Ardern Shane: Dog Control (Cancellation of Microchipping Requirements) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Ardern Shane: Dog Control (Cancellation of Microchipping Requirements) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:631;Page:3178] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 I start by saying that bad cases create bad law. The case of Carolina Anderson galvanised this Parliament and I acknowledge the members’ comments to that effect. If I thought the proposal in the Local Government Law Reform Bill would in some way prevent a further attack such as the one on Carolina Anderson I would vote for it. In fact I would cross the floor of the House to do so—as would most members of Parliament. But the fact is that bill will not prevent further attacks. 
I congratulate Jeannette Fitzsimons. She chaired the Local Government and Environment Committee which listened to the submissions and looked at the facts around the issue. Jeanette has come to a very honourable position based on those facts. In fact submissions were made to the select committee—although I was not there throughout the whole process—that the legislation might hinder the prevention of dog attacks on children because it would add a cost of compliance to the registration of dogs and would therefore be likely to drive more dogs into an unregistered position. Therefore councils would not have a record of where dangerous dogs were. Of course if a dangerous dog were to attack a child such as in the case of Carolina Anderson once it was apprehended it would be destroyed. So in my view the argument that the dog would come back for a second dose and that therefore it would help in some way if it were microchipped is a very slim one. 
I ask Labour members why they do not just look at the facts instead of being driven by this brainless mindless ideological view that somehow that legislation would help. As I said bad cases make bad law. So I ask Labour to vote down that bill. The National Party supports the member’s bill of Jeanette Fitzsimons with some reservations about the exemptions in it—but we support it none the less. 
I say to the House tonight that people in rural New Zealand have looked at this issue and they are not generally unreasonable. It is an unusual circumstance when rural New Zealanders rise up and say they will protest to Parliament. That does not happen in the way that some members imply it does. In fact that group does not come here regularly; its last major protest on Parliament grounds before the “flatulence tax” protest took place in 1984 under the previous Labour Government. That protest was because of the major major changes Labour was making to the rural sector at that stage. Rural New Zealanders through their lobby group called Federated Farmers have estimated that the Local Government Law Reform Bill will cost up to $3 million a year. It will not prevent one single attack and it will potentially result in more dogs—not fewer—being unregistered in New Zealand. The legislation will not achieve a single thing. 
Further the microchipping technology itself was debated in the select committee. One submitter said a microchip could be inserted into a 6-month-old dog and by the time it is 12 months old the microchip might have disappeared. It would have gone into the body fat of the dog—depending on the breed of dog of course—and no transponder or reader of that microchip would work any more. I will explain to the House why that may be the case. Each and every member of this House I imagine has been to a supermarket—although I suspect that some Ministers with high salaries on the Government side of the House have not. Members will know that occasionally the reader at the checkout does not work so the shop assistants have to go back and check. Exactly the same thing applies with this technology. Therefore it is not even foolproof. So microchipping is faulty technology it is expensive it will not prevent dog attacks it will raise the cost of compliance substantially—particularly in rural New Zealand—and it will not prevent one attack on one child. If a member on the Government side of the House can take a call and explain to the House tonight the logic in proceeding with that legislation then we will be all ears. 
I tell the honourable Minister Mark Burton who spoke earlier that he should get up to speed with the facts around this issue for goodness’ sake! He should not be dragged along by the very junior Government whip—who clearly has no understanding of this issue—and be whipped into voting for something that ultimately as the member for Taupo he will regret.