AUSTRALIA, NSW: Gate left open
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http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,20281,17707887-5001022,00.html
Gate left open
By KATE MURRAY
January 02, 2006
DOG BREEDERS are continuing to sell dangerous dogs because the State
Government has failed to gazette laws passed in Parliament more than a month
ago.
The revelation comes just days after a two-year-old girl was attacked and
killed by a dingo crossbreed working on her grandparents' farm.
A spokesman for Local Goverment Minister Kerry Hickey said the law banning
the sale and breeding of five types of dangerous dogs, which Parliament
agreed to on November 28 would come into force in the next two weeks.
The spokesman said the delay was common and had come about because
regulations relating to the bill needed to be drafted.
"It's not us holding it up," he said. "We want to make sure it's right."
Meanwhile, breeders are openly selling dangerous dogs, in what Mr Hickey
described as "a bitter pill to swallow".
The Daily Telegraph yesterday spoke to several pit bull owners and breeders
who are openly selling their purebred pit bulls - an offence which could
earn a $55,000 fine or two years' jail when the new laws are gazetted.
One breeder, who offered an eight-month-old male and a two-week-old male pup
for sale, said pit bulls were a restricted, rather than a banned breed.
When asked about the bans, he said: "They've done that in Queensland but
they'll have trouble doing it in Sydney - there's too many of them (pit
bulls) here."
He said the older dog was aggressive towards other animals but not towards
humans.
"They're not dangerous dogs . . . they're good guard dogs," the breeder
said.
"Ninety per cent of people who say they're bad dogs haven't had anything to
do with them."
Another breeder told The Daily Telegraph the pups he was selling would be
his last litter "because the council's hassling me (about it)".
Mr Hickey said that people who continued to breed and sell dogs while
knowing they were about to be banned were being cruel to the animals, as
well as to the public.
"The bottom line is that the Bill has been passed and these people are still
selling these animals, and I find that a bitter pill to swallow, that
they're showing total disrespect to the public."
RSPCA NSW chief executive Bernie Murphy said dogs such as pit bulls were not
meant to be companion animals.
"The reason the Government did this and the reason the RSPCA was so
supportive is that these dogs are a danger to other animals and people," he
said.