“Developing plans is a great strength of the ACT government. What about implementing plans? More than two years ago Chris Steel’s public servants were ‘developing plans’ to control rabbits on City Hill,” writes political columnist MICHAEL MOORE. 

CHRIS Steel is our local government minister with responsibility for City Services and Transport. His local government capacity portfolio goes further and includes the light rail, rates, roads, rubbish and rabbits.

Roadworks around Civic are playing havoc with traffic. We have been warned that this is a temporary inconvenience while the preparations for Stage 2 of the government’s light rail project is implemented. 

Rubbish removal largely runs smoothly. Roads are often a challenge – but a bright light over the last few years is a much more effective and regular street sweeping of leaves where European trees are a feature of nature strip plantings. It is not all bad news – but City Hill is currently being demolished by rabbits.

One conspiracy theorist suggested to me that this will allow removal of trees after they have been undermined, their roots demolished, and the trees are allowed to die “of natural causes”. I am not quick to conspiracies. My experience has taught me that most stuff-ups are more commonly caused by incompetence, a lack of drive, or poor leadership.

It turns out that the city services minister has been working on the issue of rabbits for years.

A “CityNews” reader responded to my last article on the destruction of City Hill by including a letter he received from Minister Steel in response to a warning that was lodged in December 2020. 

The response informed him that he was “aware of the rabbits on City Hill and several other areas in the city and are currently developing an action plan for the management of rabbits across the city”.

Developing plans! Developing plans is a great strength of the ACT government. What about implementing plans? More than two years ago Chris Steel’s public servants were “developing plans” to control rabbits on City Hill. I observed during the late evening recently, that City Hill was simply blanketed in these animals.

The same reader’s letter talked about its protection. The minister wrote: 

“In the case of City Hill, actions must consider the preservation of heritage values as well as the other safety and animal welfare issues”. When rabbits are left to go out of control – they simply spread. They are already being spotted on the nature strips of inner-city residences and through to the suburb of Campbell.

There are examples where action is being taken. Between the Defence buildings on Constitution Avenue and Campbell houses there are warnings of poisoning and shooting to control rabbits. 

The goal seems to be to deal with “degradation of native vegetation and impacts on native plant and animal species”. This is a high priority in the ACT’s best practice management guide for rabbits.

The history of the impact of rabbits in Australia ought to suggest a great deal more urgency for dealing with City Hill. The ACT rabbit control program identifies that the “ongoing maintenance of low population numbers is considered more humane than allowing populations to build up again (ie, lethal control is kept to a minimum)”. 

This seems to be through shooting and the use of pindone poison phosphine gas fumigation.

This is where the conspiracy theorists start to make headway. The Roman Cypresses that are so prominent on City Hill were planted during the 1920s. They are not natives. However, City Hill is listed on the Register of the National Estate for its heritage value. This certainly includes the 12 oval-shaped groups of the Roman Cypresses that are being steadily undermined by rabbits.

While shooting on City Hill is clearly out of the question, other humane techniques are available. It is mind-boggling that they have not been deployed by now. The delay has really put a significant part of our heritage at risk.

Michael Moore is a former member of the ACT Legislative Assembly and an independent minister for health. He has been a political columnist with “CityNews” since 2006.