Wednesday, 22 June 2022

Wild horse control

Petition

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (17:29): This morning I was proud to table e-petition 413, which calls for the cessation of aerial and ground shooting aimed at eradicating Victoria’s historic and magnificent brumby population. 1650 Victorians supported this campaign, and two similar petitions last year tabled by Wendy Lovell and me were supported by 1154 and 2463 residents. A 2020 petition gained an enormous 14 671 signatures, and the Change.org petition is up to 187 472 signatories. All of these people appreciate the inadequacy of the ecological arguments, regret the total lack of effort put into alternative solutions and are appalled by the cynical talk of ‘management’ of wild horse populations by Parks Victoria, the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning and Minister D’Ambrosio.

The mask has dropped on this one. At the recent Public Accounts and Estimates Committee hearings Parks CEO Matthew Jackson confirmed to me that only 10 horses had been rehomed from the Barmah National Park and that trapping operations had been suspended. He also confirmed that 400 Barmah brumbies would be shot this year and that they plan to kill hundreds more in the Alpine National Park. He also confirmed that they would be shot.

Another important development has happened in recent weeks. The sad reality of what ‘management’ really means has been revealed in the tender documents issued by Parks for a contract to control horse numbers. This document is a real eye-opener. In fact it is absolutely shocking. The first thing that rings alarm bells is the military, national-security-grade secrecy. Horses are the ‘primary target’, and confidentiality agreements must be signed. Contractors will work with:

… Parks Victoria staff who have operational knowledge of the program on a “need to know basis” … The highest levels of information security are required and all operations will be conducted—

wait for it—

covertly.

Further:

Leaks of information of any kind by the contractor will be deemed a breach of contract.

They will immediately terminate:

Any contractor personnel deemed by Parks Victoria staff as being unfit to maintain information security …

The operations themselves are simply and similarly terrifying. The contract notes:

A drone may be used for surveillance and finding animals …

… working dogs … may be used for the purpose of locating feral animals, especially in the unforeseen event of wounding …

Most shocking, however, is that the plan includes sawing through horse carcasses with chainsaws and then camouflaging them so that they are ‘removed from view’. We have been shocked to hear that not only will the horses be shot but hundreds of carcasses will be hacked up and left to rot.

Quite apart from the consequences for visitors to the national park, what about the environmental and public health risks this poses? The dangers of botulism spreading to watercourses from decomposing animal carcasses is well known. I look forward to the EPA’s response to the many complaints made about this appalling proposal.

None of this is scaremongering. It is there in black and white in the tender document—and it is no wonder that they want a secret and brutal operation when you consider the reality of what ground and aerial shooting actually mean. Ground shooting in rough and remote wooded terrain is hard enough, and shooting from helicopters is even worse. There is no way that targeting herds of moving animals from a moving platform can avoid significant and lasting cruelty to animals injured but not killed outright.

So I am delighted to table this petition and to support those who are fighting so very hard against this historically illiterate, culturally offensive and ecologically unnecessary barbarism. It should be as unthinkable to eradicate our brumbies as it would be for the USA to destroy all the mustangs in the American west or the UK to destroy its New Forest ponies. I am inspired by the time, effort and money which so many brumby supporters are putting into preventing— (Time expired)