Opinion: Progress on dog fence, not on pastoral act

But strong emphasis is still being placed on the importance of ongoing bait and trapping programs.

No one wants to see pastoralists going back to losing up to 1000 sheep a year to dog attacks - not when incomes have been stretched due to drought and because sheep are just too valuable these days to lose.

Depot Springs Station's Geoff Mengersen, who lives south of the Dog Fence, stressed to Stock Journal that while the fence was great, in his 20-plus year battle against dogs, baiting had been key and was "a big part of the fence being successful".

The importance of baiting was highlighted recently with the shocking video in the media of a very smart dog making its way under new fences built in WA.

There has also been reports of dogs burrowing under SA's new fence.

But again progress is fantastic.

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The same couldn't be said for the review of the state's Pastoral Act, which is heading back to consultation again, with some concerned it won't be finalised before the next election.

The review of the Pastoral Land Management and Conservation Act 1989 was announced in August 2019.

The draft bill came out over a year later in September 2020 and now six months has again passed and a final Pastoral Lands Bill 2020 doesn't appear to be in sight.

The 300 responses to the draft bill does show the importance of getting this "once-in-a-generation", modernised reform right for our valued and vast rangelands communities.

But I agree with Livestock SA northern representative David Bell that it is disappointing there isn't a better result from the past 18 months. I hope the clarification needed on alternative land uses will be to the advantage of our pastoralists.

Tourism, in particular, has played a vital role in supplementing the incomes of drought-affected pastoral operations and has become an important tool in opening the eyes of city folk to that part of the country and issues it faces, particularly in these COVID-restricted, drought-affected times.

Let's hurry up and get this right, so that they can get on with caring for our country.