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The Canberra Times
The Canberra Times
Jasper Lindell

Liberals would halt kangaroo cull, commission independent review

Kangaroo culls in the ACT would be halted by an incoming Canberra Liberals government while an independent review considers the program.

Opposition Leader Elizabeth Lee said the review would consider methodology, possible alternatives, environmental impacts, and biodiversity.

A review is already considering the program, but the government has long maintained the cull is necessary to protect Canberra's grassland areas.

The Liberals will on Thursday announce the election commitment, which follows the party's pitch to spend $100 million on a fund for suburban infrastructure improvements.

Ms Lee said Canberrans were uncomfortable with current kangaroo culling practices, which had included clubbing pouch joeys to death and joeys at foot.

"Many have also disputed the methodology used by the Kangaroo Management Unit within the EPSDD to count the number of kangaroos with population estimates from the ACT government referred to as 'highly questionable'," Ms Lee said.

The Canberra Liberals' Nicole Lawder, left, and Elizabeth Lee, who will take a kangaroo cull moratorium to the 2024 election. Pictures by Karleen Minney

"An independent review will look at the current program and assess potential better practice methods than what is currently in place.

"The Canberra Liberals will ensure a thorough independent review takes place into the controversial kangaroo cull and that the practices used are the most effective and in line with community expectations."

Ms Lee on Thursday said the review promised by the Liberals was different to the "tick-and-flick statutory review" being completed under the current government.

The Liberals' Nicole Lawder said support of the existing program from Environment Minister Rebecca Vassarotti, a member of the Greens, was "abhorrent and hypocritical".

"If the ACT Greens are at all serious about evidence-based measures when it comes to culling kangaroos above protecting their political alliance with the Labor Party they will support our call for an independent review," Ms Lawder said.

The Greens have "reluctantly but consistently accepted the necessity" of kangaroo culls since 2004, the party's website said.

Ms Vassarotti said the Canberra Liberals' announcement was an "endorsement of government policy" to conduct independent reviews on the "difficult and challenging issue" of kangaroo management.

"When the evidence suggests that we should be doing something differently, we absolutely will take that on board," she said.

A review is currently considering the 2017 eastern grey kangaroo management plan, which the government has previously said would be released by the end of the year.

The kangaroo cull program has been unsuccessfully challenged in the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal three times, subject of multiple reviews and community support research.

Research produced for the Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate in December 2022 found 54 per cent of Canberra residents were satisfied or very satisfied with the government's kangaroo management approach.

More than three quarters of respondents believed kangaroo culls were appropriate in certain circumstances, a summary of the findings previously released by the government said.

A total of 1041 kangaroos, just one shy of the 2023 cull target, were shot this year in mid-winter across four reserves in the ACT.

Save The Kangaroos spokeswoman Jane Robinson has said: "The annual slaughter is cruel, unnecessary and pointless."

"They had already turned the bush capital into a slaughterhouse of Australia's most iconic animal. Now we discover they're willfully misleading Canberrans by concealing the late-night butchery and breaching their own ban on the commercial killing of kangaroos," Ms Robinson said in September, after freedom-of-information documents revealed kangaroos were butchered to make poison fox and feral dog baits during this year's cull.

Kel Watt, speaking on behalf of the group on Thursday, welcomed the Canberra Liberals' commitment and condemned the quality of the government's polling.

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