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University of Western Sydney lecturer John Hadley has proposed giving animals legally-enforceable property rights as a way of achieving habitat preservation. Under the proposal, native animals would be granted the rights and then a human would negotiate on the animals’ behalf.
If negotiations failed, the legal system could be used to back the animal’s land use rights, a prospect some have condemned as a ‘kangaroo court’.
It is believed that Dr Hadley formulated the plan after reading George Orwell’s Animal Farm without understanding that it was intended as a metaphor.
He has since commenced proceedings to remove the possums in his roof by serving notice under the Residential Tenancies Act 2010, something the possum had earlier maintained it was exempt from.
Farmers’ groups have criticised the proposal as unworkable and inefficient, hinting that it could anger powerful interest groups, such as the humans. Any reform in this area would be threatened by the fact that the major political parties get millions of dollars in donations every year from humans.
It is unclear which animals would be given rights under such a plan, but everyone agrees that wombats definitely shouldn’t get any, since they’re completely shit.
Typical animals, always looking for a paws-out.
