*Owning* your animals or forced to be a *Guardian*?

I don't believe in animals being "property" and I'm definitely for animal rights, but even I can see this is going way too far. I don't think animals will benefit from something like this. Instead of putting effort into something that in the long run, will be worse for animals, why aren't those people focusing on tougher sentences for animal abusers? I'm happy to be Australian right now.