The NSW Government is seeking your feedback on proposed changes to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Regulation 2012 (the POCTA Regulation).

These changes are included in the draft Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Regulation 2025 (the draft Regulation) that will replace the POCTA Regulation on 1 February 2025.

The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1979 (the Act) is the primary legislation that sets the foundation for strategic and coordinated management of animal welfare in NSW. The Act is supported by the POCTA Regulation.

Key amendments in the draft Regulation include:

  • Revising the circumstances with which certain procedures can be carried out on animals such as declawing of cats, debarking of dogs and tail docking of cattle under 6 months of age.
  • Prohibiting the use of glue traps for the purpose of catching animals but will still be allowed for use on insects.
  • Improving the enforcement options by allowing the use of penalty notices for additional offences and increasing the existing penalty notice amounts for a range of offences.
  • Implementing key changes from the Poultry Standards and Guidelines for laying fowl to build upon existing layer fowl regulations.

Tell us what you think

We want you to have your say on the draft amendments to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Regulation. 
Prior to providing feedback, we encourage you to review the Draft Regulation and Regulatory Impact Statement.

Make a submission

Prior to providing feedback, we encourage you to review the following documentation:  

Privacy Collection Notice

Privacy collection notice for Draft Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Regulation 2025.

Have your say consultations are run by the NSW Department of Customer Service (McKell Building, 2-4 Rawson Place, Haymarket NSW 2000).

We are interested in hearing from the community and will use the information we collect from you to help develop the programs and services that NSW Government provides, in particular to conduct a broad review of the Just Terms Act and the whole of government approach to property acquisitions.

We may collect basic personal information like your name and contact details, if you choose to provide them. You may provide some personal information in response to questions that we ask you. For example, we may ask you about your experiences or opinions about a particular topic.

Having your say is voluntary and you are not legally required to provide any personal information to us.

In this consultation you have the option to provide your name and contact details for the research team to gather more information from you, or the option to participate anonymously.

If you do provide personal information to us, you have a right to access it, and can ask us to update or correct your information. For more information about how you can access or amend your personal information, please contact us by calling 13 77 88 or by emailing privacy@customerservice.nsw.gov.au.

We may provide your personal information to other areas of the Department of Customer Service (for example the Data Analytics Centre and Customer Insights) so that we can conduct analysis across all consultations and refine our engagement methodology. The personal information will be stored on the DAC’s secure platform, which is hosted in a secure commercial cloud data centre in Australia.

Where we conduct a consultation with or on behalf of a partner agency, we would usually share the information that we collect with that agency. In this instance, we are running this consultation with:

  • NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development

For privacy information about your use of the NSW Government website generally, please see the NSW Government’s website privacy statement.

You can contact our Privacy Coordinator by calling 13 77 88 or by emailing Privacy@customerservice.nsw.gov.au.