Thursday, 10 March 2022

Fox control

Mr QUILTY (Northern Victoria) (17:56): (1812) I probably cannot top that. It is not meat; it is a sparkling meat substitute. Anyway, my adjournment matter is for the Minister for Agriculture. Many city people have a far too rosy view of foxes, but in Victoria foxes are a pest species. They are a prolific feral threat that kills livestock and native wildlife. Farmers are acutely aware of the danger foxes pose. They have seen foxes tear up the faces of calves and rip open the udders of live cows. They have seen them eating sheep alive when they are down. They see foxes stalking lambs and picking off the stragglers or the twins.

To encourage communities to control fox numbers the government has placed a bounty on foxes since 2003. That bounty is $10 per fox and mostly helps to cover the cost of hunting them. We have recently heard that Mr Meddick from the Animal Justice Party has called on you to scrap this fox bounty. I am yet to hear his solution to the harm the foxes cause. Why is it better for animal justice that we leave foxes to brutalise and slaughter other animals? Foxes do not discriminate. They will kill endangered species just as readily as any others. Why is it better to allow this species to proliferate and to destroy whatever it likes? Controlling fox populations is in the best interests of farmers, livestock, wildlife and the broader ecosystem. From an economics perspective farmers will find the lowest cost solution to foxes and will incorporate those costs into the price of their products. The environmental question is different. Foxes left uncontrolled will destroy native populations.

Over the past two decades the fox bounty has slowly been eroded away by inflation. If the bounty had been indexed, it would be at least $15 now instead $10. Once upon a time a fox skin was worth enough money to motivate hunters, but animal activists have destroyed this value by campaigning against wearing fur, in the process unleashing devastation on small native animals.

Minister, the action I seek is for you to raise the fox bounty to $15 per fox and then to index it against inflation. The bounty increase would cost the government around $500 000 to $600 000, but I am certain the minister can find more than enough wasted cash floating around the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning portfolio that could be better used for feral animal control.