Victorian duck hunting ban set to be shot down

A ban on recreational duck hunting is set to be shot down by the Victorian government despite it being recommended by a Labor-led parliamentary inquiry.

In August, the inquiry called for recreational duck hunting to be banned across all Victorian public and private land from 2024.

But the state government is expected to reject the recommendation when Premier Jacinta Allan and ministers meet on Monday to thrash out a response.

Duck hunting has long been banned in Western Australia, NSW and Queensland but is still legal in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania.

RSPCA Victoria chief executive Liz Walker said allowing duck and quail hunting to continue in the state would fly in the face of the inquiry’s recommendations, the government’s progress on animal welfare reforms, the clear evidence of its harms, and public sentiment.

“We urge the government to hear the millions of Victorians who have made clear their support for a duck hunting ban in Victoria and to reverse this decision,” Dr Walker said in a statement.

Animal Justice Party MP Georgie Purcell, who was on the nine-member select committee, said the government had treated native waterbirds with disdain and she would no longer help them in the upper house.

Georgie Purcell has been a long-term opponent of duck hunting. (Diego Fedele/AAP PHOTOS)

“If the Allan Labor government chooses to ignore its own parliamentary inquiry’s main recommendation – it is gutless, it is spineless and it is completely unforgivable,” she said in a statement.

“They have made a mockery of parliamentary processes to appease the personal interests of a few, rather than the majority of Victorians.”

Danny Ryan from the Victorian Duck Hunters Association, on the other hand, welcomed the expected decision.

“Good government considers outcomes for all Victorians, not just a very small minority of animal activists,” the former Field & Game Australia chairman told AAP.

“It is expected that government will adopt some aspects of the select committee recommendations and hunting groups and organisations are committed and ready to work with government to assess and implement those changes.”

Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party MP Jeff Bourman, who previously dubbed the inquiry a stitch-up, is waiting for cabinet to meet before declaring victory.

“If the government decides to continue with regulated recreational duck hunting it’s siding with science, data, logic and also showing support for the regions,” he told AAP.

The inquiry was chaired by Ryan Batchelor, one of three Labor MPs on the committee.

Other recommendations of the report were allowing traditional owners to continue hunting and retaining exemptions for farmers to control bird populations on agricultural land.

Labor MP and Yorta Yorta woman Sheena Watt wrote a minority report at odds with the call for an outright recreational ban, instead suggesting tougher regulations and involving Indigenous people with the management of game reserves.

Despite there being no definitive evidence on wounding rates, the committee found thousands of birds were wounded each year and described it as an “unacceptable animal welfare outcome”.

In June, Electrical Trades Union state secretary Troy Gray told the committee during public hearings that any duck hunting ban would trigger a mass walk-off on projects across the state.

More than 10,000 submissions were made to the committee, a record for the state.