Duck hunting could be legal in NSW within months after Shooters and Fishers Party MLC Robert Brown yesterday tabled amendments that would overturn the ban in the state.
The Game and Feral Animal Control Further Amendment Bill 2012 would alter the Game And Feral Animal Control Act as well as the National Parks and Wildlife Act to allow hunting of ducks and other game.
The Shooters and Fishers Party expects the bill to go through parliament and be finalised next month, which could see hunters targeting birds before the end of the year.
The plan is for a different hunting model to the traditional declared seasons for game bird hunting.
Instead, “sustainable, progressive” hunting will be managed based on species, populations, mitigation needs and other factors, all under the Game Council.
The passing of the legislation will mark the return of a traditional part of hunting culture that had been effectively banned in the state for two decades – a ban that had exacerbated losses by rice farmers in the past few years when plague numbers of ducks invaded their crops.
Hunters have only been allowed to shoot ducks as part of set mitigation programs, with the result that the state has virtually no duck hunters left; most who take part in the mitigation come from Victoria.
The proposed legislation has drawn flack from the Labor Opposition, which labelled duck hunting “unjustifiable cruelty” and demanded the Premier rule out its reintroduction.
Meanwhile, the SFP has said it will push for a repeal of the state’s controversial Native Vegetation Act, under which agricultural land can be declared off-limits to owners and no compensation paid.
Notice was given by SFP MLC Robert Borsak, who said, “We want to remove the green tape that is leading to the destruction of agricultural land by woody weeds.”
He said the Act hinders the good management and sustainable use of land.
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