Tuesday, 19 March 2024

Wild dog control

Emma KEALY (Lowan) (19:05): (583) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Environment, and the action I seek is for the minister to provide to me the new research, strong advice and studies into the effectiveness of nonlethal dingo control methods that were referenced in the media release entitled ‘Striking the balance to save threatened dingo population’, published on Thursday 14 March 2024.

Firstly, I would just like to question the title of this release, ‘Striking the balance to save threatened dingo population’, because my understanding is that there was no consultation with the farmers who have to suffer stock losses as a result of wild dogs attacking their stock. Removing those management zones in the north-west of Victoria, we can clearly see, is a first step towards removing and revoking all wild dog management zones across the state and, even more concerningly, reintroducing the dingo to the Grampians National Park.

There is an area of the north-west wild dog management zone, which has now ceased, in my electorate of Lowan. The other section of it runs into the member for Mildura’s seat. Certainly people in my part of the world were not consulted. There was no advice even asked of them in terms of how they manage wild dogs going forward. This is very, very concerning, because as we know, genetic studies have recently identified what were otherwise known as wild dogs as dingoes, and we do not have any published research behind that. If you are going to put in a media release that this is the reason that we are going to allow wild dogs to roam free in western Victoria, then the government has an obligation to ensure all of that advice, all of that research and the studies into the effectiveness of nonlethal dingo control methods are published and put in the wider domain.

As I said, I do not think the balance has been struck with a single small-scale research study. When I was informed about this my understanding was that the Victorian Farmers Federation were only told after 4 o’clock on that day – the Thursday the media release was issued – and it was at midnight that that wild dog management zone was revoked. There was no talk and no discussion with the farmers who will lose stock. To bring some balance into this debate, I would like to offer to table this document, which shows mauled lambs and what it looks like when a wild dog or a dingo attacks your stock. They attack them, they maul them; they do it for fun, not for food.

The fact that the Labor government have organised for a dingo to set foot in this place tomorrow, I understand, without any balance about the damage that they do to stock is absolutely abhorrent, and it shows that this government has no focus on farmers in this state. I ask the minister to immediately provide this important research and, most importantly, to talk to farmers before the government bans the other management zones.