Cats
On the 15th September 2009, the Legislative Council disallowed the City of Joondalup’s Cats Local Law 2008. As such, the law and all of its provisions will not be going ahead as of 1 October 2009.
What is a disallowance order?
As a delegated law-making authority, all local laws adopted by the City must be scrutinised by Parliament through the Joint Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation. This is a specialist legal Committee that considers subsidiary legislation (such as local laws) to ensure they are valid and appropriate. For instance, the Committee has the ability to recommend to Parliament that a local law be disallowed if it believes the law would be better suited within a statewide Act.
Parliament then has the opportunity to debate the matter and if agreed, the local law may be disallowed. This means that the local government is prevented from implementing the law’s provisions.
Why did the Legislative Council disallow the City’s Cats Local Law?
Given that the City’s Cats Local Law 2008 was setting a State precedent, it attracted rigorous consideration by Parliament, where it was decided that some of the law’s provisions should be applied on a statewide level rather than be isolated to a single local government area. The most notable provision to which Parliament believed this should apply was the compulsory sterilisation of cats.
Why were residents not informed earlier of the law’s disallowance?
When considering a local law, Parliament is subject to “privilege”, which means that no information about Parliament’s scrutiny of the local law may be released publicly. The City was therefore forbidden from informing residents of a potential disallowance order during the period from 17 February 2009 to 15 September 2009, which was the time it took the Delegated Legislation Committee and Parliament to reach a decision.
Given the rigorous consideration of the local law by Parliament, confirmation of the disallowance order was only recently provided and unfortunately, did not allow much time for the City to effectively communicate with all of its residents prior to the law’s proposed commencement date of 1 October 2009.
What did the Cats Local Law propose?
Below are the major elements of the Cats Local Law City of Joondalup residents will not be required to comply with as of the 1 October 2009:
- compulsory registration for cats over the age of three months
- compulsory sterilisation of all cats that are registered
- compulsory identification of cats, either by microchip or identification tag plus a registration tag
- requirement that cats do not stray into designated natural areas and that cats do not pose a nuisance to neighbours
It should be noted, however, that as part of being a responsible cat owner sterilising, identifying and confining cats is still encouraged by the City, though they will not be enforceable.
When will statewide cat legislation be introduced?
The City has no influence over the introduction of statewide legislation. The matter has been referred to the Minister for Local Government, Hon. John Castrilli MLA, to consider. Queries regarding the development of a State Cat Act should be directed to either the Minister or the Department of Local Government.