I have just finished speaking to the office of the Minister for Agriculture
(Richard Amery) of the NSW Parliament. The person I spoke to is in charge
of the Game Bill. He is working to have the bill ready in case the Minister
wishes to re-introduce it during the current sitting of Parliament. The
Minister has not indicated that he will be re-introducing it (to the lower
house?) but, equally, he has not indicated that he will not.
A number of changes have been made but the one that probably has the most
impact on the discussions on this list is the change to the composition of
the Council. The Council membership has been increased by two. One of
these extra members will represent the hunters groups. This keeps the
proportion the same. This seems to be one of the main areas of concern to
members of Birding-aus. There are two things to consider when looking at
this. The actual powers of the Council are listed in Clause 9. This shows
that the areas of animal cruelty and conservation are not part of the scope
of the Council. The implementation of this bill will make it subordinate to
the Protection of Cruelty to Animals (POCTA) Act and all Conservation and
Hunting Acts. The groups that have been mentioned in previous postings have
membership of the statutory bodies connected with the relevant acts.
Clause 10 discusses the set-up of the Management Committee. This is the
group that will do the main work of the Game Council and has just 2
representatives of the hunters out of a membership of 6.
The other main concern of many members of this group is the inclusion of
native species of birds (Black Duck, Grey Teal, Wood Duck, Stubble and Brown
Quail. I discussed this matter as well. The answer given is that these
species are not included at the whim of the Minister, hunters or anyone else
but are already listed as game species in NSW. What this bill does is give
the Minister the right to set quotas or exclusions on ALL the species
listed. If we are unhappy at these species being listed as game, we need to
lobby Members of Parliament to change ALL the Acts involved.
Many of you may think that I am in favour of the bill. I am not but that
does not mean that I will sit back and be told what to do without checking
the facts. I am not prepared to be manipulated by ANY political party. I
would imagine most of you feel the same.
If you still wish to express your concern, the Minister's email address is
Terry Pacey
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
www.shc.melb.catholic.edu.au/home/birding/index.html
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