On Fri, Mar 17, 2006 at 09:10:52PM +1100, Damien Farine wrote:
> Isn't it Federal law that states that all native Australian animals
> (vertebrates at least) are protected? If so, then how can the states
> over-rule that and legalise killing of native Australian ducks?
I was hoping someone with a legal background would reply but here
is my understanding. The Australian constitution largely neglects
environmental & conservation matters - these were not significant issues
when it was framed. The prevailing view has been that wildlife was
largely a state responsibility and the commonwealth role was limited to
faciltating coordination, commonwealth lands and explicitly national
issues such as exports. So no federal legislation does not protect all
native vertebrates. State legislation may - e.g. all native
vertebrates (minus fish) in NSW are protected by state legislation, with
a certain exceptions such as corvids & Dingos.
With the 1999 EPBC act the commonwealth seemed to be taking a much larger
role by taking responsibility for matters of national environmental
significance including threatened species. At least as I read the
newspapers, in practice this is yet to happen.
Andrew
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