A petition calling for a bio-security ban on cats in Queensland has received a “yes and no” answer from Primary Industries Minister Tony Perrett, who also represents most of Gympie region in state parliament.
To alleviate cat owners’ suspense, Mr Perrett says domestic cats will not be banned.
And to assure petitioner Tony Magrathea, he says feral cats already are.
Mr Perrett was responding to Mr Magrathea’s latest parliamentary petition calling for cats to be treated the same as rabbits, which he said were “listed under the Biosecurity Act as a restricted animal that cannot be kept, moved, fed, given away, sold or released into the environment.”
The petition closed with a substantial 1049 signatures, well up on the 788 who suported his call, reported in Gympie Today last May, for rents to be limited to 25 per cent of a renter’s income.
And that was more than the 561 who backed his petition to have all freestanding houses compulsorily fitted with solar panels and batteries.
In his latest petition, Mr Magrathea said cats threatened “the survival of many rare and endangered species.”
Mr Perrett said existing law imposed on landholders “a general biosecurity obligation (to) take all reasonable and practical measures to prevent or minimise the biosecurity risk” posed by feral cats.
“Cats other than a domestic cat, are already restricted (and) a feral cat must not be moved, fed, given away, sold or released into the environment.”
But “a cat under a person’s control would be considered a domestic cat,” he said.
