Today in Parliament, Abigail delivered a take note speech on the recent Pounds Inquiry report, highlighting systemic failures in NSW's pound and shelter system, and called for urgent government action to address the animal rehoming crisis, support rescue groups, and implement the committee's key reform recommendations.
Abigail said:
As deputy chair of Portfolio Committee No. 8 and Greens spokesperson for animal welfare, I take note of the Portfolio Committee No. 8 - Customer Service report entitled Pounds in New South Wales. As I often do in this place, I thank the Hon. Emma Hurst for her work as chair of that committee and all the work she does in producing reports with such strong recommendations. The inquiry laid out the severe gaps and systemic failings in our broken pound and shelter system that are driving the animal rehoming crisis in our State, which has seen countless animals needlessly killed every year. Those gaps were identified by advocates and professionals long before the establishment of the inquiry, but they were overlooked by successive governments and exacerbated by deliberate government choices to continue underfunding council facilities, enable cruel practices to remain unmonitored, and consistently refuse to invest in the services and programs needed to improve outcomes for companion animals.
Council pounds and shelters provide an essential public service to companion animals and the public, yet for decades Coalition and Labor governments stripped them of the resourcing they need to properly operate and failed to adequately regulate their compliance with animal welfare standards. The result has seen overstretched and under-resourced council pounds that are run down and operated by untrained staff, making it simply impossible to properly look after the rising number of cats and dogs that come into their care every single day. Most of those animals arrive at pounds and shelters sick, needy, abandoned, neglected and traumatised after having already been failed by a system that views animals as products and not as the sentient beings they are.
I am grateful to the committee for organising site visits to council pounds and shelters. Anyone who has been to even the most well-designed and run animal shelters could not help but be touched by and worried about the circumstances in which those animals live, and the numbers of unwanted dogs and cats that simply will not find a home—and that is before visiting the shelters that are built on top of tips, where dogs and cats are crammed together in tiny, filthy conditions. The cruelty to which we subject our loved companion animals is quite horrifying. I thank the countless volunteers across our community who operate rescue and rehoming organisations. They have stepped in to fill the huge gaps in the system. It is because of their dedication of time, energy, care, expert knowledge and resources that so many dogs and cats have not fallen through the gaps.
Those groups receive almost no funding and support from government, despite the vitally important work they do. They are almost entirely volunteer run and operate on fundraising and ad hoc grants. Injured, abandoned and needy animals should not be forced to have no option but to rely on those dedicated volunteers for their survival. But in the absence of government leadership, funding or an independent body responsible for the welfare and protection of all animals, those rescue and rehoming organisations have stepped up to fill the gap.
I thank everyone who made a submission, promoted the inquiry and gave evidence before the committee. With their help standing up for animals, we are one step closer to fixing these systemic failures and ensuring companion animals are treated as pets, not products. Our inquiry report made 24 recommendations that all call on the New South Wales Government to overhaul our council pound and shelter system, provide critical support for rescue and rehoming groups, crack down on backyard breeding, roll out a community education campaign for responsible pet ownership and more.
The Government's response to those recommendations can be described only as disappointing, although that is not unexpected. The Government deferred its consideration for almost all of the recommendations, pending the conclusion of the long-awaited review into the Companion Animals Act. That review is yet to even formally commence, and the Government could have just as easily committed to acting on the inquiry's clear and considered calls. Continually insisting that it will take action eventually is not enough if it does not properly follow through on its commitments with the urgency needed.
Late last year the Labor Government finally introduced and passed its bill to regulate puppy farming and its bill to make renting with a pet easier. Disappointingly, neither of these reforms went anywhere near close enough to properly addressing the core of these issues, despite what the Labor Government may argue. Recommendation 5 of our inquiry's report called for the Government to urgently introduce legislation to ensure that rentals are genuinely pet-friendly by allowing tenants to rent with animals and placing the onus on the landlord to apply to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal if they want to refuse an animal. Despite the rental reforms that passed this House last year, seriously restrictive rental laws for pet owners remain in place in New South Wales.
Throughout our inquiry we heard about the increasingly high rate of animals being surrendered because of a lack of pet-friendly rentals amidst a rental crisis and cost-of-living crisis. We also heard evidence from victim‑survivors of domestic and family violence who, despite being a perfect applicant for tenancy, have been forced to either abandon their beloved companion animal, become homeless or live in unstable accommodation, or remain with their perpetrator. Having a companion animal is something that all people in our community should be able to responsibly choose, regardless of whether they are renting or not. Ensuring that renting with a pet is possible, easy and accessible for all is critical in reducing the number of animals ending up homeless and in pounds, and in restoring the fundamental right of renters to find a home for themselves and their animals.
Not only did the Government's recently passed puppy farms bill fail to comprehensively outlaw puppy farms, it also made zero ground in even addressing kitten farms, which our inquiry identified as a key issue driving the rehoming crisis in our State and which also puts our wildlife at risk. The committee received overwhelming evidence from academics, expert professionals, rescue and rehoming groups, and community members about the high numbers of community cats—often also referred to as homeless cats who are cared for by those in the community—who go in and out of the pound and shelter system and whose numbers are only increasing.
It was consistently agreed by witnesses that the most effective action to reduce those cat populations is to carry out large‑scale desexing programs across the State. Consequently, the committee made strong recommendations for providing funding for targeted desexing programs, reviewing the microchipping and registration requirements for community cats, and amending the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act to classify that "trap neuter release" programs are legal. The ongoing New South Wales parliamentary inquiry into cat management will examine the need for these reforms, among others, in more detail. I look forward to working with the Government to ensure that these critical reforms are implemented.
Several of the report's recommendations called for action to properly resource and regulate council‑run pounds and shelters. The New South Wales Labor Government must step up and act. So far this Labor Government has demonstrated a complete lack of urgency when it comes to delivering any of its promises on animal welfare, and any action we have seen has been completely inadequate and lacklustre in both its contents and implementation. Continuing on the current trajectory of following successive governments' inadequate dismissal of animals will only push us further behind in overhauling our animal welfare framework and the systems and policies that are failing animals in our State every day.
A lot of work goes into these parliamentary inquiries, which come out with well‑considered reports that contain recommendations that have been discussed for hours on end in meetings before they make their way into the final report. But governments are consistently refusing to implement those recommendations and instead doing something completely different that appears to be disconnected to any of the evidence or to the submissions that people continuously make. It was disappointing to see that on this particular occasion, more so than normal.
It has been clearly outlined that the number of cats and dogs needing assistance through our pounds and shelter systems is a crisis created by puppy and kitten farms, created by a lack of responsible pet ownership and a lack of education, and created by a lack of free and accessible desexing services. Those cats and dogs are either indefinitely stuck in pounds or shelters—or roaming the streets causing some not insignificant trouble for our wildlife in the case of cats, which we are trying to deal with in other inquiries. This is sufficiently urgent, and one would expect a government to take it seriously. Yet we are not seeing that. It was a pleasure be involved in this inquiry. I commend the recommendations, and I hope that future a government will one day implement them in full.
Read the full transcript in Hansard here.
18 February 2025