Australias approach to cat containment raises serious questions about effectiveness, cost and animal welfare, writesAshlley Morgan-Shae.

RECENTLY, THEABC publishedthat an Australian chef was 'very excited'about a 'pussycat sandwich for lunch'.

The ABC has previously televised hunting, cooking and eating cats. Publicity-seeking celebrities are given the ABC's publicly-funded platform.

Widespread misnaming of domestic cats as feral and wild condemns many urban homeless and lost cats. Weasel words of safe, protect andeducatebecome killer sentences.

Australiandefinition:

Ninety per cent of Victoria's impounded cats are homeless, with no one to contain, no one to charge and no one to convict. Rescuers battle to raise funds, to save, to desex, to foster and find homes for kittens, mothers, battered elderly toms, without government help.

Felines are associated with femininity, non-conformity and independence. Canines with loyalty and obedience. Australian dogs get good press. Mostly, cats get bad press. Rural working dogs and rat poisons get tax deductions.

Yet working cats, orfeline farmhands, cats doing anequally important jobas working dogs and horses, get no deductions, no desexing help, no government recognition.

Mandated cat containment laws are expensive failures. TheAustralian Pet Welfare Foundationreports that Victoria's Casey Councilcurrently spendsan estimated $1.83 million annually enforcing a 24-hour cat curfew and has risen impoundments by 680% more than double the rate of population growth over 27 years.

Australia kills 50,000 cats and kittens yearly. One-in-four council pounds in New South Wales and Victoria kill67-100%. Cat curfews target owned cats, while worsening the 90% of homeless impounds. Rescuers are placed at a suicide risk greater than that endured by Australian police and firefighters.

Cashed-up organisations, celebrities and politicians whip up a frenzy against felines. Carers and rescuers are subjected to hate speech and threats.

Formerchair of the NSW Cat Management InquiryEmma Hurst, MLC,says:

Management of Cat Populations in New South Wales 2025, the government response, states thatdesexing is the most effective way of reducing stray cat populations through targeted, accessible desexing programs.

Community Cat Programstargeted, intensive, free cat desexing helps the homeless and strays. This lowers costs to councils, lowers impounds, decreases complaints and results in greater pet registration.

These programsalso reduce dog impoundments and free up more resources to care for and re-home dogs. Partnering with rescuers and carers helps residents keep pets. This One Welfare approach optimises the well-being of people, animals and their environment.

Cats keep the rats away. Removing cats from being seen increases the risk of disease. My neighbour lays rat poison and has killed two ringtail possums who greeted me daily on my windowsills. I found their bodies, having bled out from the mouth. One I had watched from a baby, carried on its mother's back.

Australia has announced the removal of Ratsak from shelves.Toxicologists reportrats' resistance to second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides, preventing blood-clotting and causing internal bleeding, is killing Australian tawny frogmouths, boobook owls, eastern barn owls, frogs, toads, possums and reptiles. Poisons leach into waterways, warning of a possible human health crisis.

Estimated predation figures are flawed data, which is disproven by scientific analysis from theAustralian Pet Welfare Foundation:

Local councils' punishing curfew fines target renters, the elderly and struggling families. For five years,Knox AdvoCatstried to get consultation on a 24-hour lifetime lockdown. Registration of cats and dogs is down. Knox CouncilsDomestic Animal Management Plan 2026-2029spends more on patrols and door knocks to issue fines.

Knox dogs are actioned free dog-training programs and dog desexing. Cats and carers receive nothing. Knox says they have no money for cat desexing. Knox already pays more to impound cats than cat desexing would cost.

Knox dog off-leash order, has dogs running unleashed in over 300 parks, reserves and sports fields, as well as four dog parks; and sport inPets in the Park. The RSPCA does not recommend leashing a cat. Knox silences questions, dismissing facts as preamble and collateral, deleting whole public questions from the meeting minutes.

Knox's animal surrender charge of $146 per animal willlikely lead to more street-abandoned cats and kittens. Councils' continuous spending without results makes residents and cats collateral damage.

I wrote to the celebrity chef's major shareholders: cordial and pasta, family-friendly brands. Questioning eating pussycat sandwich for lunch with its sexual innuendo. Disturbingly invoking childrens lunchboxes. The chef sent me a reply approving of eating feral animals, as not domestic, without reading the sent Australian definition.

2025 media reports question the celebritys use of millions of public dollars. In 2014, theACCCfound misleading food labelling. Without ABC accountability, could hawkers promote a provocative cat sauce saucy pussy, a tomcat topping, a tabby chutney, perhaps a beer-infused, slanged cat piss cordial?

I take the unAustralian stance that cat-carers are not crazy, childless, needing mental help for loving not the right pet, not fitting Knox's stated real dog lovers. We do not need your education, thought control and dark sarcasm, or media misinformation.

TheBrigitte BardotFoundationis a core sponsor of the Australian Pet Welfare Foundation for community cat desexing.

Your country is sullied by the blood of millions of innocent animals,Brigittetold a successionof Australian governments, so please, dont add cats to this morbid record.

Australian politicians frame cat curfews as designed to save wildlife, knowing full well that curfews waste money and cost more lives. Imagine if Australian felines were as valued as canines.

Ashlley Morgan-ShaebeganSave Dandenong Foothillsto save native birds and canopy trees.Knox AdvoCatscame together for consultation, accuracy and science-proven solutions.

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