Animal Care & Protection Amendment Bill 2022

 

The Animal Care and Protection Amendment Bill 2022 has been tabled in Queensland Parliament by Hon Mark Furner (Minister for Agriculture) on 12 May 2022. This is part of a previously announced commitment to perform a full review of the Act for the first time in 20 years. Unfortunately, the Bill falls far short of a 'full review' and we call on the government to do much more to strengthen the state's animal welfare laws - particularly for farmed animals. 

You can read some of our initial comments on the draft Bill in the Courier Mail article from 13 May 2022: Animal rights groups claim few worthwhile changes to animal laws made in Animal Care Act review.

Submissions closed on 1 June 2022. We are now awaiting the report from the Parliamentary Committee.

The draft Bill, explanatory notes, and details on how to make a submission can be found on the Parliamentary Committee web page here.

 

What will the Animal Care & Protection Amendment Bill 2022 do?

- Create a new offence for aggravated breaches of duty of care with a max penalty of $275,000 or 3 years imprisonment (this appears to be in part due to cases like this one ALQ highlighted in 2020 where a large number of horses starved to death at a property near Toowoomba).
- Prohibition of the use and possession of pronged dog collars
- Prohibition on the use of yellow phosphorous pig poison
- Requirement for dogs to be restrained on vehicles (eg. ute trays - with exemptions for 'working dogs')
- Minor changes to some inspector powers in relation to entry in certain circumstances, as well as animal welfare directions
- CCTV at slaughterhouses that kill horses - but no framework for monitoring the footage 
- Allows laypersons to perform pregnancy tests on cattle and an 'accredited person' (other than a vet) to perform spaying surgery on cattle
- A bunch of other changes including scientific use registration, Racing Integrity Act changes, and changes to oversight, governance and training of inspectors
 

What does it NOT address?

- They failed to properly consider an Independent Office of Animal Protection
- This Bill does not ban calf roping - instead it clarifies that rodeos events (under the Code of practice) are allowed
- It does not introduce mandatory reporting of suspected animal cruelty
- It does not ban 1080 poison
- It does not acknowledge the sentience of non-human animals
- It does not extend the statute of limitation for animal cruelty offences (currently 12-18 months)
- It does not make any meaningful changes to factory farming and other farmed animal welfare, including transport or slaughter (other than CCTV for horses at slaughterhouses)
- It does not make any major changes to monitoring and enforcement of animal welfare, particularly for farmed animals
 

How to make a submission

Submissions closed 12noon Wednesday 1 June 2022.

You can find out further details regarding upcoming public hearings, submissions that have been made, as well as the committee report once complete, at the Parliamentary Committee web page