Perth Voice Interactive

BAYSWATER council has set itself up for a showdown with State Parliament after pushing through another local law aimed at keeping cats confined to an owner’s property.

At Tuesday’s monthly meeting, councillor Nat Latter successfully put forward an amendment to beef up the administration’s proposed law, reinstating a confinement clause the Joint Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation had already told the City to remove.

“We went to public advertising and there was overwhelming support for it,” Cr Latter argued.

She said that if the committee took umbrage at the council’s position, it could refer the issue to the Upper House for a deliberation, which could be “an excellent pathway forward”.

But it could backfire if the Upper House backs the committee and the City could be held in contempt of Parliament.

“I think that pushing it so that this issue can be resolved – with implications for many other local governments, is a really important thing for us to do,” Cr Latter said.

Deputy mayor Elli Petersen-Pik had been digging into the background of the current Cat Act and said that when it was adopted in 2011, it was clear the intent was to allow councils to confine cats.

He noted several ministers had made that point, including former minister Robyn McSweeney during the second reading of the Act in September 2011.

“Local governments will be responsible for enforcing the legislation and they will also be able to introduce their own local laws to complement the legislation,” Ms McSweeney said at the time.

“These laws can include provisions to require cats to be confined to their owners’ property, limit the number of cats per property, as well as establish areas where cats are prohibited.”

Cr Petersen-Pik also noted the proposed crackdown had the unanimous support of the City’s environmental groups, several making deputations at last week’s agenda briefing.

But mayor Filomena Piffaretti wasn’t a fan of taking on Parliament, saying the council had been told repeatedly that the way forward was through a review of the state Cat Act.

“We have done an excellent job of raising awareness on this issue, and the advice that we keep receiving back from the members of Parliament is that they have heard it loud and clear but it needs to be done through the process that is reviewing the Cat Act,” Ms Piffaretti said.

“There is no disagreement on where the community and council want to go on this issue, and we have been trying – I want to make that public.

“I am torn on this because I want to respect the parliamentary process.

But Cr Latter wasn’t keen on waiting.

“Regardless of what promises have been made about reviews in the future, pushing forward with this is one of the ways, firstly, we can keep pressure on them to make sure there is a review, and secondly it gives us the opportunity for something to come into place next year.”

Councillor Michelle Sutherland wasn’t confident there’d be much progress with a state election early next year forcing the government into caretaker mode in November or December.

“It won’t matter if we go ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to this because the Parliament’s going to wind up in the end of November, early December and then we’re going to caretaker period and then nothing is going to happen until May next year after the election,” Cr Sutherland said.

“Whatever happens, this is not going to come into Parliament next week.”

But she was only joined by Crs Assunta Meleca, Josh Eveson, Steven Ostaszewskj and the mayor in voting agains the alternative, leaving Cr Latter successful with support from Crs Petersen-Pik, Dan Bull, Sally Palmer, Georgia Johnson and Lorna Clarke.

by STEVE GRANT