Who Let the Mogs Out?

Media release – Guy Barnett, Minister for Primary Industries and Water, 27 August 2020

Bill gets the balance right and strengthens cat management

The Tasmanian Liberal Government has significantly strengthened Tasmania’s cat management arrangements through amendments which were passed by the Lower House today.

The Cat Management Amendment Bill 2019 delivers on recommendations of Tasmania’s first comprehensive Cat Management Plan and addresses domestic, stray and feral cats.

The Bill recognises that we need to get the balance right and that cats, if not cared for in a responsible manner, can have serious impacts on the community, agriculture and wildlife.

While we encourage cat confinement, we will not make confinement compulsory. We have not supported the Green’s amendment that would penalise owners thousands of dollars for letting their cat out, and burden owners with costs of new enclosures to keep their cats indoors.

Cat management is a shared responsibility and our focus is on education and creating community awareness of responsible cat management.

Key amendments contained within the amendment Bill include:

• Compulsory de-sexing and microchipping of cats from four months of age;
• Limiting to four, the maximum number of cats allowed to be kept at a property without a permit (breeders will be exempt);
• Improvements to better support landholders to control cats on their property;
• Replacing the State Government-registration of cat breeders with a permit system to breed cats;
• A requirement for all cats to be microchipped and de-sexed before being reclaimed from a cat management facility; and
• Removal of care agreements.

The Amendments are the result of extensive consultation with industry, local government, animal welfare groups, environmental and agriculture stakeholders through the Tasmanian Cat Management Reference Group and other processes.

This Bill strengthens cat management in Tasmania and it also gets the balance right.

Rosalie Woodruff MP | Greens Environment spokesperson, 27 August 2020

Barnett Lets the Cats Out of the Bag

The Government had the opportunity to tackle one of the state’s biggest environmental issues, but they fell at the first hurdle.

Despite overwhelming submissions from experts and a wide alliance of stakeholders recommending confinement as the best method for cat control, the Government removed this key fix from their Bill.

Feral and stray cats not only kill wildlife in their thousands every year, they also have a serious impact on Tasmania’s primary producers and pose a substantial threat to human health.

A 2015 CSIRO report found that 82% of stray and feral cats studied were infected with toxoplasmosis. Toxoplasmosis has human health impacts and has an untold consequences for Tasmania’s farms, with the most serious effect being on sheep reproduction.

Instead of tackling the actual issue, Minister Barnett’s Bill included a provision for any person to trap another person’s cat. All the responsibility for protecting property and wildlife is passed from the cat owner to neighbours, vets and cat shelters.

The obligation to keep a cat on its owner’s property, however, was missing in action.

The Greens proposed a legislative fix that would have required owners to responsibly keep their cat from roaming. Despite the well-understood risk to wildlife and primary producers, the Labor Party and the Liberals voted against this fix. Only Independent MP, Madeline Ogilvie, voted with the Greens to keep cats contained.

Today in Parliament, Labor and the Liberals failed public health, primary producers and the environment in voting against the Greens’ cat confinement amendment.