Dog Control (Category 1 Offences) Amendment Bill

I move that the Dog Control (Category 1 Offences) Amendment Bill be read a first time. I nominate the Primary—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order! There is a word you missed out in that. Could you just go back and read that?

I move that the Dog Control (Category 1 Offences) Amendment Bill be read a first time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): There’s a word that you just missed. It should be “be now read a first time.” Let’s try that again.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I move, That the Dog Control (Category 1 Offences) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Primary Production Committee to consider the bill.

Thank you for that tolerance, Madam Assistant Speaker. I was going to say there will be no disruption during the course of this reading, but I’ve disrupted it myself!

The purpose of this bill is to reduce the time it takes for certain charges under the Dog Control Act 1996 to be heard. It proposes to allow category 1 offences under the Act, as defined in section 6(1) of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011, to be heard by justices of the peace and community magistrates rather than by District Court judges. Under the Criminal Procedure Act 2011, justices of the peace and community magistrates are authorised to sit as judicial officers in the District Court criminal jurisdiction only where enactment creating the offence provides for it—in this case, the Dog Control Act 1996, which I propose we amend to allow this to take place.

It gives me a great deal of pleasure to introduce this bill to the House—a simple bill but, none the less, one which will take a load off the court system. As an example of this, in 2016 there were 456 charges under the Act—427 of them were category 1 offences. This amendment will, effectively, speed up the resolution of these cases and allow judges to get on with more pressing and complex matters.

A category 1 offence is an offence defined in the Criminal Procedure Act as an offence not punishable by a term of imprisonment. A category 1 offence does not apply to the following three matters, which are defined in the latter stages of the said Act, and I think it’s worth reading those out because they are quite critical to the end result of this bill: section 32(2), which, effectively, deals with a dangerous dog and its potential or need to be destroyed; section 54(2), which deals with every person who commits an offence which amounts to an animal welfare issue, where animals are not fed, watered, exercised, or adequately provided for, and who is liable to a fine not exceeding $5,000 or three months’ imprisonment—in other words, an animal welfare abuse case—and section 57(2), where a dog owner commits an offence where a fine of $3,000 is applied and any damage caused by the dog attack is able to be levied or the destruction of the dog ordered for that matter. I completely support these exceptions. I think they’re matters which rightly should be adjudicated on in a court by a judge.

It’s worth noting that the victims of many of these offences—and at times attacks—often suffer long-lasting impacts of them, some leaving a serious injury and long-lasting scars both to mind and body. Many of these offences also lead to death and serious injury to livestock—for those in the business, that’s called a “worrying dog”—devastating for the livestock and the people concerned. The successful introduction of this bill would save the justice system some money and time, it would save dog control authorities some money and time, and it would also save the dog owner some money and, often, the poor dog some time in the pound—all round a good conclusion.

I have two reasons for being interested in this matter. Firstly, my time in local government made me very aware of the frustration of dog owners—albeit errant at times—and council animal control officers at the length of time it sometimes takes to get a resolution to these cases. One of the reasons for this frustration is, of course, the cost to the dog owner of pound fees, vet fees, and other miscellaneous costs. Often, another reason for this frustration is the delay in getting a court hearing. The cost to dog owners is a subject of much debate in rural and urban communities alike, as are the difficulties posed by terminology and the terminology used in the Dog Control Act, such as a “preferred dog owner”, or “selected dog owner”, or a “dangerous dog”. And, on that topic, the iconic New Zealand bushman Barry Crump once said, “Anyone who keeps a savage dog is scared of something.” And, actually, when you think of the stuff that comes through our electorate offices, that’s often extremely true—and I often think that those dangerous dogs, frankly, should be banned myself, but that’s for another day.

A working dog—and the definition of a working dog is hugely complex—is defined very well in the Dog Control Act, but it covers a number of different areas. The costs of these things are often the subject of much contention in our communities and certainly of a lot of debate around the council offices of New Zealand. The councils on the whole, or district councils and territorial authorities, are, in fact, the dog control authorities in New Zealand. It’s interesting to look at dog registration fees, and they vary significantly right throughout New Zealand. Just for an example, a general registration in the Manawatū District Council costs $103 if you pay by the due date. For a neutered or spayed dog, it’s $66; for a working dog, it’s $33; for a dangerous dog, it’s $232, and for a menacing dog, it’s the same price. So you can see there’s a lot of contention around the costs of owning and registering a dog.

The other interesting factor in this whole dog-charging regime is the disability assist registration—so the ability to register a dog to assist with all sorts of things, but primarily with blindness, which, I guess, is the most common one. There is no charge for that, and I think it’s absolutely appropriate there should be no charge for that—not for a minute that those dogs don’t sometimes give as much grief as every other dog, interestingly, but that’s the way we live in our society, and I guess that’s the risk we take. So there are risks with all sorts of dogs.

Dog control laws are put in place to protect members of the public from the activities of dogs and the actions—or lack of them—of their owners. One of the tragedies here—and maybe that’s too strong a word—is that many dogs are punished, blamed, and even put down because of the incompetence of their owner and the negligence of that owner, and I actually think we should pay a whole lot more attention to the control of the owner of the dog rather than the dog. A lot of these laws, of course, are said to deal with the owner of the dog, but, unfortunately, it’s the dog that invariably becomes the victim of all of these things, and I think that often when people are attacked by dogs it is, frankly, not the dog’s fault. The dog gets put down, but it’s probably the owner that should be dealt with in a much more severe way. I wasn’t, like I say, going to suggest they should be put down, but certainly there should be some much stronger action taken against the owner.

So these dog control fees are calculated using what, I suppose, in local government parlance is called the public-private formula, which is a very, again, contentious issue which every council deals with differently. In that case, a particular percentage of the fee is applied to the dog owner, and a percentage of the fee is applied to the public, so that’s where you get the public-private bit from. So that’s how those dog fees are set.

Another reason for my interest in this bill is the number of complaints that I, and I’m sure many of you—not you, Madam Assistant Speaker, sorry—that many of us in the House get through our electorate offices about matters relating to dogs: to the delays in court proceedings and the costs that these delays impose on the owner. I should make the point here, though, that this bill is not so much about easing the life of the errant dog owner as it is about easing the life of the animal control authorities and the courts. As dogs and, indeed, all other pets become more prevalent in the lives of New Zealanders and we live longer and often alone, the increasing reliance on pets as companion animals will inevitably lead to more of these kinds of challenges around dog offences—dogs going missing and getting into trouble. This increase in dog numbers will, of course, lead to increases in the workload for animal control authorities and, subsequently, the court.

It’s worth documenting a couple of court cases just to demonstrate the complication of this. You can have a charge laid under the Dog Control Act 1996 where a dog is not controlled—so a person loses control of that dog. Currently, that could end up in court. So, just because you’ve lost control of your dog or it’s wandered or whatever, you could end up in court defending that. That’s a significant cost to the New Zealand community. Another case where it becomes very doubtful as to the degree of the penalty or severity of the case is where a dog attacks someone. So there are degrees of attack, which, again, I think is a bit of a variation that will need to be worked through in the course of a select committee discussion on this bill, should we get there.

It’s a privilege to be able to introduce legislation into this House, no matter how great or small the impact. This is the second time this year I’ve had the opportunity to do it. I look forward to listening to the discussion that takes place tonight, and I hope that my bill is successful in getting through to the second reading. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Malo e laumalie, ‘Eiki Sea. It’s just a marvellous privilege to stand here and speak in support of Ian McKelvie’s member’s bill. I want to acknowledge Ian McKelvie. He is one of the only gentlemen in this House, and I enjoyed—[Interruption] That’s right. I shared a dinner—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order! All members are considered honourable.

Yes, that’s right—that’s right. But he’s a special case, Madam Assistant Speaker. I enjoyed my dinner with him and his lovely wife at the Thoroughbred Horse of the Year Awards a couple of weeks ago. We both rejoiced in the absence of David Bennett, who sat at another table. So we enjoyed our company. It was a marvellous evening, and it is a great privilege to put forward the Government’s position—or the Labour Party’s position, I should say—on this particular bill.

It’s not a big bill. It’s pretty much consists of that and, despite that, I’m very disappointed that I only have 10 minutes to speak on this bill, because it is a big issue, as has been outlined by Mr McKelvie. These particular issues do come up from time to time in our respective offices. However, what is of more pressing issue is the demand on our District Court structure at the moment.

So there are three areas why the Labour Party will be supporting this bill. It improves court efficiencies and frees up the District Court judges to deal with other matters. It improves the welfare of dogs—

💬 Angie Warren-Clark: Oh, that’s good.

It is good, isn’t it? It is. We should always strive to improve the welfare of our animals—particularly our beloved dogs—by involving prosecutions under the Act, and it also reduces the burden of pound facilities.

A lot of pound facilities are run by local and district councils, and, of course, some of them are very small. There are a couple of very small district councils in the area where I live, in Wairarapa, and, of course, it puts them under tremendous strain when dogs are there for unnecessarily long periods.

So the bill allows the judicial officers who are justices of the peace or community magistrates to hear category 1 offences. For the benefit of the members in the House, those are offences not punishable by imprisonment under the Dog Control Act 1996—with which, I’m sure, we’re all familiar—essentially, as I mentioned, to reduce processing times. We believe it is likely to improve court efficiencies and free up District Court judges for a number of particular reasons, and the most prominent, I think, is for more complex cases.

It might interest members to know that in the past several years, District Court judges have found themselves under strain. The resources they have available to them are putting them under pressure, and so they’re responding to more category 3 offences, which take up a lot of time. What they do not want is for that precious time to be blocked up with category 1 offences, so I commend the member for identifying this as one particular way in which to relieve the stress that we are seeing in our District Court system.

I note that it says here that the active criminal cases in the District Courts have increased from 28,529 in 2013-14 to 33,038 in 2016-17. That’s an increase of over 4,000. So I ask members: do we want our District Court systems to be overburdened by this number of cases and this number of increases in category 1 dog offences? I suggest we do not. So that is why the Labour Party will be supporting this bill today.

The second point I mention is around improving the welfare of dogs. We believe that this will reduce this burden in three ways. Pound facilities, which I have mentioned, are typically held for the duration of proceedings. So if a category 1 dog offence is in the District Court system, which is overburdened—as I’ve mentioned—that not only holds up the court system but it also holds up the ability for a family to get their dog back. So the dog has to stay in the pound the whole time. We say that’s wrong—

💬 Angie Warren-Clark: Like a remand system.

Just like a remand system—you’re dead right. I acknowledge Angie Warren-Clark for that very helpful comment.

There are many dog owners here, I’m sure. I was a dog owner. I had to give up my precious dog, Max, when I was elected to this Parliament because I didn’t feel that I had enough time at home to look after him. So—

💬 Hon David Bennett: What did you do with it?

Oh, he’s now with a lovely family, David Bennett. He’s now with a lovely family in Gladstone. Gladstone’s just out of Masterton. It’s sort of just in between Masterton and Carterton. Two young girls—they love him to bits. They send me photos regularly. But I do miss my dog, Max.

But dog owners—when they are separated from their dog, this is a stressful time. I see the honourable member Priyanca Radhakrishnan nodding. I’ve met both her dogs—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order! Can you just come back to the bill, please.

This bill is about dogs, and I think that it is great that Ian McKelvie has had the foresight for the second time this year to put forward a member’s bill that is of interest not only to regional New Zealand, as his first member’s bill was, but across the board.

I mentioned earlier the territorial authorities. They are required to manage and enforce provisions in the Dog Control Act, and this will reduce that burden to them, as well.

It might interest members to know that over 90 percent of dog control cases are category 1 offences. So you might think, on first reading the bill—it takes about 10 seconds to read it—that this is only a particular, small aspect of dog control cases, but, no, it’s not. It’s the vast majority. In the year 2015-16, there were 456 charges under that Act, and of these, 427 were category 1 offences. So that’s 427 cases that, by supporting this bill, if we get this through the select committee—and I note it’s coming to the Primary Production Committee, and what a marvellous select committee that is. The—

💬 Hon David Bennett: Great chair—great chair.

Yeah, a pretty average chair, but a pretty decent deputy chair, I’ve got to say. By looking at the 427 cases, if we get it through the House, we have an opportunity to reduce that pretty decent chunk of work.

We do have some reservations, though. I think it’s fair to outline those now, and we’re hoping that these will get thrashed out at the Primary Production Committee. David Bennett—you know, I like to give him a bit of stick. I mean, it’s an easy target; that sort of stuff writes itself. But, in fairness, he does a pretty good job of chairing.

Labour does have some reservations around this member’s bill, and mainly it’s around—we’ve got a question here: do judicial officers have the capacity to deal with these new cases? We’re focusing on relieving the District Court system of the burden that they face by dealing with the cases, but do the judicial officers have the capacity to deal with it? That’s a fair question, we think. It wasn’t outlined, I don’t believe, in the opening speech, and hope that members opposite, when they rise in support of their colleague, might look to address that question, just so that we can head into the select committee stage with that particular piece of knowledge there.

Also, another question: should additional offences be considered, where judicial officers should be excluded? That’s a fair question too that I think we should put forward to the select committee.

I think we learnt something too with the livestock rustling bill, where the intent was clear and there was unanimous support in the House for that particular bill. What we learnt, however, when we got to select committee was that the scope was too narrow, and we hope that that is not the case now. We hope that it’s not likely to limit the possibility for other matters to be included. You know, we do acknowledge that this is an issue, but perhaps there are other issues as well. We hope that the scope is not too narrow and that the select committee won’t be restricted to include other things that are relevant to this for the purposes of reducing the burden on the District Court system.

You know, Madam Assistant Speaker, it’s hard to believe that over nine minutes has gone. I mean, it’s absolutely flown by, but it is a great pleasure to stand here and put forward the support of the Labour Party. I again acknowledge the member Ian McKelvie from Rangitīkei for having the foresight to put this bill forward. Two in one year—it’s almost some sort of record. The Labour Party stands in unison with you, comrade, in support of this particular issue.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Thank you so much, Madam Assistant Speaker. I am pleased to be able to congratulate Ian McKelvie on having his member’s bill read for the first time, the Dog Control (Category 1 Offences) Amendment Bill. It is a short bill—there is one clause—but it is a significant bill, and it is one step towards improving the Dog Control Act and dog control legislation in New Zealand, which, I must say, is ready for some work. In terms of the Dog Control Act and the work on it, this was a part of that work when we were in Government. Again, I want to congratulate Ian McKelvie for having the foresight to think to himself, what we could pick up from this piece of work that the National Government has done around raising the bar and protecting people and children from dog attacks, because that’s a really important thing to do for our community. So I want to congratulate him for doing that.

But, at the same time, I want to challenge the Government, to question them: where is this work? Where is this work on the Dog Control Act? It does sit with the Associate Minister of Local Government. Well there’s a problem there, isn’t there? So I do hope that this piece of work, which is designed to protect children in New Zealand, gets the same focus from this Government as it has from our member Ian McKelvie in Opposition.

So, yes, it is a simple bill. All it does is allow offences which are category 1 offences, which means offences which are not punishable by imprisonment, to be heard by a justice of the peace or a community magistrate rather than a District Court judge. Two really important things about that: first of all, yes, it frees up the District Court system to deal with more pertinent matters. That’s important, of course it is. But even more important is to be mindful of the welfare of the dog involved and to be mindful of the welfare of the owners. So this addition to the Dog Control Act will have a hugely beneficial impact on dogs—and it could be any of our pet dogs who are in the pound waiting for a process to take place inside a local authority. We all know what happens to dogs who are deprived of human attention and love and stimulation and security and all of those things: they go backwards in terms of behaviour, and then ultimately we have seen in New Zealand where some of those dogs have gone past the point where they could be rehabilitated before they get to have their day in court.

So the genesis behind this amendment to the Dog Control Act is really well considered, really well founded, and immensely doable. It’s not going to be hard to bring this new amendment into effect. I want to acknowledge and congratulate the Labour Party, who we’ve heard from so far, and who are supporting this bill. The member who spoke prior to the dinner break did raise reservations around the bill, and I didn’t really get the opportunity to really hear that member tease out just in fact what he meant. So it will be interesting to see how these concerns are dealt with through select committee.

But I want to come back to the main point, which is: where are the amendments to the Dog Control Act? It has been, what, 10 months, nearly 11 months now, since we’ve had an Associate Minister of Local Government whose job delegation it has been. So where are those amendments—where is the focus from this Government about keeping our young children safe on the streets and in their homes? We don’t want to have any other incidences of little children having severe bite marks on their faces, because I tell you what: if it happens and there isn’t any bill before this House from the Government, we have to look to them and ask them why they haven’t done the work necessary. [Interruption] They don’t like it, but it’s true.

I was going to say that I completely agreed with everything the honourable member Jacqui Dean said in contribution and support of the Dog Control (Category 1 Offences) Amendment Bill, until she blamed us for her Government’s nine long years of doing absolutely nothing in dog control. So the audacity of a member coming to the House, supporting Ian McKelvie’s bill—and so it should be supported; it’s an excellent member’s bill—but then saying, “What’s the current Government done about it?” Not even a year we’ve been in, but we haven’t solved all the problems. I’m sorry that we haven’t managed to solve nine years of neglect in less than a year, but at least we’ve got a plan, and we’re well under way in so many areas that are critically important.

I want to congratulate Ian McKelvie for this member’s bill. Some members’ bills, you know, we get in the House and we just laugh at them because they’re so waste of time and waste of space. This is a small bill, but it’s not a waste of time, and it’s not a waste of space. It’s really sensible. It looks at the problem that we’ve got in the regime of dealing with people who have offended against the Dog Control Act.

I had to look up, I must be honest—I had no idea what a category 1 offence was in dog control legislation. It’s never been a particular passion or interest of mine, but the more I studied it—you never know, that may well become my number one passion in the future.

So what the member’s bill saw as a problem was the fact that currently we have a very high level of consideration for offences against the Dog Control Act, and it means there’s a huge delay in justice and a threat to animal welfare. So Ian McKelvie put his thinking cap on and said: what could be done about this, how could we speed up the process and make it fairer for the people involved, probably less costly as well, although I’m not sure that the member—I have listened to his speech on introduction; I’m not sure he mentioned the cost. He may well do that in his reply, but I’d be interested to know if it is anticipated to reduce costs, because I think it will.

But the point is to have people who have committed category 1 offences against the Dog Control Act—their offence heard by a justice of the peace or a community magistrate. Everyone in this Parliament will have dealt with justices of the peace, and most will have dealt with community magistrates. These are people who are community driven, who are passionate about giving back to their community through the justice system, and, probably, almost without exception, people in whom this Parliament could have a lot of faith. I know that earlier the question was raised: if this was suddenly imposed, would our justices of the peace and community magistrates be trained to deal with offences under the Act? I’m sure that that’s something that the select committee can give consideration to. Probably by the time that the bill would be enacted, there’d be a period that we’d require some training for people before they’d be allowed to sit in consideration of this. That’s my thought, anyway, and Mr McKelvie will have given it much further consideration than I would and might have better ideas.

It was also interesting to see just how many of these offences have taken place. In the year that’s noted in the explanatory note, the 2015-16 year, there were 456 charges under the Dog Control Act. That’s a lot. That’s more than one a week—one a day. That is a lot of offences, and, of those, 427 were for category 1 offences. Category 1 offences are the group that are proposed to be heard, under this bill, by a community magistrate or justice of the peace, and those are offences that are not punishable by imprisonment. So there’s only 29 that are really at the serious end, and they are the ones that would be left in the current regime of hearing. All the rest, the 427, if you take that year as an example, would then move to JPs and community magistrates.

I think it’s a really thoughtful bill. It identifies a real problem that we have. It identifies a solution that, by all accounts, on first reading and consideration of the contributions to date, would solve the problem. I think that the member should be commended and the bill should be supported.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to make a contribution on this Dog Control (Category 1 Offences) Amendment Bill. So New Zealand First has looked at this legislation and we believe that it is somewhat of a mixed bag. I apologise to the House in advance—something of a dog’s breakfast. The positives, as have been outlined by my colleague on this side of the House—Ms Dyson has alluded to the fact that there are some positives with this bill. The bill does have a good intent. It seeks to get better animal welfare outcomes, and I think that even though the number of prosecutions and the people that this bill would be applicable to isn’t that great, the number of New Zealanders that own dogs is significant. I know as a farmer, and Mr McKelvie mentioned in his opening address, that as farmers we’re totally reliant on our dogs. So we probably, as all dog owners, but particularly as farmers with working dogs, really have an affinity with our animals and want the best for them.

So I think that we can say that the pound time that this would save potentially is a positive thing. It would also be a cost saving that won’t come for free. There’ll be a cost that will lie somewhere. It does look to free up the courts, as has been said: 427 of those 557 of the 2015-16 cases were of category 1, and 64 of those dogs actually ended up being put down. But category 1 is actually quite—when you dig down into this—a broad category, if you look at the sort of offences that are included in that. The three months prison, which I think is the threshold for not being a category 1 offence is actually a really high threshold, and, we would argue, possibly too high to be handled by community magistrates or justices of the peace. Many of them would suit that: failure to register a dog, failure to advise change of dog ownership, failure to advise change of address, failure to carry a leash in public. Some of those things are reasonably misdemeanour-type offences, which you wouldn’t want to be dragging people through the courts and clogging up court time. So we respect the intent of the bill at that point.

But at the top end of that range there are a number of offences that would cause concern: wilful obstruction of a dog control officer or a ranger, failure to comply with the effects of classification of a dog as a dangerous dog, fraudulent sale or transfer of a dangerous dog. So the people that are getting convicted of this under this Act are actually people that primarily have got dangerous dogs. As the previous speaker alluded to, that is a real problem for our society. It’s a health and safety risk. Since 2008, we’ve seen the cost of ACC from dog-related injuries go from $3 million to $4.5 million. That’s over 14,000 claims. So that is a significant issue that we are dealing with, and we would like to see—I think, before we could support this bill further, beyond the select committee stage—a review of that category 1 to see if that’s fit for purpose for what we’re seeking to do.

We in New Zealand First will not go soft on crime, like it looks like the National Party want to do, over there on that side, with this bill. So we will be looking quite carefully to make sure that the categories are fit for what we’re trying to do here. But we do support the intent of the bill. So we will support it through to select committee, but we will be looking for those changes to be made, and because the select committee is a wise one, we expect those very sensible changes will come out of that. So we will support this bill to the House.

Thank you for the chance now to speak on the Dog Control (Category 1 Offences) Amendment Bill. Congratulations to my colleague on my right, Ian McKelvie, for having this drawn out of the biscuit tin, the ballot, and for the next two bills that are by my fellow National Party colleagues as well. We’ve been particularly lucky in this latest round.

So the principles of the bill are to save a few frustrations of dog owners, many of them very valid; save them some time and money; save the justice system some money; and, of course, dog control authorities some time and money as well. It’s not belittling or bypassing serious offences when it comes to dog control offences, but it involves just category 1. So despite the fact that we’ve had previous speakers want to draw down a little bit deeper into what category 1 entails and what it involves, what we do know is that those are the offences not punishable by imprisonment, if you want to just have a quick line there.

The idea of including a justice of the peace and a community magistrate is derived from the Criminal Procedure Act of 2011, and this category 1 offence makes up 90 percent of recent dog control cases. So we are seeing where the volume of the work is coming from. It allows for a sped-up court process for offending relating to dog control and, of course, as I said before, the JP and the community magistrate taking the place, or able to hear a case, rather than the District Court judge.

It’s important to understand, I think, that situations can arise when even the best owners of the best dogs get into a little bit of trouble. It’s not just neglect or wrongful intention—those kinds of serious cases—it’s sometimes where there’s a strange set of circumstances or just a momentary lapse in judgment as a dog owner, and it can lead to a dog owner having to deal with fallout from an attack or criminal prosecution. Sometimes, these owners can be punished by a fine in addition to other costs and liability and damages caused, and sometimes it may result in a criminal record. Furthermore, sometimes the dog itself has to be destroyed, unless the owner can show exceptional circumstances. If you look at where the charges and offences are set out in sections 57 and 57A of the Dog Control Act, you’ll see that the only defence for a dog and a dog owner is that they have to have total absence of fault or exceptional circumstances. So you can see why cases back up, and back up quite fast. It’s a bar that they’ve got to argue, and no wonder we’re having the backlog that we have.

About 18 months ago, I went on a ride along with Auckland’s animal control, animal shelter team, and we went to not only just the shelter but we went out in the field and went to the different homes and the callouts that they had. On that particular day, it was all dog-related. The staff there did an incredible job, but they were short of staffers for their prosecution team. So big was the backlog and what they had to do to follow through and to appear in court that they were appealing to me—I was a city councillor at the time—for more resourcing to help their prosecutorial team. I also visited on the day two types of dog owners: one was where a neighbour had called out and we went to visit them and they were incredibly perplexed, didn’t know why the dog had behaved the way that it had; and then there were others that were outright violent at our presence. They knew exactly what had happened, and they would be, no doubt, offenders that would be outside category 1 and therefore not captured by this bill.

So I think, in summary, Ian McKelvie has done really well for a practical solution. As legislators, we should be very mindful of ways to make things a little less frustrating for people, and if that’s something that we can do by empowering JPs and community magistrates, it is something that we can do. I encourage Ian McKelvie to be encouraged that on the other side of the House it looks like everyone’s supportive, so we’ll look forward to a safe and easy passage. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I would like to start by congratulating the member Ian McKelvie, as well, for having his bill pulled. I’m sure it’s an exciting experience. I do want to acknowledge, as well, that this bill is attempting to address an issue that is real—a problem that’s a real problem—and that is the huge backlog that we have in every court and every tribunal in our system now.

We know our justice system is hugely overburdened, hugely underfunded, as it has been for some nine years. We know the Human Rights Commission had a backlog of about 2½ years. We know we are having to fix the Family Court system because of the delays there. The criminal justice system, I know from first-hand experience, is so overburdened as to have serious criminal cases waiting some 18 months to two years to go to trial, so getting some of the less serious cases out of that backlog, I can see, will be a real relief. The only problem, of course, is that we can’t address the backlog in our justice system by expediting cases and lowering the due process standards that we have come to enjoy and rely upon in New Zealand’s model—other than the backlog—justice system. This can’t be the answer, the lowering of that due process standard.

I can see why the types of offences that come under this bill are seen as being so minor as to be able to be dealt with in an expedited way and by non-legally trained judicial officers, but, in this case and if you do look closely, we can see that the breadth of the offences that come under the bill actually do touch on some serious repercussions. If guilt is found, and if guilt is found in a process that’s not fair—if the judicial officer involved isn’t trained in things like the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and evidence standards, and in other procedures that we use to safeguard the presumption of innocence—then those repercussions become very unfair. So $3,000 fines—for some people, that’s not actually all that minor. And, of course, for the animals involved, we’re talking about a capital offence here, because the dogs involved are put down. To anyone who has had a pet, that is one of the most serious things that could potentially happen in your life, and to the dog, I mean, that’s death. We do consider that for offences like that, we do owe the highest standards of due process, and lowering them just to get rid of the backlog isn’t necessarily the answer.

Justices of the peace (JPs) are, of course, not necessarily legally trained, so they don’t have a higher understanding in terms of due process, as judges would, in the District Court where these offences are coming out. Community magistrates, who do have a high level of training—there’s only 14 of them nationwide, so it’s not really them that we are relying on; it is really JPs. In fact, as I know, in some of our busiest courts we are now relying on JPs—and we have been for a few years now—to deal with things like bail.

So this is a wider problem, and it’s one that needs to be fixed through better funding of our justice system, more judges, more courtrooms, and more resources to safeguard our high expectation of that process being safe and fair, while at the same time addressing the backlog. While we in the Green Party do respect that the problem this bill seeks to address is very real, we don’t support the mechanism by which it seeks to address that problem, which is a lowering of due process standards in circumstances where the repercussions are very serious both for the dogs involved—and that is an animal rights issue—and also for their owners. So the Green Party will not be voting for this bill.

It is a privilege to stand and speak on this member’s bill, and I want to congratulate the member, Ian McKelvie. I remember him from my first day on the members of Parliament training and induction programme.

💬 Paul Eagle: The old fulla.

Ha! The wise member. To speak on the Dog Control (Category 1 Offences) Amendment Bill, as a justice of the peace, I think I can speak with some insight into the level of expertise and training that justices of the peace go through to become a justice of the peace of the District Court. People here have spoken about many things, but I think it’s important to note that the people who become justices of the peace are people who have gone through a process of training to become a justice of the peace, and then after that they are further developed. I want to acknowledge the work of the Auckland Justices of the Peace Association—I think my membership is still current. I want to acknowledge their work, because they train the justices of the peace in what they do.

There are two steps. One: to become a justice of the peace, you follow on with training in terms of oaths and declarations and those duties that are required of the justices of the peace. Then, secondly, to be able to become a justice of the peace of the District Court, the justice of the peace actually has to go through further training to be able to perform in the District Court, and prior to that they had to go through swearing in in terms of being able to be called a justice of the peace of the District Court.

Some of the things that are required by a justice of the peace of the District Court are actually to preside over traffic offences and to preside over issues of remand or bail, so I think that they are quite capable of presiding over category 1 offences in terms of section 18 of the Dog Control Act, where it talks about “Wilful obstruction of [a] dog … officer or [a] … ranger”. I’ve heard people here talk about the fact that it’s a tiny, small piece of legislation, but, really, it’s important because what it does is—the end result—if the majority of the offences are under category 1, it then frees up the District Court. I have an insight in terms of being someone that had worked at court, which is that the judges are on a roster—the judges are on a roster.

💬 Paul Eagle: Were you in prison?

As a court clerk at the Youth Court, Paul Eagle. So as a court clerk in the Youth Court in Manukau, I know, in that role, that the judges go through a roster. What this bill will do is it will support the work of the judges to free them up so they’re able to look at other matters, like being rostered in the Family Court or being rostered in the District Court. So I want to commend the member in terms of this piece of legislation, because it might look tiny for some people, but the end result actually contributes a lot to our District Court.

I want to maybe look at one of the categories in schedule 1 of the Act. The category looks at a possibility that a justice of the peace might look at—section 48(3), where one of the offences is “Failure to advise change of dog ownership”. I know that Priyanca Radhakrishnan has a bitch called Gypsy, and let’s just say that we have a change of ownership and she gives Gypsy to me and I end up owning her bitch, Gypsy. Then if she’s neglected to inform that there has been a change of ownership—

💬 Chris Bishop: Righty-o. OK.

—then I think a justice of the peace, as I have said previously—I’ve checked it with the Speaker, thank you very much—a person who has undergone training by the Auckland Justices of the Peace Association is capable of presiding over a small offence like failure to inform a dog ownership change. I want to just say that only 29 offences weren’t a category 1 offence—out of the 456, 29 were not a category 1. But it makes sense. It makes common sense to do that. I’ve spoken in support of this, and I want to again congratulate the member, Ian McKelvie, on the outcome that it adds to an important piece of legislation. I dedicate this to Priyanca Radhakrishnan’s bitch, Gypsy. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. That’s going to be a very hard act to follow, and I know I should probably start by paying tribute to my bitch called Chilli. This is, like most things—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I think we can settle down now, don’t you?

OK. As has been said often tonight, this is a very small bill, but ask any woman that’s been engaged and she will know that great things come in small packages. I acknowledge my friend Ian McKelvie for delivering this common-sense piece of legislation to this House. It just brings about a small change to the Dog Control Act of 1996. As a former mayor, I’m sure Mr McKelvie will agree with me that there are two things that raise the angst of the community, and they are library books and dogs. So I think this piece of legislation will assist in the process of dealing with some of those dogs that are highlighted here in category 1. This Dog Control (Category 1 Offences) Amendment Bill is simply aiming to streamline and relieve the District Courts of the burden of hearing unnecessarily huge numbers of these category 1 offences under the Dog Control Act and, instead, allows them to be heard by community magistrates and two justices of the peace.

We’ve also heard tonight, very rightly so, that these will not be your justices of the peace who have not had the additional judicial training to allow them to appear in the court and hear these category 1 offences; they will be specially trained. I think tonight is an opportunity for me to pay tribute to the ongoing work that our justices of the peace do in this country. They’re an essential part of the judicial system, and I know that they give up a huge amount of their time voluntarily. So I pay tribute to them, to their trainers, and to the Royal Federation of New Zealand Justices’ Associations, who oversee the justices in New Zealand, and also the members in this House that we’ve heard of tonight who are still actively engaged as a JP.

The Dog Control Act has offences laid out in there, and they are considered serious enough that they will still be presided over by a judge in the District Court, but in some of the stats that we’ve already heard tonight, that leaves around about—my stats say 38, so 38 of these tougher cases that will be heard in the District Court. These are the ones that are probably a little bit more complex, the issues are quite serious, maybe where the animal may have to be put down, where there are fines that are up to $5,000, or three months’ imprisonment, or where there are serious animal welfare issues where the animal has not been fed, watered, or exercised adequately. The bulk of the offences that occur under the Dog Control Act—and of those, there are about 427—can be dealt with by two justices of the peace or a community magistrate. That means that that total number of cases is no longer clogging up the court system, and that sets the judges free to really deal with matters that have a much higher priority in our communities.

Normal justices’ powers are divided into two categories: we have the ministerial and the judicial. All justices of the peace can deal with ministerial matters, and they are simply witnessing documents—I’m sure we’ve all had our identities certified for our passports—or taking declarations, affidavits, or affirmations—

💬 Chris Bishop: Are you a JP?

Yes, I am a JP; thank you for asking, Mr Bishop. Some justices of the peace can also authorise various court documents as well. We’ve got about 400 of our judicially trained JPs in this country who actually do sit on the District Court. So I’m sure they’re well placed to take up the extra workload, but I have a great deal of faith in their ability to support the District Courts. I also know that this will free up court time. It will save costs to councils and dog owners, and I commend this bill to the House.

Malo e laumalie, Madam Assistant Speaker. Look, it’s a privilege to be able to speak in this House on this member’s bill. Well done to Ian McKelvie for, I guess, finally getting it to the stage that it is: a practical, pragmatic, and simple bill to address a number of concerns that have really been raised here this evening.

It’s easy for me to reflect on my local government experiences with our dog people who work there, but before I just reflect on some experiences, I think some of the issues are around the efficiencies with the court—and it’s been talked about tonight. I’m a big fan of saying that where we can get efficiencies, let’s get them. We’ve heard from many that the judicial JPs can provide that service. They want to, they have been through a process—we’ve heard that outlined tonight by several of you—so, therefore, it’s an easy decision, an easy thing to speak on, in terms of saying that if we can free up the court time and utilise a resource, a community resource that’s been through a process of qualification, then let’s do that.

I find, also, that in terms of just looking at the court backlogs, I’m pleased that this coalition Government is looking at improving other efficiencies with it that go beyond the dog control regime. I know that the justice Minister, the Hon Andrew Little, is looking at a rewrite of Family Court reforms, for example, and a whole range of things that make the courts more effective, more modern, and proposals like this will help that.

The welfare of dogs—I was thinking about Denise Lee’s experiences in Auckland, and I too have had the pleasure of accompanying council staff. In the electorate, we have a small dog pound, out there at Moa Point. You won’t know it’s there, but it’s there. It’s a small area, and, lo and behold, when you go and have a look, it actually takes in quite a few animals, of which most are dogs, and a lot are there as part of that backlog of cases where they are simply waiting to be heard. So my vision or my memory, hopefully, next time I visit will be that those have gone back to their owners or wherever, as per the ruling that gets made by these judicial JPs. Just that cost—and Maureen Pugh has certainly articulated that for the local authority involved, the cost and the burden on that entity will certainly be reduced, and the result is, hopefully, a happy owner.

I look at some of the issues, too, for the bill in terms of what could be and will be, hopefully, addressed at the select committee level. One of them was around that capacity—I believe that that capacity’s there, but the select committee will work through that—and just the flow-on impact of the hearing where maybe there are other offences that could be considered by the judicial officers that maybe should be excluded, could be excluded, or the narrow scope of the bill allowing for other matters to be included. So I’m looking forward to—I think it’s the Primary Production Committee that will take this forward and have a good look through just some of the practical putting into practice of the enactment of this and making it happen. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

I don’t think I can mess this one up. I just want to, first of all, start by thanking my colleagues on this side of the House, all of whom, interestingly, are ex-local government—and, of course, Paul Eagle is an ex-local government person as well. It’s interesting that those people with experience in dog control authorities have done most of the speaking on this bill.

I also want to just pay a small tribute to the Hon Jacqui Dean and the Hon Louise Upston, who did spend quite a bit of time angsting over dog control stuff in the course of the last Parliament—and probably the one before as well, because it is a pretty emotional topic, dog control. People get very heated up about their dogs. They spent a bit of time and, certainly, brought forth the idea for this Dog Control (Category 1 Offences) Amendment Bill, so I want to congratulate them and thank them for that help.

In the course of the speeches made tonight, I want to comment on a couple of things that the Hon Ruth Dyson said. One of the things she raised was again raised by Paul Eagle and by Denise Lee, and that was the potential for training of JPs and training of people who take their place in this. I did make a point of asking the Minister about that, because I had some concerns about that myself, and I’m sure there will be efforts made to strengthen our JP situation not only in the event of this bill passing but in the event of a lot of other things going on in New Zealand at the moment. There was some criticism, I think, that came from the Greens about JPs not being trained. Well, JPs go through quite a significant training process. Certainly, they may well not be trained as lawyers, but they definitely are trained significantly in the judicial roles they take, so that’s a pretty strong point in their favour. I think they’ve done well.

Mark Patterson, in the course of his speech, really just summed up—he called it “a dog’s breakfast”. I couldn’t believe that. He did sum up, though, why we have select committees and why all bills should be sent to the select committees, because almost all the issues he raised will come up in the course of a discussion around the select committee table, and those issues will be resolved at that time, as well.

I can’t really say anything about the Greens’ contribution, except to offer them another one of the Barry Crump specials, and that’s “never kick another man’s dog.” There are a number of other issues raised in the course of those speeches which, I think, will be well and truly dealt with during the course of the select committee process, and I look forward to that select committee process.

Kieran McAnulty raised the issue of the scope of the bill. I think this bill is a simple bill. It deals with some pretty simple issues, but it also does have, I guess, some potential within those category 1 offences for some quite serious offences to be dealt with in this manner. I don’t agree with the Greens’ summation of that, because I think that in the event of this bill passing, the process that these category 1 offences will follow will be well and truly dealt with, and dealt with very adequately, by the people concerned. I don’t think you have to be a judge to make a decision on simple cases like this, because they mostly are simple cases.

So, really, I just want to sum up by thanking everyone for their participation in the debate tonight. I’ve got a very lucky tie on. I had to steal it back off Paul Goldsmith, because he stole it off me, but I did wear this tie the last time I had a bill in the House as well, so it must be a lucky tie. It’s got dogs on it, though, interestingly, not the—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: What do you wear when the ballot’s being drawn?

Ha, ha! Yeah, exactly. So I don’t really have anything else to add, but I look forward to the discussion on this bill as it moves its way into the select committee, and, hopefully, it will come back here for further debate at a later stage. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Bill referred to the Primary Production Committee.