Wednesday, 11 September 2024

Animal welfare

Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (18:45): (1143) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Environment, and the action I seek is for the minister to define the separate responsibilities and roles of the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA), the conservation regulator, the RSPCA, Agriculture Victoria and Victoria Police in responding to and recording animal cruelty complaints, because we cannot work it out and plenty of others cannot work it out either. Last week I was contacted by a constituent about a rainbow lorikeet being kept in a tiny cage inside a garage on their neighbour’s property. Since March last year they have been trying to understand exactly who is responsible for investigating what is clearly an animal cruelty concern. The RSPCA claim the bird is wildlife and say to refer the matter to DEECA, who can handball it right back under the bird’s dual companion animal status. Not even evidence proving that the bird was taken from the wild was enough to make the body act. When DEECA officers finally attended the property, they did not ask the residents where the bird came from and left without any action at all. Had they asked this question or viewed the evidence, they would have been responsible, but instead they were able to walk away with the matter unresolved and the bird still in a cage in the garage.

Time and time again we see these entities shrouding their responsibilities due to a lack of clearly defined obligations and functions in responding to complaints of cruelty. How long animals are left suffering while these disputes go on is entirely unknown. What we do know is that each body, seemingly completely unsure of its role, hands it to the next, to the next, to the next, until the ball is completely dropped altogether. It is impossible for the public and even for my own office, with the contacts that we have, to understand who the right authority is to act in cases of animal cruelty. The government must establish a better framework for avenues for animal cruelty complaints to go to. It must be clear what complaints are within their ambit and what matters they must respond to. Reporting crime should be easy. Concerned members of the public should not be having to inform the bodies that it is in fact their legislative responsibility to hear and act on a complaint.

The department have a trend of policing those with actual shelter permits doing round-the-clock volunteer work to rehabilitate and release native animals but throw their hands in the air when native animals are being displayed in zoo-like settings or are stolen from the wild to be kept as pets in garages. We have unregulated petting zoos and the breeding of dingoes for display in Victoria, but the department is actively working to penalise local shelters for enclosure fencing being a few millimetres out. I sincerely hope the minister can heed the call of Victorians and provide a list of the separate roles and responsibilities of the department, the RSPCA, Agriculture Victoria and Victoria Police in responding to these ongoing complaints.