Roy Heather: Dog Control Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
Roy Heather: Dog Control Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
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HEATHER ROY (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT party to speak to this first reading of the Dog Control Amendment Bill (No 2). We will be opposing this bill. Why? Because it will have absolutely no effect at all. How many times have we seen dog control bills come before Parliament and enacted into law and nothing happens? Children keep being bitten.  
The first point I want to address is why this bill—a very simple bill we have been told by many members in this House—is being considered as part of this urgency motion. Is it really a matter of such urgency for the country that everybody sitting at home listening to this debate with bated breath is waiting for this bill to be enacted? I think not! So like the microchipping legislation we are going to pass this bill off to a select committee today to impose more rules and regulations around the issue of dog control that will have absolutely no effect. The issue should not be addressed in this forum—in urgency. Actually it should not have been put forward at all but given that it has it should have been put forward in the normal course of events and debated in that manner.  
The dogs of course are not the issue. The responsibility lies with the owners—something that is completely overlooked in this legislation. Neutering dogs will not solve anything. The responsible owners of so-called dangerous dogs will go ahead as they are required to by law and have their dogs registered have their dogs microchipped and have their dogs neutered. The problem owners—those who train their dogs to fight—have not had their dogs microchipped and have not had them registered so why does anybody in his or her right mind think that they will have them neutered?  
This is just a further example of a knee-jerk reaction and how many times particularly with dog control laws have we seen this happen? Far too many. There is a terrible event that gets a lot of media attention so the Government rushes to develop new legislation in a knee-jerk response that will achieve absolutely nothing but will make it seem to the public as if the matter is being taken care of and being taken very seriously. ACT is proud to be the only party that has consistently opposed dog microchipping which is a cost to responsible dog owners and a further driving underground of irresponsible and sometimes criminal dog owners.  
Dog laws—and this point was raised by a member from the National Party who I heard talking on the radio—just add more compliance costs for the law abiding. New dog laws will add just more regulation as I have already outlined more costs and more fines for the law-abiding dog owners who go ahead and do the right thing.  
Very few of the dogs that have been registered actually ever attack anyone. It is the unregistered dogs that create the problems. That points out just how ludicrous this legislation is. In fact it is a fantasy to think that those who do not microchip or register their dogs will go ahead and neuter them when this law says they have to. It is such a fantasy that we should include with this legislation the muzzling of dragons and the putting of leashes on unicorns. That would be about as much use as this particular bill.  
Dog rangers say that the real problem dogs are owned by lawless owners and we have seen that time and time again. The worst culprits are the gangs that train dogs to fight and attack and do not register them in the first place. These new laws will have absolutely no effect on the lawless. The fact is that the problem has never been a lack of laws. They are already in place as everybody in this House knows but there is a lack of targeted enforcement against criminals who own these dogs.  
So what would we do? That is what everybody always wants to know. What would the ACT party do? We oppose this bill but what would we do? I have beaten Darren Hughes to it. He really wanted to stand to speak on this bill and ask that question so I will answer it for him. Rather than impose knee-jerk legislation ACT would impose sanctions where the responsibility lies—with the dog owner. I invite somebody from the Government to stand up and tell me how many convictions and imprisonments have resulted from serious dog attacks on children. What happens instead is that the dogs are put down and the irresponsible dog owners—many of them being patched gang members training their dogs to fight in filmed exhibitions—simply get a new dog and start the same process all over again. If people train their dogs to be a weapon they should be punished accordingly if that weapon then harms someone. That is something that this House should think about. Given that I presume this bill will go forward to a select committee I hope that those things will be taken into consideration when submitters are heard and the amendments made at Committee stage.  
ACT will oppose this legislation. We like to see sensible legislation put forward—laws that will have some teeth and can do something rather than useless laws that will achieve nothing but will lull people into a false sense of security to make them think that matters are being taken seriously. That is not the case with this legislation and we will be opposing it for that very reason.