Home > Issues > Effective Legislation, Benchmarking

The power of the retrospectoscope - cat legislation

When the Dog and Cat Management Bill was being considered by the Parliament in 1995 the Minister received a thousand letters either describing the legislation as draconian or wishy-washy. It was simultaneously called the Cat Kill Bill and the Cat Protection Bill by opposite ends of the spectrum. Put simply, we have learnt that you can't please all the people all the time particularly if you are dealing with cat legislation. With the power of the retrospectoscope this presentation seeks to explore the strengths and limitations of the legislation and highlight the pitfalls for new players. It will explain why we chose the options we did and why we rejected some of the proposals considered.