00:02About 3 billion animals killed every year across Australia.
00:06The vast majority of those are native animals.
00:09That's a very hard number to understand, so if we break that down a little bit more in
00:13the Perth metropolitan greater area, we see about a million animals killed by cats every
00:19week.
00:20That's by pet cats, and sadly we'd also lose about 200 pet cats to roaming-related incidents
00:25every week.
00:26And what have the laws been in WA up to now?
00:31We had a CAT Act brought in in 2011.
00:33That CAT Act was largely focused at desexing and registration and microchipping.
00:39It did allow for a little bit of prohibition into incredibly sensitive areas, but that
00:44was largely its limitations.
00:46It was initially intended to bring in or to allow local governments to have containment,
00:51but that never eventuated, sadly.
00:54Yeah.
00:55And so in the online story about this today, it said councils in WA were repeatedly stopped
01:01in efforts by a state parliamentary committee to introduce laws.
01:04What was going on there?
01:06I would love to know what was going on there.
01:08Sadly, 27 and counting local governments have tried to bring in CAT containment laws in Western
01:14Australia.
01:15Seven of those have tried more than twice, and only three have been successful.
01:20Legal experts in local government law were very clear that the 2011 CAT Act did allow for
01:27local governments to do that.
01:28This committee thought otherwise.
01:30But the good thing about this amendment is that it brings clarity to that situation finally.
01:35Yeah.
01:36Okay.
01:36So how will the laws change now?
01:38So it's going to be a simple amendment.
01:40That's going to be the first change.
01:41And that will just really clarify that local governments will be allowed to bring in containment
01:45laws so they choose.
01:47Our working group did a survey last year that confirmed that 80% of local governments right
01:52across Western Australia will take up that opportunity as soon as it's open.
01:57So we will see a step change in CAT containment right across Western Australia very soon.
02:01So what kind of rules would you like to see introduced and do you think it will make a difference?
02:06It will absolutely make a difference.
02:08And it will make a difference most certainly to cats themselves.
02:12Roaming is not a good solution for cats.
02:15Roaming related incidents will kill your cat.
02:18It will give it diseases.
02:20It's not a good option for cats themselves.
02:22It's not a good option for the native wildlife in our cities.
02:25And these local laws will just require people to have their cat under control at all times.
02:31Now whether you choose to do that in your house or whether you choose to do that in
02:35a catio, keep your cat on a lead or put it in a cage to take it to the vet,
02:40these are
02:41all options at your disposal.
02:43If we are making sure that we look after the welfare of cats when we contain them, it's
02:48going to be a far better outcome from everyone involved.
02:50So just how important is this and would you like to see other states and territories follow
02:54suit?
02:55It's incredibly important for biodiversity across Australia.
02:58It's also important for the best practice management of cats themselves.
03:02We need to be doing this.
03:04Sadly, Western Australia is a bit of a national laggard in this space.
03:08There are actually only two jurisdictions in Australia where this is not possible already.
03:13That's Western Australia and New South Wales.
03:15Most of Queensland have these laws in place already.
03:19We see Victoria, half of Victorian local governments have these laws already.
03:22And that's rapidly increasing.
03:24We need to see this adopted right across the country.
03:27Our wildlife is too precious and our pet cats are also too precious for these sort of situations
03:33to continue.
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