Coalition Against Duck Shooting

21/01/2025

What's wrong with Victoria's politicians? Labor members of Parliament, including the Premier, continue to close their eyes to shocking animal abuse and cruelty that duck shooters inflict on Australia's native waterbirds. Labor's own 2023 Parliamentary Inquiry recommended that duck shooting be banned, yet the Victorian Labor government is currently considering a 2025 duck shooting season. The cost to Vic's taxpayers is about 12 million wasted dollars.
This video shows the appalling cruelty that our magnificent native waterbirds are forced to endure so duck shooters, who make up less than 0.2 per cent of all Victorians, can get their kicks. Laurie Levy

18/01/2025

The Victorian recreational duck shooting season is likely to be announced soon. If it goes ahead, at least one in four innocent native waterbirds will again be subjected to appalling suffering.
What's wrong with Victoria's politicians?
The 2023 Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry recommended that duck shooting be banned. Yet the Victorian Labor government is currently considering a 2025 duck shooting season.

This video shows the appalling cruelty that our innocent native waterbirds are forced to endure so duck shooters can get their kicks.

28/11/2024

AJP's brilliant Upper House member, Georgie Purcell, calls on Parliament to prevent the 2025 duck shooting season from going ahead, due to the devastating bird flu that will finally reach Australia in the near future, killing off our native waterbirds and wildlife. Laurie Levy

21/10/2024

AJP MP Georgie Purcell's parliamentary speech regarding Laurie Levy's court case

On October 16, 2024, AJP MP, Georgie Purcell spoke in the Victorian Parliament on the outcome of Laurie Levy receiving a $1,154 fine when he accompanied her to help native waterbirds on the opening of the 2024 recreational duck shooting season.

14/10/2024

NEWS FLASH!!!

After 120 compliance officers descended on the wetlands for the opening of this year's recreational duck shooting season, Laurie Levy was banned from all shooting wetlands for the entirety of the 2024 shooting season and fined $1,154 for remaining in Johnson Swamp, a specified hunting area near Kerang.

Laurie was in a small boat with Tony and AJP MP Georgie Purcell, attempting to help any wounded so-called ‘game’ species as well as threatened and protected species prior to 10am.

Once ashore, the GMA compliance officers wasted no time in booking Laurie and Georgie.

Instead of paying the $1,154 fine, Laurie decided to take the matter to Court, represent himself and plead guilty.

In the Melbourne Magistrates' Court today, Monday October 14, the Magistrate said he appreciated what Laurie does. He rescinded the fine and instead issued a 6-month good behaviour bond, without conviction, with $500 to be paid in court costs.

The prosecutor was shocked and unsuccessfully attempted to overturn the Magistrate's decision.

The Government and GMA unsuccessfully try to deter rescuers by issuing inappropriately exorbitant fines.

28/08/2024

Former Plumbers Union member, Milton Griffiths, unfurled a BAN DUCK SHOOTING banner at the CFMEU, ETU and Plumbers Union Melbourne demonstration to oppose the Federal Labor government appointing an administrator to investigate union corruption. Milton wanted to make the important point that thousands of union members also want the recreational shooting of native waterbirds banned in Victoria and replaced by the establishment of a First Nations nature-based wetlands tourism industry. Following the 2023 Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry recommendation to ban duck shooting, it was the heads of these three unions who pressured a weak Premier Jacinta Allan to continue with this violent and cruel activity. Laurie Levy

02/08/2024

Submission on the Regulatory Impact Statement and the proposed new wildlife shooting Regulations – and a vision for a First Nations International Wetlands Tourism industry

Following Victoria’s 2023 Parliamentary Inquiry recommendation that duck shooting should be banned, and following the powerful media exposé of union corruption and bullying, Premier Jacinta Allan can finally, in 2024, put an end to the violence and cruelty that duck shooters inflict on Australia’s defenceless, sentient native waterbirds.
Western Australia’s Labor Premier Carmen Lawrence banned recreational duck shooting 34 years ago; NSW Labor Premier Bob Carr followed with a ban 29 years ago; and Queensland’s Labor Premier Peter Beattie banned the activity 19 years ago, saying that “Queensland is now the smart state for looking after its native waterbirds”.
When it comes to animal abuse and cruelty towards native waterbirds, a modern-day left-wing Labor Premier Jacinta Allan still has the same violent and cruel duck shooting policy as the right-wing Bolte Liberal Government in the 1950s and ’60s.
The one thing they have in common is a lack of empathy for the suffering of Australia’s brutalised native waterbirds. And some 70 years later, they also share a total dereliction of duty to protect our precious native waterbirds and wetlands for future generations.

First Nations nature-based Wetlands Tourism

Public opinion has reduced the numbers of duck shooters from over 100,000 in 1986 to a handful of active duck shooters, making up less than 0.2 per cent of all Victorians today. Yet the government spends millions of taxpayer dollars each year to prop up this dying blood sport.

Rescuers have paved the way for a modern Victorian government to ban the activity and replace the violence and cruelty with a First Nations nature-based wetlands tourism and birdwatching industry.

In the 1980s, it was the vision of Labor Premier John Cain and Ministers Joan Kirner and Evan Walker that led to the protection of Phillip Island’s penguins and the establishment of a thriving world-class ecotourism attraction that annually attracts over one million visitors.

Wetlands in the north of the state, such as the magnificent Kerang Ramsar Wetlands and the nearby Dja Dja Wurrung heritage wetland, Lake Boort, which has the largest collection of scar trees in the world, could very easily become Victoria’s own Kakadu.

Victorian wetlands are rich in Indigenous culture and with their scar trees, ancient middens, sacred sites and magnificent native waterbird populations, would attract hundreds of thousands of overseas and interstate visitors.

Laurie Levy Campaign Director, Coalition Against Duck Shooting Email: [email protected] | Mobile: 0418 392 826 | Website: www.duck.org.au
28 July 2024

17/07/2024

DUCK SHOOTERS VANDALISE INDIGENOUS HERITAGE WETLANDS - DEGRADING ACTIVITY MUST BE ABOLISHED

https://au.news.yahoo.com/camping-ban-calls-at-tranquil-site-after-destructive-acts-makes-me-sick-051255509.htmlFirst

Locals believe duck shooters from the city are responsible for cutting down ancient scar trees for firewood and leaving behind excrement in bags. Find out more.

23/06/2024

While Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan still has a penchant for supporting duck shooting, the $12 million of taxpayers' money she spends to keep this dying activity going, could be much better spent by giving our ever-struggling hospitals the money to help save the lives of needy Victorians. What is more important Premier? Shameful! Laurie Levy

01/06/2024

While duck shooters vandalise indigenous heritage wetlands at Lake Boort with impunity, Jacinta's Game Officers are more interested in handcuffing young duck rescuers to prevent them helping wounded native waterbirds. It is appalling that Premier Jacinta Allan continues to be a keen supporter of the violence and cruelty that duck shooters inflict on Australia's defenceless native waterbirds. Laurie Levy

20/05/2024

The important question the CEO of the Game Management Authority, Graeme Ford, must answer is whether or not his COMPLIANCE OFFICERS are prosecuting native waterbird rescuers on trumped up charges in order to protect the interests of the GMA's duck shooting clients? Yet rescuers are also fined thousands of dollars for doing a vital job on the wetlands helping wounded native waterbirds and recovering illegally shot protected and threatened species (a job the GMA officers have never been involved in doing). Rescuers also provide a rescue service at no cost to the Victorian Labor Government. Laurie Levy

09/05/2024

The question is: will the Game Management Authority take CADS to court in a desperate move to remove this highly embarrassing video of its compliance officer being caught between a rock and a hard place with the officer being ripped to shreds by a legally trained rescuer? Laurie Levy

02/05/2024

A Victoria Government Game Management Officer confronts a female rescuer who was on the wetlands looking for wounded waterbirds, yet the officer appeared intent on charging her with 'harassing a hunter'. It doesn't take long for him to suspect that this rescuer has had legal training and that she was very capable of challenging him and protecting herself. It should make for an interesting court case. Laurie Levy

02/05/2024

The toughest part for rescuers recovering wounded native waterbirds is coping with the violence and cruelty that duck shooters inflict on Australia's native waterbirds. Filmmaker Ross Bird interviews Kaitlin, a longtime rescuer as she leaves the water at Johnson Swamp. Laurie Levy

28/04/2024

PREMIER JACINTA ALLAN'S GESTAPO. Masked GMA special squad officers on the wetlands booking a duck rescuer who's only crime was wanting to help wounded native waterbirds. The Liberal 1950's Premier, Sir Henry Bolte, would be so proud of Labor's new Premier Jacinta Allan, who is responsible for the violence and cruelty that duck shooters inflict on our native waterbirds.. Laurie Levy

25/04/2024

The AJP's dynamic and courageous politician Georgie Purcell receives a banning order from the Game Management Authority. Georgie's only 'crime' was for being on the water to rescue wounded native waterbirds at Johnson Swamp in northwest Victoria. It is a pity that Victoria's Premier Jacinta Allan doesn't share Georgie's empathy for our sentient native waterbirds. Laurie Levy (watch Ch7 News story 16 April 24. Click on link below)
https://youtu.be/oF_tl9smlXs?si=WwEtEq6seiZVTatm

25/04/2024

The Labor Government's Parliamentary Inquiry in 2023 called for the recreational shooting of native waterbirds to be banned, but new Premier Jacinta Allan, bullied by two Unions, the ETU and the CFMEU, to call a duck shooting season in 2024, did what she was told to do - and called a duck shooting season. Laurie Levy