O'Connor GregGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): We have to put up with a few dad jokes in this House but dog jokes are obviously a new category that we will now have to roll ourselves on the floor and take the fluff off our speeches. It does give me great pleasure to stand and speak about this. Being a late speaker after a series of speeches in any bill that goes through often the mind wanders and having spent a few years on the planet the experiences I have that bring me to this House that involve dogs that are pertinent highly pertinent to this bill—as you will know Madam Speaker nothing I ever speak about is not highly pertinent to a bill.But I am reminded of my own childhood—because at the basis of this bill is wandering dogs really. This is about the ability of JPs to deal with wandering dogs. Those more serious offences categorised are taken out of this so ultimately unregistered and wandering dogs. I know that having grown up on a farm where the dogs we bred tended to be—they did wander. Getting up in the morning to go and get the cows in and finding out that a bitch three farms away had gone on heat overnight and none of your dogs were present and having to get the cows in yourself did remind me that there is a need to ensure that dogs are under control and not allowed to wander if it means that a slightly hung-over young man has to go up on to the farm himself to get the cows in.Of course the other thing was our dogs tended to be car chasers which meant that the only ones that survived to breed were the good car chasers. So we ended up with a category of dogs or a breed of our dogs that were very fertile very good at chasing cars but not particularly good at the job they were employed to do—sort of Darwinism in action if you like on the farm.Coming back to the bill which brings me right to the point of the bill which is about those wandering dogs and the ability to deal with them. Of course I did notice that the member who introduced this bill Mr Bennett he wandered slightly off. I wondered if it was actually in deference to the sponsor of this bill. I found his speech a little bit like the gait of Mr McKelvie having been on the same trip and same cricket field with him as Mr Patterson the one he alluded to.But we now bring ourselves to the real guts of this bill having sort of circumvented perhaps somewhat which is really to ensure that where these offences—that actually are an important part of many days. One of the previous speakers talked about doorknocking and awareness of how at a certain stage of the electoral cycle dogs and their presence and their degree of discipline does become quite relevant probably to members in this House and their doorknocking crews as much as anyone else. So it is very important to the good running of society certainly the safety of society the feel-good around our society which we are here to do to ensure that these irritating little problems that dogs can be—unregistered dogs which again is a category 1 and something that can be dealt with in this bill as well as keeping dogs under control can be dealt with. To actually have to wait to get into court to deal with these issues while what can often be a very favoured family friend an important part of the family may be sitting at great expense to everyone and great irritation to everyone in a pound.So having JPs—judicial JPs I might say. It's not just the JPs who we may sign up each day as electorate MPs and nominate; these are the judicial specially trained JPs who I could see developing some sort of expertise in this area all done to expedite cases through the courts to ensure that the much more serious—and not even only in relation to dogs; the more serious offences in relation to dogs can be dealt with because of course this bill doesn't deal with failing to comply with the effects of dangerous dog classifications either which is important because again some of the injuries that can be inflicted some of the fear that can be imposed on a neighbourhood by dangerous unrestrained dogs can have the same effect as the same sort of unrestrained ill-disciplined people can have in a neighbourhood. Funnily enough those same types of people and same types of dogs so often are associated.So anything that gives us the ability to deal with that I can only agree with. Therefore I have no hesitation commending this bill to the House.