Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): 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?MAUREEN PUGH: 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 $5000 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?MAUREEN PUGH: 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.