Thursday, 28 November 2024

Authority-to-control-wildlife permits

Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (18:28): (1344) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Environment, and the action that I seek is for the minister to strengthen the licensing regime for authority-to-control-wildlife (ATCW) permits. Humane Society International just released a report exposing the shocking scale of licensed wildlife killing in Australia. This is the first time ever that the national scale of killing under licensed permits has been quantified. Last year licences were issued to kill over 1.2 million native animals on private land – 1.2 million. This number does not even include the culling quotas allowed for recreational, scientific or commercial purposes, nor public land or marine environment. The actual number of native animals killed is likely much, much higher, but due to an absence of reporting obligations the true figure is still unknown.

Licences were issued to kill 119,501 of those native animals in Victoria. Victoria has the third-highest killing allowance in the whole of Australia and licenses the highest death toll of wombats. Anyone can obtain a permit to kill wildlife through a simple online form. Merely state that there is a problem at your property, give your name and there you are – that is your licence to kill. In the application you do not even need to put your gun licence in. It does not even ask if you have a gun licence before permitting you to shoot wildlife at your property. You can even have someone who is not registered use your permit. There is no requirement in Victoria to pass a species identification test or shooter proficiency test to obtain the permit. Not only do you not need to know about the species you are killing but it could also be the first time that you pick up a gun. Animals are being shot inaccurately and left to die slow, painful deaths because of this.

Just when you thought Victoria’s permit scheme could not get any worse, Victoria is the only state in Australia that has no regulations at all on a licence-holder needing to be a fit and proper person, and it is the only state where animal welfare and prevention of cruelty to animals laws do not apply in addition to wildlife licensing laws. All jurisdictions except Victoria require a licence-holder to report on the number of animals killed, but not here. An ATCW licence-holder in Victoria does not even have to report on whether they have killed any non-target species. With the permit you can have your choice of free, unbridled killing by way of shooting, trap and release, trap and gas, trap and destroy, egg and nest destruction or scare and disturb. I ask that the minister tighten up ATCW permits so we have proper regulation and reporting of the killing of wildlife in this state.