Criminal Law Consolidation (Protection for Working Animals) Amendment Bill
17/10/2013
The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: I speak this evening to oppose the second reading of this bill. I know that there are other members around this place who would also like to do the same and speak out against it, but they feel they cannot as they fear it will be an unpopular stance. So, once again, similar to the motor vehicle accidents scheme this chamber recently discussed, it is up to me to make what is possibly an unpopular but right decision.
No-one wants to see any animal hurt, whether that animal be a working animal assisting someone with some kind of disability or just a companion animal. This chamber is not here to pass well-meaning but totally unnecessary knee-jerk reaction laws, and we are not here to pass laws that amount to gratuitous government media stunts. The only thing that K-O-D-A spells out in Koda’s law is a ‘key operational destruction approach’ by this government.
The Premier made this announcement amid much fanfare on 27 August. It sought to protect 61 police animals, 25 dogs and 36 horses. Immediately after that announcement, strident disability advocate Sam Paior suggested that disability assistance dogs be added. I want to labour the point that this addition was not the government’s idea: it was the suggestion of a member of the disability community.
We have been told that this bill is a priority of the Premier to get through the parliament before we complete the sitting session. It is beyond belief that while the state government’s education department lurches from one child sex abuse crisis to the next the Premier wastes everyone’s time and taxpayers’ money making up new laws that are already covered by existing legislation.
The fact is that the Animal Welfare Act of 1985 already provides for up to four years’ imprisonment or a $50,000 fine for anyone who harms or seriously harms an animal. Why are we not using those existing laws is the underlying question that I have and a question that needs answering. If there does need to be some tweaking of the Animal Welfare Act, then we should be doing that. Creating completely different laws within a different act is not the way to manage this issue. I note that I believe the Law Society agrees with me on that point.
I was quite interested to read page 3, I think, of today’s Advertiser—perhaps ‘interested’ is not the right word; ‘filled with rage’ would be a more adequate description—where the Attorney-General saw fit to accuse me of politicising the issue of child sex abuse by not supporting this bill. There are a few points I would like to make on that.
For one, I am not sure how I am politicising the issue by simply highlighting the government’s already known failures on this issue. For another, if he wants to see people who are politicising this issue, maybe he needs to look a bit closer at the company he is keeping. After all, it was this government that refused to present to a committee on the issues surrounding the Debelle inquiry. Perhaps if he wants an example of politicising the issue, the Attorney-General need only look at his own gang, if you will.
I hope it goes without saying that Dignity for Disability takes seriously the issue of child safety in our schools and wishes that this government, the Premier and the relevant ministers would do the same. We wish they would be urgent on areas of law that are completely broken, or reform policies and procedures that will protect vulnerable adults and children, procedures that are not already covered by existing legislation.
Where are the urgent laws needed to protect vulnerable people with profound and multiple disabilities, for example? Where are the urgent laws to allow intermediaries in our courts? Where are the urgent laws to improve the deficiencies in our Evidence Act? Why does a new horrific story of child abuse or children put at risk emerge from the Department for Education and Child Development every week? Why are 61 police animals now a priority ahead of safeguards for several thousands of South Australian schoolchildren?
I hasten to add, of course, that Dignity for Disability has a strong and, I believe, undeniable record of advocating on animal welfare issues, including supporting the push to ban horse jumps racing, the change in definition of free-range eggs, and the list goes on. I would also hasten to add that it was in fact Dignity for Disability that pushed to stop the pet bond under the Residential Tenancies Act applying to people with disability assistance dogs, which was in fact arguably a breach of the Disability Discrimination Act. I do not think this move can make anyone question our commitment to animals; it is simply that we question whether this bill is the right way to protect them.
Police dogs, customs dogs, the dogs that are tied up without water all day long, the dogs bred for pet shops and puppy farms, and especially any dog or assistance animal that comes under attack are important to us. I would hasten to add, of course, that my personal passion for animal welfare outside this parliament is, I believe, well known, having attended and spoken at a number of rallies to support the phasing out of live exports. Of course, people are well aware, particularly those who have invited me over for dinner, of my dietary requirements in the area of animal welfare.
Dignity for Disability takes seriously the responsibility of this parliament and urges all others to do likewise. Passing a populist law to protect working dogs will offer no additional protection to those animals than that which is already afforded to them under the current Animal Welfare Act of this state. The government cannot even argue that this will act as a deterrent to people considering harming a working dog, because the law does not require the offender to know that they are committing an offence against a working dog.
Every offence, save a handful of traffic offences, has two elements that must be established to demonstrate the guilt of an accused. To express it quite simply, they are the act and the intent. One would think that if the aim of this bill is to deter those who would assault and seriously harm a working animal the fact that the animal was a working animal would form part of the intent element and it would be necessary for the accused to have known that the animal in question was in fact a working animal.
However, in some cases the bill places the animal’s status as a working animal within the act element, stating that the accused’s knowledge of this fact is not a relevant consideration. I am uncertain how the government proposes to deter a prospective offender from committing an act that they are unaware they are committing.
While many of these situations are ones where one would more likely than not be aware of the fact that the animal is likely to be a working animal, there is one possible situation that concerns me, to say the least. In new section 83I(4)(b)(i) the bill refers to death or serious harm that occurs related to the commission of an offence by the defendant or a person in the company of the defendant.
In the event that the offending has been carried out by a person in the company of the defendant, there is no reference to the defendant having any knowledge of their companion’s offending. We leave the public unable to know whether or not their conduct in dealing with a potentially aggressive animal is lawful.
For example, if I were out in Rundle Mall with a friend and that friend were to commit a shoplifting offence (of course, I am of the understanding that none of my friends would do that but, hypothetically) and was chased down by a working animal pursuing them in order to enable officers to lay charges against that person for that offence, by virtue of the fact that I was in the company of that person, I could myself commit an offence if, for example, the dog or the animal made some move toward me that I was uncomfortable with and I attempted to distance myself from that animal in a way that could be interpreted as aggressive or violent. I potentially could be committing an offence. Where is the logic in that?
Do we expect members of the public to ask their friends if there is anything that they should be aware of before attending to the German shepherd that is gnawing at them? The removal of the defence under such circumstances is deeply concerning. It criminalises an act of what would otherwise be one of entirely reasonable self-defence where the defendant has no knowledge of an animal’s status as a working animal or its reasons for attacking them or their companion.
At least under our animal welfare laws you are charged with injuring an animal without having to establish whether it fits the criteria of being a working dog. With this bill, we are adding a level of unnecessary complexity to our laws which is unlikely to see any benefit. I hasten to labour the point once again that, in my opinion, if you stab a police dog you stab a dog, if you stab a working cat you stab a cat, it is all much the same act.
The Hon. J.M.A. Lensink: Cats don’t work.
The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: I think the Hon. Ms Lensink is interjecting that, of course, cats should be seen as somewhat more important, but I don’t know if I can really—
The Hon. J.M.A. Lensink: No, they don’t work.
The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: They don’t work? Of course they do. They do all that modelling for artists, lying around in the sun. Anyway, we digress ever so slightly. I promise you I will learn not to respond to interjections, Mr Acting President.
In terms of disability assistance animals, this legislation only currently covers accredited guide dogs so, therefore, it does not include horses for people with disabilities and hearing dogs or dogs trained for people on the autism spectrum or with mental illnesses or intellectual disability. It does not include any other animal trained for special use for people with disabilities. This demonstrates that the government does not actually get the issue of disability assistance dogs, as if the residential tenancies issues had not already painted that very clearly for us. Why are guide dogs for the blind more important than a hearing dog or a dog that assists a person with an intellectual disability or on the autism spectrum?
Additionally, the Law Society submission, which I mentioned earlier, demonstrates what a waste of time this legislative change amounts to, and they stated so in no uncertain terms in their submission to the Attorney-General. It is adding complexity to laws that is simply not needed. I feel at pains to point out that I see no issue with advancing special protection to working animals as such. What I oppose is a deeply flawed bill and the dog and pony show that has surrounded it.
If one wishes to create additional penalties for harming a working animal, we have an animal welfare act that already contains provisions protecting all animals. I cannot fathom why a change of this kind would not be carried out by including an animal’s status as a working animal as an additional aggravating factor that attracts an additional penalty. Naturally, we all feel for the suffering of animals—no-one more than me—whether they be companion animals, working dogs, assistance animals and so on.
I do not intend to take more of this parliament’s time, apart from stating that Dignity for Disability opposes this bill and the complete diversion from good legislation and good legislative sense that it represents. At the end of the day, what this government is looking for is something that they can turn to at the end of a bad day in their education department and say, ‘Well, at least we protected the nice little puppy dogs—brownie points for us.’ This is a complete distraction tactic and one that I cannot, in good conscience, support.
