Dog Control Amendment Bill

Part 5 deals with other miscellaneous related amendments and encapsulates a lot of the issues that still remain contentious. I would like to note clause 30, which refers to dogs causing serious injury, and to the increase in imprisonment from 3 months to 3 years, and in fines from $5,000 to $20,000. The case of Carolina Anderson certainly highlights and justifies the reasoning that where serious injury has been caused and gross irresponsibility displayed, then these penalties are far more appropriate than the older ones.

I also want to note clause 39 and the regulations adding further breeds or types to schedule 4. I note that the Regulations Review Committee is in the process of having a review of such procedures as this, covering a whole range of bills. I think it is also in the cervical screening bill. There are a variety of other ones that the committee wants to review, because, in principle, it has said that this is a bad mechanism. That is consistent with the very bad mechanism and example the Minister has shown today in bringing in a Supplementary Order Paper that is confusing, that the chairman of the select committee did not even know about, and that he has brought it in without the consultation that was demonstrated by all parties when deliberating to try to make this bill worthwhile. That just exemplifies how arrogant this Labour Government has become. Here is a bill that has languished for 4 years. It took a crisis before the Labour Government finally took notice of it, and it brought in a Supplementary Order Paper without telling anyone about it. It has also brought in a section such as 78A that the Regulations Review Committee suggests is totally inappropriate.

However, this part deals with a whole variety of things, including the offence of failing to register a dog. As I mentioned earlier on, it has been a problem that has plagued New Zealand history for over 150 years. Rua Kenana was finally arrested at Maungapohatu in the Ureweras for failing to register a dog. While the Minister might say that it is important to have a national database, why has he not organised such a database over the 4 years he has had available to him? Suddenly, he wants to bring in universal microchipping, and has said that we have to keep up with the new technologies. In fact, the new technologies are evolving. They are not foolproof, they are expensive, and they are surrounded by compliance costs.

I see this as an example of the innate congenital reflex of a socialist Labour Government. It cannot help itself gaining central control to make up a national database, and now to advocate universal microchipping. What will the next thing be? We will see the Brave New World that Aldous Huxley talks about, and we will have microchipping of children. That is not as far fetched as the Minister in the chair, who is laughing, suggests. A constitutent phoned me up and said that that was something he seriously thought should be done in New Zealand, because in the United States and the UK the same argument had been put up because of children who had been abducted. I can just see that in the socialist reflex of the present Labour Government: once it has universal microchipping of dogs, on it will go on to the next step—the Brave New World.

As has already been mentioned, Part 5 covers a number of small issues. The Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper 167 has made a considerable improvement to clause 18—that is, with regard to the failure of an owner to comply, the word “must” has been deleted and the words “reasonable grounds” substituted. That is a more reasonable approach and is in line with the general thinking of the bill. As the part covers a number of fees and the fee structure, and the issue of microchipping has been raised yet again, I remind the Committee that this day in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, it costs $41 to microchip a dog at 6 months for life, for a desexed dog it is $35 for life, and for an undesexed dog it is $100 for life. The cost to date of microchipping operative systems is not as high as one would believe. In our case, it should be not much dearer, because our systems, like Australia’s, are under the control of an officer with dog knowledge and ability.

The only other issue I want to emphasise here is the leash, and the subsequent cost if one does not use it. As the owner of a dog, one must carry a leash in public. That seems to us to be a very sensible requirement. It overcomes some of the issues of strict enforcement, and allows some ability to question the owner, particularly if the dog is in a public place. Overall, the range of amendments is sensible. They are more costly because they are meant to deter, and they are part of a reasonable system of enforcement. To some, the much larger fee structure for infringement might seem to be unfair, but it is also in line with the thinking that the failure to register, to maintain what is fair and reasonable with regard to change of ownership, transfer, and so on, are all matters that are reasonably costly for local authorities, and therefore that it will be adequate recompense for the problems and costs that those things incur.

There are some areas of law that simply set citizens at each other’s throats. Although lawyers can laugh and profit from those, they are not things to be proud of. It used to be that the Fencing Act was always seen as such a piece of law. What Parliament is doing with this bill will compound misery for people in New Zealand, compound the distress of ordinary citizens against innocent council officers doing their job, and compound the alarm of judges at being forced to apply law that brings the law into discredit. The little episode that people in Wellington remember, when Toot the dog disappeared to the acclaim of most of the population, is set to be multiplied by this part of the bill.

This bill states, even without the Minister of Local Government’s nasty little piece of beefing up, that the kinds of dogs any ordinary family might have could be vulnerable to the complaint of a neighbour and be destroyed. For example, the legislation now states that a dog owned by a person, and known “to have attacked any person or any stock or poultry or property of property of any kind”, now must not be allowed to be at large or in any public place or private way, other than when confined completely within a vehicle or cage, or muzzled and controlled on a leash. That must apply to just about every dog. How many people who have brought up a pup have not had it chew a shoe, or bite at the wheel of a bike until it is taught better, or chase a cat until it has learnt that it is not allowed to? Almost every dog has done exactly what section 62 states, and if the owner knows of that behaviour, as he or she must, he or she is thereafter obliged to muzzle it.

This bill probably will not affect the sort of people whom parliamentarians have in mind. It will not affect the gang member whom the police are too afraid to tackle. It will not affect the families who are overrun with dogs and do not bother to register any of them. This legislation will be used by neighbour against neighbour. It will be used by council officers against inoffensive families, in order to meet their quota, and the effect will be a change in New Zealand’s culture.

Judges have been complaining about this legislation, and the Minister and his officials know that well. I shall read a few of the complaints about the milder form that is the present law. Justice Randerson said: “The courts are obliged to apply the law as ordained by Parliament, unpalatable though that course may sometimes be.” Justice Barker said: “The word ‘exceptional’, which is what is required to avoid destroying a dog that falls foul of some of these sections, is a very strong one and indicates a very difficult test to be surmounted.” Judge Callander said: “I am saying that one of the worst things judges have to do in their job is to make orders to destroy dogs, and it feels like I imagine judges in the ’50s felt when they had to sentence people to death by hanging. I want to simply state to Mrs … that no judge takes pleasure at all in sitting in cases of this sort. We hate it, but our function is to serve the law and to return the matters according to statute.” Justice Williams in the High Court said: “The learned District Court judge’s deep uneasiness at making an order for destruction is understood, but, as he said, it remains the case that courts now have no discretion about ordering the destruction of dogs that attack people.”

We are now compounding the error of this law. In a frenzy of hysteria, we are making a law that will change the culture of New Zealand. Families that ordinarily have dogs will be affected. I have been a cat owner. I accept that the neighbouring dog is likely to attack the cat if it gets a chance, and that the cat will mostly jump on a fence and hiss at the dog; that is the way of nature. But now, as these provisions go, if I do not like my neighbour I can force the court to order the dog’s destruction. I can force the dog to be muzzled. [Interruption] I do not mind the interjections from the clot from Invercargill. He can jeer all he likes. This measure will rebound on him. He has a very short future ahead of him.

This sort of law should not be passed in a wave of good intentions. We ought to look at what the law actually does and the incentives it creates.

I move, That the question be now put.