By Paul Hemsley
Western Australian Local Government Association (WALGA) President Troy Pickard has demanded the state government needs to urgently to push through two key pieces of legislation affecting the operation of councils before the parliamentary rises for the Christmas break.
Mr Pickard has called on the state government to pass the Dog Amendment Bill 2012 and the Local Government Amendment Bill (No 2) 2012 as soon as possible because the Legislative Assembly has just two weeks to run before going into recess for the rest of the year.
“Both pieces of legislation will greatly assist Local Government operations,” Mr Pickard said.
Mr Pickard said local government has advocated for both bills “for a number of years” and has secured bi-partisan support from all political parties.
He said this support should not pose a problem to get the bills passed through parliament.
A key reason WA councils are pushing the state government to pass the bills before the pending recess is the looming state election in March. Further delays beyond the present session of Parliament would mean the bills would needed to be reintroduced and put at the mercy of the next government’s legislative priorities.
“[This] may risk their disappearance from the agenda or at the very least a delay of another nine months,” Mr Picard said.
He said such a scenario would be an ineffective use of Parliament’s time and could hit local government operations as well as planning and budgeting for the next financial year and beyond.
WA councils have been pushing for tougher dog control laws for several years following an increase in the number of vicious dog attacks on people in the state.
A particular area of concern is the increase in popularity of aggressive breeds and specially cultivated fighting dogs that councils want restricted along.
In August 2012 WALGA welcomed the introduction of Dog Act amendments but cautioned that the legislation did not take into account the introduction of new breeds of dangerous dogs.
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They talk about receiving great support for new laws to be in place by Christmas… They will not get my support or the support of many other West Australians. They will not get our full support until laws completely enforce the fact that HUMANS are the cause for dog attacks. Current laws that stand and even the “improved” amendments are contradictory and impossible for many law abiding citizens to abide by. You can not judge a dogs nature by the way it looks, or what breed it is. And laws should not force owners of certain breeds to follow expensive and incorrect regulations of owning a so called “dangerous breed” The reason any dog attacks is soley the cause of an irresponsible owner. End the Breed Specific Legislation and ADMIT that dogs attack because people are irresponsible for their pets.
All dogs have teeth, any dog can kill a human being. It is up to us dog owners to step up and teach them not to harm anyone. Stop creating laws that blind people from the truth. Any dog can cause harm, be sure every dog owner is responsible by introducing laws for all breeds of dog and hence ALL DOG OWNERS IN THE STATE. Regulate the owners and not the breed and I promise you all attacks will be a thing of the past.
BSL is not the amswer and these new amendments are a sad step in the wrong direction…
Perhaps Mr Pickard should spend some time with these so called “dangerous” breeds and make up his own mind?