The council that spent $100,000 on prejudice

On the eve of the Victorian ‘pit bull’ amnesty ending on the 29th September 2011, the owner of a dog named Butch visited the Ballarat City Council offices to register her dog. She completed an application form, but found she was short on cash and couldn’t pay the registration fee. She told staff she would return later to finalise the application, but didn’t return.

You would expect that this local council would appreciate that their community members were looking to comply with new local laws and would work to help them – but you would be wrong. Instead the next day, on the 30th September – just hours after the amnesty for dog owners to register restricted breeds came to a close – officers of the Ballarat City Council used the information given by Butch’s owner to locate and seize Butch.

The Ballarat Council then declared him a restricted breed. And as he wasn’t registered before the amnesty ended, it would be required that he be destroyed.

Butch’s owner took the decision to VACT, arguing that Butch could have been registered within the amnesty if the council hadn’t refused to register him (on the basis of her not being able to pay the registration fee) and that his registration should have been processed on that day. She was able to secure legal support from the Barristers Animal Welfare Panel. Ballarat Council however maintained that they acted appropriately in seizing Butch for being unregistered.

What was the result?

Nearly a full year later Butch has finally been returned to his owners.

Details of the VCAT hearing and subsequent out-of-court settlement remain confidential, but the council’s chief executive officer Anthony Schinck confirmed that the 10-month process had cost council “in excess of $100,000”.

Ballarat Council has spent more than $100,000 of tax payers money to seize a dog with no history of causing a problem in his community, over what essentially amounts to a paperwork bungle. So keen were the jackboot thugs of their animal control department to kill a pit bull as soon as possible, that they bullied a disadvantaged owner, no doubt hoping she would have no resources to fight back. Luckily for this dog and owner, the community stepped up to defend the defenceless.

These are Victoria’s new laws in action. Shame Victoria. Shame.