Franks Stephen: Dog Control Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Franks Stephen: Dog Control Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:613;Page:9885] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 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.