Rosemary Woodruff, Greens MP for Franklin, and Peter McGlone, Director of Tasmanian Conservation Trust (4:06) spoke to media at Franklin Square in Hobart on Saturday.
The government’s Cat Management Amendment Bill, set to be debated when Parliament resumes next week, does not go far enough according to critics.
“The Liberals had the opportunity to tackle one of the state’s biggest environmental issues – that not only impacts wildlife, but also Tasmania’s primary producers – and have failed at the first hurdle,” said Greens Environment spokesperson Dr Rosalie Woodruff.
“Despite experts and stakeholders recommending confinement as the best method for cat control, the Liberals removed it from their Bill. Instead they have created a situation where landowners and neighbours can trap each other’s cats, but are not obliged to keep their own inside.”
Dr Woodruff said that stray cats in Tasmania do ‘enormous damage’.
“We know that roaming cats kill native wildlife, have an enormous financial impact on agriculture and they threaten human health.”
She said that in 2015 there had been a strong consensus between the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association, conservationists, pet owners, cat groups and vets that cats needed to be confined to manage those problems.
“The government has sat on the Cat Management Bill for four years. Now that they’re planning to introduce it next week, it’s missing the major thing that we need to do to fix the damage caused by feral cats in Tasmania, that is, confinement. This Bill has no solution to the problem of roaming cats in Tasmania.”
Peter McGlone, Director of the Tasmanian Conservation Trust, said the TCT had always been an advocate of compulsory confinement of pet cats. The government’s draft Management Plan of 2016 had been committed to legislation, but that position had apparently changed.
“They pulled back from that and now oppose confinement, because a very small number of cat owners complained,” he said.
“This epitomises this government’s nervousness about legislating, when their own survey – that we know about but they refuse to release the results of – has found two-thirds of cat owners support compulsory confinement of cats.”
He also noted the government seemed unwilling to do things that would make it easy for people.
“We’ve always advocated a phase-in period of one or two years so people can get ready to contain their cat. Kingborough Council provides physical material and financial help for cat owners like pensioners who can’t afford it or people who can’t physically do the work. The answer’s are all there and the government still has time.”
The TCT has drafted what they say is a simple amendment (see below) that would provide for compulsory confinement of cats.
The amendment is also supported by the RSPCA and Just Cats who said in a letter sent to politicians in December:
“The undersigned organisations support the need for provisions in the Cat Management Act 2009 to address roaming or at large domestic cats. We are also aware that some councils do not want to be forced into enforcing any controls over roaming cats.
Our organisations share concerns regarding the impact of roaming domestic cats and the need to ensure that owners take more responsibility for preventing this.”
The Tasmanian parliament resumes sitting on Tuesday 18 August.
TCT’s proposed amendment to the Bill
Proposed amendments to the Cat Management Act 2009
The following is inserted
17A – CAT AT LARGE
The owner or person in charge of a domestic cat must ensure that the cat is not at large.
Penalty: Fine not exceeding 20 penalty units.
A domestic cat is at large if –
(a) The cat is in a public place and the cat is not secured and restrained1; or
(b) The cat is in or on a property without the consent of the owner, manager or occupier.
The provision takes effect 12 months after receiving royal assent.
Note 1: We may need to define secured and restrained
A lead is attached to a collar or harness worn by the cat, not more than 2 metres long, and is held by hand by a person able to control the cat or is tethered to a fixed object. The cat is in a crate designed for transporting cats and the door is shut.
4. INTERPRETATION
Section 4 of the Principal Act is amended as follows:
By amending the definition of authorised person by deleting (c) and substituting the following:
(c) a person appointed by a general manager to be an authorised person;
Note: this amendment removes the existing link between the Cat Management Act and the Dog Management Act, which automatically makes a person authorised under the Dog Management Act also authorised under the Cat Management Act. This amendment makes it discretionary for a council to appoint a person under the Cat Management Act. This removes a major potential source of concerns for councils, as some do not want to be forced to have cat control officers, particularly to enforce cat at large provisions.
