see that there is a fee payable, and that can be enough of a deterrent to stop some owners from going further.
We also were looking to discourage people from choosing to keep dangerous dogs by doubling the fee for a dangerous dog licence. Why is it that we are determined to deal with this issue? It is because there has been a 25 per cent increase in the number of dog attacks, a 30 per cent increase over the past year and a 30 per cent increase year on year for the past five years. It is a massive increase in numbers of Canberrans being injured.
I have asked a series of questions about dogs and the way they are handled. It has been sometimes difficult to get the requisite information. But it does appear, from the information I have received, that the government does not appear to care about injuries to Canberrans. We do. We heard earlier this morning, when Mr Hanson talked about outlaw motorcycle gangs, that we are elected to serve the people. A core responsibility of a government is to keep its citizens safe. That is not happening here.
We have a long history of working in this particular area. What I am concerned about is that the government is likely to introduce annual dog registration. Of course, that is just a great big new tax. It is a tax on responsible dog owners rather than focusing on irresponsible dog owners. It will be a windfall in the taxes collected by the government, potentially over $3 million, depending on the way they approach it and based on an average dog age of 12 years.
The fines under the dog act have been trending down over a decade. The money earned from infringements has been trending down. Income from court fines: apparently there has been none in the past four years. Numbers of dogs surrendered are down over a decade. So while it is absolutely vital, as I think the vast majority of Canberrans would agree, to focus on animal welfare issues, we also must focus on making sure that Canberra is a safe city for our residents and our pets.
What has the government actually done in the past year or so? Whatever they have done or not done, it is not working. I refer to articles in the Canberra Times. In July in the Canberra Times there was: “Almost 220 dog attacks in horror five months for the ACT”. In September last year there was: “The ACT destroying a lot more dangerous dogs than it used to”, which the minister alluded to. It says, “20 dogs euthanised … up from three in 2017.” There were 66 attacks on a person, 124 on animals, and 28 on both humans and animals.
Since I brought this amendment bill to the Assembly late last year, there have been continuing dog attacks. Of course there have been. In November I saw a social media post in which a Canberra woman said she frantically tried to save her cavoodle as it
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