State government responsible for animal issues and crime

THE Townsville City Council and indeed most councils over the state have had to engage in new animal management laws.

While this letter is not about the animal management laws in essence, I do have a question.

Why don’t the new laws have anything to do with bats as well as dogs, cats, horses, birds, goats?

Charters Towers, Cairns and Townsville, are buckling under the weight of bats inhabiting our best parkland in our cities. The stink is overwhelming.

The danger to pets and people is undeniable. Yet we have a few loud greenies who think bats have more rights than people.

These few loud and misled people have influenced our state government (make no mistake, the power to remove bats does not rest with local councils).

The state government must issue lethal orders to have them removed. It has mattered not to the state government that the people, a majority of people, want these pests removed. Yet we are now forced to engage with councils regarding dogs, cats, horses, birds and goats etc.

A bat is an animal.

What is the difference to a bat or horse having faeces within a few meters of homes? For those that think the LNP will make a difference, well Campbell Newman had a massive majority and he did nothing.

Our pristine parks once were a peaceful green oasis, where we could have picnics and children could play, marriages or civil unions took place.

Now, the trees die, the stink overwhelms and the ambience is taken away. Since when has the welfare of bats, sharks and crocs been more important than humans. People who just want to fish and swim? Don’t reply with the standard no, thinking ‘they were here before us’, well then move to Mars. Because every part of our planet is affected by humans. Good or bad. We can only hold the state government responsible for our bat, croc and shark problem. We can only hold the Labor state government responsible for our crime, because in the end, when the dust and heartbreak of crime or missing family settles, the state government makes the law. They can change the law. When a small area in our southeast corner can control so much, when good government for the people is sideswiped by politicians who want to stay in a job while the rest of us are struggling, trying to sell our houses close to bats or cannot swim, fish or camp, then the phrase of

‘government of the people, for the people by the people’ only applies to the southeast seats, that give us these animal laws, we know where the state government’s priorities lie.

As most of us shake our heads, the laws remain. This is more than sad, it is a state governmental failure on a massive scale.

DEBRA GIBSON,

Pinnacles.