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State gives tacit nod to kangaroo harvestingThe Victorian Government is allowing the harvesting of kangaroos for human consumption despite publicly maintaining a policy stance that refuses to allow establishment of a commercial kangaroo harvesting industry. By Kevin Balshaw - 12th September 2008 - Back to News The Victorian Government is allowing the harvesting of kangaroos for human consumption despite publicly maintaining a policy stance that refuses to allow establishment of a commercial kangaroo harvesting industry.
The Member for Eastern Victoria, Philip Davis, said the Government had recently changed tack on the use of meat and skins from kangaroos culled under licence, known as an Authority to Control Wildlife.
Mr Davis said previously the carcasses of kangaroos destroyed when their numbers became excessive had to be left to rot.
But he said a recent unheralded policy switch made it legal for landowners with an Authority to Control Wildlife and agents acting on their behalf to use the meat and skins from destroyed kangaroos.
This brings the Government’s position almost in line with the Liberal Party, which for several years has been campaigning to enable the utilisation of kangaroos destroyed in approved culling programs.
The change in policy has come to light in a written ministerial response after Mr Davis called in Parliament several months ago for the Government to enable the establishment of a kangaroo harvesting and processing industry in Victoria based on the approved kangaroo cull.
In the response, Environment and Climate Change Minister Gavin Jennings says the change allows "the off-property, non-commercial, personal use of kangaroos" that are destroyed under licence.
The Minister said: "This means that landowners, and agents acting on behalf of landowners, will be able to retain and use meat and skins from animals destroyed under ATCW [licence] for their own purposes, subject to a range of conditions."
However, he has maintained "current government policy does not support the establishment of a commercial kangaroo harvesting industry".
Mr Davis described this as a moot point. "The Government argues there are only a small number of kangaroos that can be culled in Victoria, yet acknowledges that thousands of permits are issued each year to cull kangaroos and deer in areas where their increasing numbers raise the prospect of starvation or the destruction of private land.
"Earlier in the year the Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia came away from a meeting with Government department officials confident a move towards permitting commercial processing of culled kangaroos was imminent.
"The Government has taken a halfway step but made no public announcement about the change because it is obviously running scared of the animal protection lobby.
"It should now complete the policy reversal to allow a kangaroo processing industry, which would make environmental sense in keeping kangaroo numbers at viable levels and pave the way to create an industry of significant value to country Victoria."
Mr Davis said while a commercial restriction on processing kangaroos destroyed in licensed culls remained in place, Victoria was in the anomalous position of banning the processing of kangaroo meat while growing market demand was being met from thriving processing industries in other states.
A longstanding State Liberal Party policy would allow the annual kangaroo cull to become the basis for creation of a kangaroo meat processing industry in Victoria.
The new policy in Victoria allows the holder of an Authority to Control Wildlife or their agent to take up to 80 kilograms of kangaroo meat off the property for which the authority was issued.
The meat may be retained for non-commercial personal use, but may not be given away, sold or traded or stored or processed in a commercial premises.
Source: http://gippsland.com/ Published by: kevin.balshaw@parliament.vic.gov.au
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