More information re Urgent: NSW Game Bill

[Guest guest]

Date 10:00 Jan 15

Subject Urgent: NSW Game Bill

 

Frankie Seymour

Representative for introduced animals in Australia

Animals Australia

 

Dear friends

 

I am sending this to every person in my email address book whom I hope may

be willing to do something about it. There is very little time. The NSW

Government tabled the Game Bill in November and plans to push it through the

NSW Assembly in February.

 

This is the most retrograde piece of legislation, in animal welfare terms,

that has ever been tabled in Australia. If it goes through, thousands more

animals will suffer a horrible death than would otherwise have suffered.

We desperately need letters to Premier Carr and Minister Amery, letters to

as many NSW MPs as possible, and a flood of letters to newspapers.

 

At the very least, I urge every one of you to do as I have done and foreword

this message to every person in your email address book who might

possibly be willing to do something about it.

 

Some of you already know about this issue and are working on it. Many of

you will get this message more than once because your address appears on my

list more than once. Please excuse this for the sake of getting the message

out as far and wide as possible.

 

The key (animal welfare and environmental) reasons why this Bill is so

totally obscene are listed below, and may form the basis of your letters.

 

The Attachment lists the specific provisions of the Act from which these

concerns arise.

 

The web address for the entire Bill is:

http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/web/PHWeb.nsf/Bills?OpenFrameSet>

 

The web address for the names, electorates and contact details for NSW MPs

is:

http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/web/PHWeb.nsf/Members?OpenFrameSet>

 

Email addresses for Carr and Amery are:

- The Hon. Richard Amery, Minister for Agriculture NSW:

mountdruitt

- The Hon. Robert Carr, Premier of NSW: bob.carr

 

Although it is most important that people in NSW protest against this Bill,

people in other States should understand that they are also affected.

First, the Bill, if passed, will set a precedent that could be emulated by

other Governments. Even more importantly, in recent years it has becomes

increasingly difficult to get animal welfare reform in any State because

State

Governments are demanding that any reforms be nationally agreed.

This means we are always limited to the lowest common denominator

of the worst State's legislation.

And this is the very worst State legislation that has ever

been proposed.

 

Please, please help.

 

Cheers

 

Frankie

 

 

NSW GAME BILL: KEY ISSUES

 

Cruelty to game animals will be lawful

 

The Bill will legalise extraordinary levels of animal cruelty. Hunting

with bows and arrows, clubs, knives, dogs, wire snares or any other means

(other than poison) will be permitted. It will be virtually impossible to

use the NSW Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (POCTA) to prohibit or pro

secute for any act of cruelty which hunters consider to be a normal part of

hunting because POCTA provides built-in defences for acts of cruelty that

are part and parcel of a lawful activity.

 

Hunters will make their own rules and will police and sit in judgement on t

hemselves.

 

Under the Bill, a Game Council will be set up which must be chaired by

a nominee of a hunting organisation and at least half of whose members must

be hunters. Through the Game Council, recreational hunters will:

- make their own rules;

- police their own adherence to those rules;

- decide whether or not to cancel the licence of a hunter caught breaching

the rules.

 

Game animals will include abandoned and mislocated animals

 

Under the Bill, wild-living " pest " animals will be included as game ani

mals. This means that straying or lost dogs and cats, as well as pigs,

goats, rabbits and foxes, will be available for recreational shooting.

 

Reintroduction of recreational duck shooting

 

The Bill will reintroduce recreational duck shooting on public land in

NSW, along with other hunting of native game species. When this was

previously legal in NSW (it was abolished in 1995), recreational shooters

were

supposed to kill only game species, yet thousands of protected, endangered

and otherwise non-game birds were shot every year, including black swans,

freckled ducks, magpie geese, coots, grebes, cormorants, heron, ibis, owls,

hawks, galahs and magpies.

 

Other environmental issues

 

The Bill will hinder agreed national plans to abate any threat which

introduced wild animals may pose to native wildlife. All agreed plans of

this type dismiss recreational shooting as having any value in abating these

threats and stress the importance of systemic and strategic approaches which

recreational hunting can only hinder.

 

The Bill allows hunting with dogs on public land. This is likely to

increase

the feral dog population in NSW - dogs who will then, themselves,

become legitimate targets for " hunters " . Hunters' dogs are the main source

of feral dogs in Australia since there are not many other domestic dogs who

have the ability to survive in the wild.

 

part 1 - Game Bill notes.doc - application/msword

click here to download this attachment

End of message