Mr Aird - The leg being torn out of the trousers?

Mr DEAN - Well, the trouser leg.

Mr Fletcher - I think he's got three legs.

Members laughing.

Mr Aird - He used to.

Mr DEAN - And then being bitten on the hand on another occasion and spending the next four hours in a doctor's surgery really did not do too much for my campaigning.

Mr Aird - By a dog?

Members laughing.

Mr DEAN - I will continue on, Mr President. Responsible dog ownership is necessary and must be enforced. The member for Apsley has referred to some problems in Rocherlea of recent times. I was involved in that and I can say that that really did create some headaches for the Launceston City Council because on that occasion there were something like 60-odd sheep killed, Mr President, and each one of those sheep at that time was worth about $100 a head. It did cause a lot of problems in that area and that is without the sheep that were mauled. Many were mauled as well and a lot had to be put down at a later stage. It does create immense difficulties. That did receive a lot of media coverage and there was an outcry from the public, pet owners and farmers in and around that area.

This is good legislation, in my view. The difficulty confronted by the Launceston City Council there was that whilst they could identify some of these dogs, there was nothing that they could do about it because the owners were saying that these dogs were locked up, they were in the backs of their homes on that night and they should not have escaped. This legislation will make the owner of a dog responsible for anything that that dog does. That, Mr President, in my view, is responsible legislation. I support it and I commend the Government on bringing the matter before this Chamber today.