‘Bold and visionary' WA council fights back on cat containment

Sydney Morning Herald

19-05-2025

The shire is seeking not to just contain cats but to limit ownership to two per household, with the option to apply for more subject to shire approval, and is investigating providing grants for 'catios'.
'The community is fully on board with this; we've advertised this or similar laws three times now and no objections have come in,' Dover said.
Cat predation is one of the main threats' to the numbats' future. Credit: Robert McLean
'We have received quite a bit of support locally and more broadly from wildlife groups.
'We are frustrated that we haven't got there yet.'
Dover said the official reason for the law's knock-back was an advertising-grounds technicality. The shire had now received legal advice that its new law was in accordance with the Cat Act and could carry out its aims and intentions.
'We believe it should be permitted and if it isn't, our current intention is to push that all the way to the Upper House of the Parliament to get that hearing, not just by the committee but by the full house,' he said.
'That would of course be subject to a council decision, but that is the current consensus around the council table.'
WA Feral Cat Working Group executive Bruce Webber said it would be a brave politician or committee that disallowed an evidence-based law focused on saving WA's iconic numbats.
He said the joint standing committee was being reformed this month under the new state government and could potentially reconsider its legal interpretations.
If this happened, other local government attempts could be reconsidered, including the recent disallowance of a City of Bayswater cat law.
Webber said the original Cat Bill in 2011 was clear that local governments should be able to make laws for cat containment and the state's most respected legal minds on local government law agreed.
He said the committee also changed legal advisors at the end of 2024 and had the opportunity of testing their legal position with the State Solicitor's Office, which they had never yet chosen to do.
'This refresh creates the opportunity for long-overdue change,' he said.
'Perhaps finally, and with minimal fuss, the government can act on the mandate given to them in 2019, when 73 per cent of people surveyed as part of the last Cat Act review stated that they wanted permanent cat containment.'
Webber anticipated the committee's new membership would be announced later this week, but a first meeting was not likely until next month, so the new Pingelly would stand for now.
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He supported the shire's position that it would fight for its law if necessary.
'In the past the committee have recommended disallowance and local governments have capitulated. They don't want to annoy the politicians,' he said.
'But if Pingelly refuses to accept the disallowance … it would go to the Upper House for debate and decision for the first time … a new Upper House with a very different composition.