Rspca Complains - Not Enough Funding

[Sheridan]

This is despite contributing only $460,000 to the RSPCA's $36 million budget, of which $5 million goes toward enforcing the Government's own laws.

Simple solution for the RSPCA then: stop doing it.

[Souff]

Gosh, haven't been on DOgz in ages, even struggled to remember what my password was, then I gets in here and sees all the RSPCA listings!

"RSPCA left millions ..... " nah, skip that one .... likely to make Souff feel deprived.

And then we have this one " ..... not enough funding". Same old story and stems from the same old stuff ..... old stuff that is often connected with things like greed and mismanagement.

Nah, I am going back to turtle watching. Rats to the RSPCA, I am not going to spoil my beautiful day by reading about them.

hooroo!

Souff

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/negl...9-1225761146260THE RSPCA has slammed the State Government for neglecting the abuse of animals as the charity admits it is struggling to cope with an ever-growing workload. The charity yesterday took a rare swipe at a Government it says had grown so complacent in animal welfare that it regards the RSPCA a de facto department.

This is despite contributing only $460,000 to the RSPCA's $36 million budget, of which $5 million goes toward enforcing the Government's own laws.

Chief executive officer Steve Coleman told The Daily Telegraph he was tired of his organisation copping flak for not doing enough prosecutions when it had all of the responsibility and none of the resources.

"It's one of our frustrations that as the Animal Cruelty Act has evolved - which is a good thing for animal welfare - but the responsibility of enforcing it has grown also and that's completely fallen to us," he said.

"It can cost us $100,000 to prosecute someone and that's our money we're using.

"It would be terribly helpful if the Government provided some funding for that."

So entrenched is the Government's belief that the RSPCA handles animal welfare issues that when The Daily Telegraph asked Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald what the Government had done to enforce welfare issues in the cage egg industry, he referred only to the charity. "The RSPCA is the agency with responsibility for animal welfare on behalf of the NSW Government under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act," Mr Macdonald said.

"The RSPCA therefore also has responsibility for checks and inspections of egg producers in NSW. This has been the case for 30 years."

Mr Coleman admits his group is struggling..

"We were struggling to keep up with the (day to day animal abuse) complaints and now we're expected to be able to do random checks on egg producers," he said.

"The Government is constantly increasing the scope of the Act but not putting resources in to properly enforce it,"

Mr Macdonald said he had not been told directly of the RSPCA's concerns but was happy to consider increased funding.