Please can you come? Knox Council Meeting Mon 29th Sept 7pm Motion asks to reveal the missing evidence, and to action Community Cat Program desexing. Motion: https://www.knox.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2025-09/2025-09-29%20-%20Notice%20of%20Motion%20%20187%20-%20Domestic%20Animal%20Management%20Plan.pdf Webcast: https://webcast.knox.vic.gov.au/?_gl=1*1wtw809*_gcl_au*MTA3OTM1OTI3LjE3NTY5ODcyODk Submit a public question by 12pm: https://www.knox.vic.gov.au/form/public-question-time
Council rejects change petitions for not having addresses. Please fill-in or email to the DAMP 2026-29 directly. https://haveyoursay.knox.vic.gov.au/dogs-and-cats
Please help - Knox has hidden the PDF submissions from Knox AdvoCats, and from the Australian Pet Welfare Foundation, and has hidden the evidence on Community Cat Programs. This is our last chance to be heard. Please fill in the council survey. We need many individual responses, between now and the 15th of October. Please register for 'Have Your Say', log-in, then fill-in question 5 to ask to End the 24-hr Curfew. Online: Domestic Animal Management Survey 2026-2029: https://haveyoursay.knox.vic.gov.au/dogs-and-cats Email: damplan@knox.vic.gov.au Post: Domestic Animal Management Plan Community Laws Knox City Council. Reply Paid 70243, Wantirna South 3152 You can fill-in the online survey, and also send an email, or mail.
Knox counts night-curfew supporters as 24-hr supporters - so please ask to end mandated containment. Owners already lock-in their cats at night.
90percent of Victoria's impounded cats are homeless - with no owners to contain them, and no owners to convict. Community Cat Programs reduce the number of stray cats in pounds and shelters, and free up more resources to care for and re-home dogs. Community Cat Programs are successes. Cat curfews are expensive failures. Casey Council spends $1.8million annually on 24/7 cat curfew, and has risen impoundments by 680percent - APWF Sept 2025. Please also contact councillors so that Local Laws cannot keep hiding responses.
DAMP Question 5: Final thoughts. Is there anything else you would like to tell us about the draft Domestic Animal Management Plan? (1000 characters)
Knox Domestic Animal Management Plan 2026-2029 survey centres on dogs - not caring about cats. You can mention the impact on cat health, on inequality between dog and cat owner neighbours - especially when Knox dogs vastly outnumber cats, that Knox dogs have an Order to run off-leash in over 300 parks, sportsfields and reserves in Knox, as well as three dog-parks, and the Dogs' Party 'Pets in the Park' - where cats are not seen, not heard, not catered-for - though cat-registrations pay for dog-parks and parties.
Stop Council wasting money on expensive cat curfews, which are proven scientific failures in Casey, Yarra Ranges, and Mornington Peninsula Councils. Community Cat Programs are effective at less than one-tenth of curfews' cost.
We have a rising rat problem with rats immune to ratsak - and rat-killing poisons are killing more native-animals, removing biodiversity.
Instead of aiding rescue-groups, Knox places rescuers at high-suicide risk. Knox is costing all residents ten-times-more than running a Community Cat Program; and rising council debt.
Knox DAMP crows about hiding the identity of cat-trapping neighbours, and removing cat-owners' ability to defend themselves in court. While Knox dog-owners keep all their rights to living, and knowing the identity of complainants.
Tell Council to stop calling the homeless 'feral' - which contravenes the RSPCA and the Victorian government terms. There are no feral cats in Knox. Knox has urban unowned domestic cats.
The impact upon females. In 2021, Knox said that cat-carers need 'education' and 'mental help' and to be treated the 'same way as dogs' - while removing equality and legal rights to defence for cat-owners. Knox felines have no public visibility, are locked-in, threatened by neighbours, owners and rescuers endure hate-speech, and the violence is rising - that Knox is inciting, and hiding. Even the RSPCA 'does not recommend' leashing a cat. Insist that Knox cat-carers are not 'crazy', 'childless cat lady', not in need of 'mental help', of en-forcing re'education', for loving not 'the right pet', or if they are not a 'real dog lover'. Tell of the rising violence towards Australian cats being directly linked to toxic masculinity incel groups torturing and killing, and elating that 'the screams of a cat can sound like the screams of a woman. There's also a demonstrated history of ring members committing real-life violence and it is typically against women.' reported by News Corp Australia 9 August 2025 https://www.change.org/p/knox-advocats/u/33829435
Knox's mandated containment Order makes more wildlife deaths, more deaths of kittens, more cruelty, and less wellbeing for renters, the elderly, the disabled, and for females.
Please refer to our main page for scientific evidence links: https://www.change.org/p/knox-advocats
Registrations of both cats and dogs are down so Knox proposes door-knocks to issue fines. Remember that Animal Management Officers cannot enter your house, they can only enter your yard.
Knox's Dog Off-leash Section 26 Order 'allows dogs to be run off leash in the majority of reserves, including all sporting fields, throughout the municipality, rather than limiting off leash areas to selected reserves' 'Surrounding councils, including Whitehorse, Maroondah, Dandenong and Yarra Ranges, generally restrict dogs off leash to a select number of suitable reserves'. Knox plans to Engage a qualified animal trainer to run free dog sessions in Council reserves.
And 'To Partner with Councils Biodiversity team to run targeted education campaigns' on homeless cats. Spending more money to make greater inequality.
Knox has removed cat-owners right to identity of complainant, and to fair-defence: 'residents dealing with nuisance cat issues, no longer need to provide statements to the Council for cats caught in traps regarding the time of seizure, appear as a witness in Court, or have their addresses listed on ‘cat objection letters’ which are sent to owners of the nuisance cat which identify the complainant.' Agenda 8 Sept 2025 page 160 https://www.knox.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2025-09/2025-09-08-AgendaMidMonthMeeting.pdf
Knox states only 382 responses to its April survey.
This is our last chance for the next four years.
Please, please speak up now against cat curfew.
Knox AdvoCats April submission that Knox Council has hidden from the public: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1esBroebQc-L8fJygVeBYYanUvK1-vNQ0EJlbNEpBg64/edit?tab=t.0
Australian Pet Welfare Foundation's submission that Knox has hidden from the public: https://petwelfare.org.au/government-submissions/victoria Download:
https://framerusercontent.com/assets/hM43OHLmPjaY8EeYyYeOqq0qQg.pdf
It is not irresponsible owners, it is irresponsible councils. 87percent of Knox impounded cats are homeless, with no-one to convict, and no-one to shelter, and Knox is worsening homelessness and cruelty. Also driving up council costs.
Knox has refused response-ability for the reported managerial problems at its pound run by Animal Aid. Animal Aid managers Mark Menze, Tracy Menze, Shelby Thorn and Adele Scannell were reported by workers as ordering unnecessary euthanasias and breaching codes-of-conduct. Workers state being told: 'We are a business, not a rescue', for 'clean out' killing. Animal Aid refusing to allow rescue groups to save lives. Cats condemned to death 'just because they were timid', and shy. Dogs just because they 'looked old', or in need. Volunteers managed to save many, and workers have left taking dogs and cats with them. One worker who had notified managers she was adopting a cat, on arriving to collect, found the manager and 'Welfare vet' had just euthanised her. Knox cited two of these managers as 'Animal Welfare experts' for 24-hr cat curfew in Knox News Sept 2021 and March 2022, despite the Menze's having no animal welfare qualifications. Knox said that Yarra Ranges would 'review', but Yarra Ranges has kept the same managerial culture, and renewed Animal Aid's contract for a further three years. https://www.change.org/p/knox-advocats/u/33716235 https://www.change.org/p/knox-advocats/u/33747265 https://www.change.org/p/knox-advocats/u/33862332
South Australian Local Council killed pet Bengal cat within an hour because the vet did not read the microchip: https://7news.com.au/news/south-australian-towns-celebrity-rare-cat-wrongly-euthanised-by-local-council-c-20000675
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-12/pet-cat-mistaken-for-feral-euthanased-by-council/105765304
Hon Emma Hurst MLC: 'Cat containment laws are simply cat killing laws...Now don't get fooled. There are campaign organizations that will continue to push for cat containment laws. Now, these organizations and these groups that continue to push for these laws are the people who hate cats, let's be absolutely honest about it. If they were genuinely about reducing the number of cats that are in society, then they would be supporting the solutions where there's evidence that they work. ...Instead, they're pushing for cat killing through cat containment laws, where there's NO evidence that that's even going to work to protect wildlife'. https://www.change.org/p/knox-advocats/u/33862332 Management of cat populations in New South Wales Inquiry rejected cat curfews.
Please also let Knox Councillors know:
Mayor Lisa Cooper: Phone: 0407 240 275 Email: cr.Lisa.Cooper@knox.vic.gov.au
Deputy Mayor Glen Atwell: Phone: 0499 884 585 Email: cr.Glen.Atwell@knox.vic.gov.au
Councillor Susan Pearce: Phone: 0499 660 084 Email: cr.Susan.Pearce@knox.vic.gov.au
Councillor Parisa Considine: Phone: 0499 444 850. Email: cr.Parisa.Considine@knox.vic.gov.au
Councillor Paige Kennett: Phone: 0498 880 807. Email: Cr.Paige.Kennett@knox.vic.gov.au
Councillor Chris Duncan: Phone: 0492 032 772 Email: cr.Chris.Duncan@knox.vic.gov.au
Councillor Robert Williams: Phone: 0488 333 975 Email: cr.Robert.Williams@knox.vic.gov.au
Councillor Peter Lockwood: Phone: 0499 111 639 Email: cr.Peter.Lockwood@knox.vic.gov.au
Councillor Meagan Baker: Phone: 0437 808 011 Email: cr.Meagan.Baker@knox.vic.gov.au
In 2021, Cr Baker made 24-hrs and refused community consultation costing less than $10 per cat owner.
Please speak up now for felines, and females.
Thank you for your voice!
Photo: Kobe homed, Cooper homeless - best mates