Duck hunting
Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (19:00): (1836) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Outdoor Recreation, and the action that I seek is for the minister to urgently intervene to stop the Game Management Authority from unfairly and disproportionately targeting licensed duck rescuers, including halting the suspension of rescuers licences, the unlawful seizure of their property and the issuing of banning notices for non-offences. In the past two years the GMA has taken to issuing banning notices to remove rescuers from Victoria’s wetlands. Banning notices do not carry the burden of cost and proof, so this loophole is being abused by GMA officers against highly trained licensed wildlife rescuers. One of them, Helen Round, a Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action-registered wildlife carer, was assaulted by GMA officers. She was arrested without caution and without being informed of her rights. Her arms were forced behind her back, she was unlawfully handcuffed, her GoPro SD card was seized without any legal basis and she was threatened with destruction of her property. Let me be clear: Helen was not on the wetlands protesting. She was there under the authority of her legal licence and was compliant with the conditions of the Wildlife Act 1975. This was not an isolated incident. Other rescuers have had their cameras unlawfully seized and have been disproportionately manhandled as their licences were suspended on the spot, often for tenuous technicalities such as carrying nets to find wounded birds who are still mobile. This is a targeted, punitive and deeply concerning misapplication of the law by the Game Management Authority.
I raised these concerns in Parliament in April, calling for a full review of the GMA’s compliance conduct. Recently Helen received a letter from GMA CEO Graeme Ford, who cancelled her licence for three years based on the observations of officers who did not act on the day and on unsubstantiated claims from shooters, a punishment grossly disproportionate to the alleged offence and suspiciously similar to a previous vexatious case the GMA pursued against her. Yet that case collapsed, with Helen awarded $30,000 in legal costs – costs that the GMA still has not paid her. Meanwhile the GMA continues to receive $11 million per year in public funding. They are not impartial and aim to protect shooters. The public expects an impartial and fair regulator, and this unpopular blood sport and the GMA are clearly failing. If this government insists on ignoring its own inquiry and the will of the Victorian people, then at the very least the minister must ensure that licensed rescuers can enter wetlands legally and safely to rescue wildlife maimed and injured by this government’s duck-shooting fraternity.