VPRS 14123 Circulars

Full description

This series consists of circulars created by VA 1376 Vermin and Noxious Weeds Destruction Board to communicate procedures and other relevant information to the Inspectors located in regional areas. The local Inspectors liaised with the various members of the public, the local District Advisory Committee, the Extension Unit, and others in the course of their duties. The Circulars provide information on what those duties were, and how they were to be carried out. They also demonstrate the level of involvement of other elements of the Division of Inspection (later known as the Division of Inspection of Vermin and Noxious Weeds Destruction) of the Department of Crown Lands and Survey with the functions of the Board.

Subjects covered by the circulars include:
Public Promotions - Extension Staff, leaflets and pamphlets, mobile caravan exhibits, weed identification talks, film and slide nights, and lectures
;Rabbit control - myxomatosis, poisons, baits, amendments to Acts, monitoring centres, inoculation, and European Rabbit Flee
;Wombats - Bonuses Act 1970, removal of Bonuses, and Wombat Fumigation results
;Bees - Registration of Bee-Keepers, and the Bees Act
;Soil - Removal of soil and sand
;Staff - work transfer opportunities, staff development and training, salaries, hours, and living quarters/accommodation
;Administration - typewriters, seminars, procedures, and vehicle and equipment rules and maintenance
;Lands - burning and grazing, wire netting, and management of crown and private lands
;Weeds - blackberry, skeleton weed, thistles, whitehorse nettle, Hawthorn weed, ox tongue thistle, ragwort, St John's Wort, and Paterson's curse
;Bait - carrots, oats, pellets, fruit, and alternative baits
;Permits - poisons, and to keep rabbits or other pest animals
;Foxes - collection of fox specimens, fox and dingo research project, and bonuses
;Poisons, herbicides and weed killers - strychnine, poison 1080, monofluoro acetate, fluoroacetate, and Poisons Act 1962.

In 1977 the Vermin and Noxious Weeds Destruction Board letterhead changed to reflect its place within the Department of Crown Land and Survey, Division of Inspection and Vermin and Noxious Weeds Destruction. This alteration of letterhead reflected a decentralisation process that focused on the regional level of activity which was noticeable at this time. Circulars from this period demonstrate this by their focus on providing regional Inspectors and offices with information on formal classification of the inter-relationship of the various divisions in the administration of the laws relating to Crown Land. They also provide an insight into the creation of the District and Regional Advisory Committees, which would be developed under the Vermin and Noxious Weeds (Re-organisation) Act 1983 (No. 9950) - an Act which abolished the Vermin and Noxious Weeds Destruction Board.