The questions surrounding private keeping of native reptile permits system is in itself ridiculous. So I have given a general "keepers point of view" on some of Australia's permit systems dealing with reptiles, so firstly you can have a general understanding of current permits.
WA and Tas have the most ridiculously regulated systems, WA chief of environment (don't remember the official name off my head) has gone on record to say that "reptiles are the currency of criminals" there is no import into WA and even some endemic species widely available elsewhere are prohibited to private keepers (Rough-Scaled Python), how can WA keepers hope to get any progress with this mentality in charge. Tasmania has no import either and obtaining a license permits any keeper to collect a certain amount of native reptiles, so any Tasmanians who want a snake as a pet is limited to basically tiger snakes and copperheads which most do collect without any prior proof of ability to safely keep some of the worlds most venomous snakes!
In my opinion SA has the most effective and fair permit system, some species don't require a permit (eg blue tongues and short neck turtles) the list of basic species only requires you to get a permit for 2 or more basic species animals. Then to obtain specialist species you need references to show your competency keeping them. The venomous snake endorsement operates on a 3 level system, you keep a red belly or similar for a year then can apply to upgrade to all but 4 species for a year and on level 3 you can finally upgrade to Eastern Browns, Coastal Tais, Inland Tais and Rough scaled snakes.
NSW also has different levels of species able to keep, but not as well structured I believe.
QLD has some good things and some absolutely stupid things. The stupid thing: anyone can go from keeping a gecko then doing a venomous course to obtain references and then straight away buy a Coastal Taipan, easily the most difficult elapid to work with in Australia. QLD also has international species permit, YES QLD are legally allowed to have exotics! (so are other states but there isn't the locality distinction) QLD can legally have international Green Tree Python localities such as Biak, Aru and Sorong. QLD also prohibits crocs, like some other states. QLD permit system is regulated by politicians not in the literal sense but because they have no idea about what they are regulating, try to make life as hard for people legally keeping whilst ignoring illegal activity and finally can't justify their laws and can't answer simple questions.
In the early 90s there was an amnesty on exotics and those keeping them were allowed to legally obtain a once off permit for their exotics for the life of the animal provided they were not bred.
Also the recent addition of JAG carpets to the Australian hobby is very interesting. Jaguar carpets were a purely overseas morph, until only recently when one of Australia's biggest commercial breeders "obtained" some jags. Now JAGS are readily available given the new name RPM (reduced pattern morph) to try and separate them from their history as illegally imported JAGS. There is also talk that granite and zebra carpet morphs have already started down a similar path with some people saying they will be available in a matter of years.
Tetrapod: The issue of legalizing exotic reptiles is debated very regularly in the hobby, I can't go into all the details (I write too much already haha) essentially the consensus is that it will never happen. As you can probably grasp from my brief overview of Australian permits we already have enough problems with native permits that won't be fixed anytime soon, so throwing exotics into the mix isn't really an option. My concern is not so much reptiles escaping (although it is a concern) but my worry is the risk of pathogen and disease spread with captive collections and wild animals, there have been a couple of "scares" with OPMV and now Sunshine Virus.
Nanoboy: People want the new or different thing, even in natives the introduction of a new species or a new colour mutation brings in the BIG dollars! Gavin Bedford has recently collected Oenpelli Pythons to bring into the hobby, he took preordered pairs for $15K to help fund the mission, this price will rise to maybe $20-25K per hatchling pair once the breeding program is at the stage of public release. Albino carpets were about $15K each when they were first released same with Albino Olives, JAGS were several thousand on release as were Rough-Scaled Pythons. It isn't so much that exotics are anything overly appealing it is purely the novelty and "specialness" of them that makes them as appealing as they are.
Sorry for the essay people, believe it or not I condensed everything, as such there is probably some information that could be missing the full story but I did my best
Cheers
Daniel
