00:00 After decades of debate and pressure on successive Victorian governments, a parliamentary inquiry
00:06 has recommended that duck shooting, recreational duck shooting, be banned in Victoria from
00:11 2024.
00:12 It's done this for a number of reasons.
00:14 It says that bird populations are declining, there's been destruction of habitat as well
00:18 as traditional owner cultural sites.
00:20 There's also been a lack of compliance on the annual duck shooting season and for those
00:24 reasons that duck shooting should be banned.
00:26 Now this was a Labor-led inquiry but there were significant minority reports issued from
00:31 the Coalition and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party that said duck shooting should
00:35 continue beyond 2024.
00:37 Let's have a little listen to some of the debate.
00:39 I think the inquiry as a whole shows that there's a lot of very deeply held views in
00:44 the Victorian community about native bird hunting.
00:48 This parliamentary inquiry received nearly 10,500 submissions, more than any other parliamentary
00:55 inquiry on record.
00:57 This has taken truth and just chucked it out the window on the basis of we don't like it.
01:04 And frankly it's been a waste of time.
01:06 I feel sorry for all those people that put in their time, effort and submissions for
01:11 what was obviously just a complete hatchet job.
01:15 Now these are just recommendations to the government which has six months to respond
01:19 and the Premier has been under pressure to act on duck hunting for a very long time,
01:22 including from his own Labor MPs.
01:25 Now it should be noted this inquiry is Labor-led and it was set up by the Premier to look at
01:29 this issue which has led some people to believe that the government will follow these recommendations
01:34 so far.
01:35 They've been tight-lipped on that.
01:36 It's also led to people like the opposition and those in the shooting sector to describe
01:41 this inquiry as a stitch-up.
01:44 There's also been some very big concerns from the building unions here in Victoria, from
01:48 people within the Labor Party base, who have warned against banning duck hunting.
01:52 There's threats from unions like the CFMEU and the Electrical Trades Union that if the
01:56 Andrews government bans duck hunting, there could be union members walking off big government
02:01 project sites in protest.
02:03 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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