Wild dog control
Tim BULL (Gippsland East) (19:05): (683) My adjournment tonight is for the Minister for Environment, and the action that I am seeking is for the minister to announce the continuation of the wild dog program in Victoria unchanged. In the north-west of the state we have had some changes, where trapping can only now occur on private land – controls can only occur on private land. To implement that in the east of the state would be an unmitigated disaster. The only way you can control these wild dogs is in the 3-kilometre interface to private land, where trappers undertake their control actions, whether that be trapping or shooting, on the tracks they know the dogs use. To try and then control dogs on private land is impossible. It is just a complete waste of time. The reasons for that are you cannot trap a wild dog in an open paddock and it is too late once the wild dogs are into private freehold. We know at this time of the year, when we get the first snowfalls and the cold weather, the wild dogs come down into the lower country and they start impacting on sheep and really impacting on the viability of those farmers, so we need some certainty.
There are too many question marks around this program. We need some certainty that this program will continue unchanged, that we do not get rid of the 3-kilometre buffer zone and that our doggers can still continue to get out there. They get about 500 problem dogs a year, which equates to thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in savings. If we get rid of that program or change that program, it will force farmers off the land, so I call on the minister to come out in the very short term and make sure that that program is funded and that there are no changes made to the detriment of our rural landholders.