# Pet dogs threaten health in Indigenous communities



## testmg80 (Jul 28, 2008)

AM - Saturday, 13 December , 2008 08:24:00
Reporter: Katrina Bolton
ELIZABETH JACKSON: The Northern Territory's remote communities face many challenges.

But one problem which is often overlooked is the sheer number of dogs living in and around these settlements.

Despite hundreds of millions of dollars being pumped into the communities as part of the federal intervention, those dealing with animal welfare say they're grossly under-funded and they're warning the dogs pose serious health risks.

Katrina Bolton reports from Darwin.

KATRINA BOLTON: The Northern Territory's remote Indigenous communities are teeming with dogs.

(Sound of dogs barking)

Most are un-desexed, many are sick or have skin conditions leaving them visibly itchy and without much fur.

JULIA HARDARKER: The remoteness means that Indigenous people don't have access to vet services; they don't have access to education programs and the other things that are really vital to address the issues that they're trying to deal with out there.

KATRINA BOLTON: Julia Hardarker heads up an organisation known as AMRRIC, Animal management in Rural and Remote Indigenous communities.

She says because people live in crowded houses with so many dogs, it's a major health issue.

JULIA HARDARKER: Dogs are eating dirty nappies so the loads of giardia and salmonella the burdens are much higher.

Puppies, mass amounts of puppies being born, have a real burden of disease; they're dropping all sorts of gastrointestinal diseases over the ground. You've got children crawling around.

KATRINA BOLTON: Recent reforms to the Territory's Local Government Act means legal responsibility for animal welfare in communities falls to newly created shires.

The CEO of the vast MacDonnell Shire in Central Australia Wayne Wright says it's simply not possible.

WAYNE WRIGHT: Not with the current funding levels, no it's not.

KATRINA BOLTON: The Territory Government says the shires should liaise immediately if they can't fulfil their core services.

It says it allocates $87,000 a year to the department's animal welfare unit, but Wayne Wright it says it'd cost three or four million over five years to deal with animal welfare properly just within his shire.

WAYNE WRIGHT: We get some NT Government operating grants which fundamentally already being allocated to some of the other work we're doing. So it's extremely difficult for us.

KATRINA BOLTON: The federally funded organisation AMRRIC usually gets $200,000 a year, but has been operating without funding for months. Here's Julia Hardaker again.

JULIA HARDARKER: We had our funding released after working the first three months of this financial year without an agreement.

We had funding released for that quarter but we're currently in the same situation; we're actually waiting for a release or notification that we will be funded past the end of the quarter which is September.

KATRINA BOLTON: After she spoke, the Federal Indigenous Affairs department promised to release the organisation's funding before Christmas.

The Territory's Country Liberal's Senator Nigel Scullion says it's not enough.

NIGEL SCULLION: We're spending an awful lot of money in Indigenous communities to try to close the gap in a number of ways and $200,000 is just a sneeze in comparison with the huge outcomes that this can provide to regional and rural Australia

KATRINA BOLTON: He says his own Coalition Government was always reluctant to give much, but Labor needs to, and should see it as part of the Indigenous intervention.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Katrina Bolton with that report.

AM - Pet dogs threaten health in Indigenous communities


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