Mackay council votes to crack down on unregistered dogs, cats

Mackay council approved measures granting council officers the power to visit, surveil and even enter your property in the search for unregistered animals. Are you ready for the pet police?

New pet registration measures sparked lively debate among the council.

Mackay council has approved new pet management measures potentially allowing council officers to enter ratepayers’ properties.

The Systematic Dog and Cat Inspection Program, already in place among 13 other councils across Queensland, seeks to enforce the mandatory registration of dogs and cats by granting greater powers to council inspection officers.

Running from October 1 until December 31, council officers will surveil and visit premises where an unregistered dog or cat has been reported.

Mr Williamson said that the program should not be perceived as “big brother” like. Photo: Zoe Devenport

Mayor Greg Williamson said the program empowers officers to perform an inspection to determine if the property has an unregistered pet.

“We do that just by walking by,” Mr Williamson said.

“This is not invasive it’s just giving the officers the powers to say ‘we recognise there’s a dog here’.”

Mr Williamson said the step after is to leave a letter in the mailbox urging them to register their pet.

“It costs us about $1.5m a year to run our pet management scheme and we probably have around 50 per cent or maybe less of the dogs in our district who are registered.

“This is actually trying to spread the load.”

Ms MacRae believes the program may be perceived as an overreach by council.

Councillors George Christensen and Nathenea MacRae spoke against the program, believing it could potentially put council officers in harm’s way.

Ms MacRae said she thought the inspection would be perceived as an overreach by the community.

“The money allocated to the three month inspection program could be used in a less invasive way to educate our community,” Ms MacRae suggested.

“This could bring our community on a journey with us to increase our registration numbers, to create a positive response instead of a negative, potentially hostile reaction.”

Mr Christensen said he had faced a similar situation during his previous term on council.

“There were complaints by members of the public of council officers in their backyards,” Mr Christensen said.

“What we are giving here is for the right for that to happen.

Mr Christensen echoed Ms MacRae’s concerns about creating a potentially hostile situation while council officers were inspecting properties.

“They might see the dog, they might think, well, I can go and take a picture,” Mr Christensen said.

“That could be dangerous and it would be best for that conflict not to actually happen.”

Deputy mayor Karen May believed that the issue shouldn’t be over complicated and said it was simply to ensure that people were responsible pet owners. Picture: Heidi Petith

Councillor Martin Bella gave the motion his full-throated support and said the pet management program received 702 requests regarding dogs, 397 stray dogs, 260 barking dogs and 523 dogs and 233 cats end up in the animal management centre – only half of which are registered.

“A lot of unregistered dogs are left there and they’re ultimately killed,” Mr Bella said.

“This is about responsible dog ownership … this gives us the ability to go up and make sure some people are responsible.”

Deputy mayor Karen May said council shouldn’t overcomplicate the matter.

“We’re simply endorsing our officers to go out and check on dog registration,” Ms May said.

“Make sure that people are being responsible pet owners.”

The motion passed with Councillors George Christensen, Heath Paton, Nathenea Macrae, Namarca Corowa and Peter Sheedy rejecting it.