Criminal Law Consolidation (Protection for Working Animals) Amendment Bill
Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (16:18): We are here today to debate the Criminal Law Consolidation (Protection for Working Animals) Amendment Bill 2013. I indicate that I am the lead speaker for the opposition and I know that there will be some other speakers. I will have some questions, primarily for clarification, in the committee stage. I also have one amendment filed, which I will formally move during the committee stage.
The opposition is supporting this bill from the government. I have to say that it was not an easy decision to come to, because there are a lot of pros and cons that I think any one of us or any man or woman on the street can see go with this piece of legislation. I say from the outset that I think everybody here very sensibly understands that animals deserve protection. Animals are not people and they do not deserve the same protection as people, but animals do deserve protection, even if you are not particularly an animal lover. It is pretty plain common sense that any animal working on behalf of people probably deserves a bit more protection.
I know that the member for Torrens is a very keen animal lover and she tells us about her dogs at home quite regularly, and she says that they actually think they are people. I grew up with dogs at home and I absolutely love them. I have had three dogs myself in my adult life at home. We have a cat as well—that came with my wife—and we have chickens and it is pretty straightforward common sense stuff that you have to look after animals, particularly if they are working hard on behalf of people.
What is this bill does, though, is to give some very particular protection for working animals to the point where, potentially, there is a maximum of five years' imprisonment plus compensation. This bill would create a new serious criminal offence of causing death or serious harm to a working animal by an intentional act punishable by up to 5 years' imprisonment. As I understand it, serious harm could attract a maximum of four years and serious bodily harm could attract a maximum of five years—plus compensation, as I said before. I will have some questions at the committee stage which will relate particularly to that compensation issue.
These working animals are put in danger essentially by people. The working animals that we are talking about are not jumping into harm's way. They really are put into harm's way by people, by the people for whom they are working and that, I think, needs to be very clearly understood. The bill essentially covers police dogs and horses. I understand that right now we have 25 dogs and 36 horses working for the South Australia Police.
In Correctional Services I am told that we usually have six dogs working but there are three at present. Certainly as shadow minister for corrections and the member for Stuart, with two correctional institutions in my electorate, I would certainly encourage the government to get back up to the six, because they are a very important part of Correctional Services and play a very important role in the detection of contraband in prison.
The bill also includes guide dogs. Guide dogs are trained and provided in South Australia by Guide Dogs SA/NT and also the Royal Society for the Blind. There are also other animals as per the regulations. We will ask Attorney-General, when we get to it, if he can share with us what other animals he thinks he will have in the regulations. One of the most difficult aspects of this issue, of course, is what do you leave in and what do you leave out?
We would all agree that any serious, deliberate harm to an animal is serious. Is it more serious for these working animals or is it more serious for somebody's dog or horse perhaps—as very sadly does happen occasionally when it is just sitting in a paddock minding its own business, half asleep in the middle of the night and somebody comes along and does the wrong thing. Where do you draw the line? That is an important issue for us to consider.
Another thing that is important to consider is the fact that this bill essentially came about and was brought to us by the government in response to the very unfortunate stabbing of a police working dog named Koda. We all agree that that incident was completely inappropriate and very sad. Fortunately,
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Koda has seemingly made a full recovery and went from one day having potentially life-threatening injuries to very quickly being back on duty. That is very positive and we are all glad to know that, but is this just a response by the government to the fact that there was a public outcry when Koda was stabbed and harmed?
We have had working animals in the South Australian police force for 175 years, right from day one when we started with mounted police as the foundation of our South Australian police force, but it is not until 175 years later, in 2013, that the government has decided to bring this forward, and that decision coincides with the public outcry against the harm done to police working dog Koda.
It would not be too great a stretch of the imagination to think that perhaps the government is bringing this forward more as a populist political move than purely to protect these animals because, very unfortunately, working animals have been getting harmed for 175 years, at least in the police force, and potentially longer than that in other forms of work, although, of course, not in the categories that are being provided here for us today. There is a fair degree of politics in this but, nonetheless, the opposition has decided that, given the opportunity to support the government in its desire to protect these working animals, we will also show our hand and do our best to support these working animals as well.
There is also another very important aspect that comes out of this, and this is the removal of the opportunity to claim self-defence if a person happens to seriously harm a working animal. That is something I know the member for Bragg, our deputy leader, will investigate. She will put her keen, thorough legal mind to that issue. Let me just say that it is a very important issue. If you think about the practicalities of it, the reason you use a working dog, in a trained situation, is basically to attack somebody—bring them to the ground by force. It is not unreasonable that the person upon whom that force is being used might feel obliged to defend themselves, and it may be conscious or subconscious.
I have never been attacked by a dog in that way but it is not hard to imagine that, if it was happening, you would do whatever you thought you needed to do to protect yourself, even if that meant harming that animal. While it might be okay for the handler to say, 'The person was never in any danger because I could call the dog off at any point in time,' if you are the person getting dragged to the ground at that time you may, quite understandably, not be thinking clearly about all of that. You may not know that the handler is just waiting for the right command, the right call or the right whistle to call the dog off. There are some very serious issues that need to be investigated about the fact that a defence of self-defence has been taken out of this legislation for a person who thinks they might actually need to use it.
The other thing that is interesting is that animals working for the South Australian government are given greater protection under this legislation than other animals, and that is something I will delve into in a little bit more detail in the committee stage of this bill. As I said before, I do have quite a few questions but, really, just for clarification, the opposition does support the government in this. I have an amendment which has been filed which I hope the government will agree to. When it gets to the appropriate time in committee, I will provide my logic for moving that amendment.
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