Patterson MarkMARK PATTERSON (NZ First): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's also a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First in support of this bill the Dog Control (Category 1 Offences) Amendment Bill under the name of Ian McKelvie. I guess the fitting response to it is that it is a very practical and sensible bill. Actually as referenced in the previous speech the sponsor's stock-rustling bill which got picked up by the Government was also a very practical bill. I actually had the pleasure of travelling with the member to the Parliamentary Cricket World Cup—that spectacularly unsuccessful campaign—and I certainly very much enjoyed his company and the wisdom that he brings. Hopefully—I'm not sure what his plans are—we definitely need that sort of experience and sort of grounded pragmatism in our Parliament. Of course given that he owns half the North Island he would have a lot of dogs and so he would be pretty familiar with the issues raised in the bill. The essential element of this is that it's taking from the crowded court efficiencies a lot of those lower-level category 1 offences out of the District Court—and that can only be a good thing—and putting those category 1 offences before JPs. So it's really practical stuff. That would have taken 427 cases out of the District Court—and we know our District Courts are absolutely under the pump at the moment. There were 33000 cases last year. Minister Parker has been putting on a number of extra judges to cope with the workload and of course we've got those 1800 new police out there rounding up the bad guys and getting them before the courts. So if we can take out those 427 cases—if we can believe that that's a regular number—then that's a really good step forward. Of course it does speed the system up as well—and justice delayed is justice denied—and it does lower the cost. If you've got dogs that are actually impounded at the time they are essentially on remand during a lot of this time so there is a cost on the owners. There's a cost on the district councils in their having to provide those facilities and I assume in many cases in their having to round up the payments for the use of those facilities. So that's another plus. There's also the animal welfare issues around that as well. We don't want dogs holed up in pounds. If they need to be put down well we need them to be put down or if they return to their home lovingly then that is good. The other thing that the bill will do is that by lowering the threshold to below the District Court level I think it will encourage more cases to go to a judicial process as such through the JPs. There are many people that may be annoyed by low-level dog offences with neighbours or with people in their local community that would not necessarily want to go to that step of taking someone that they know well in their community to court but they might be prepared to go through a justice of the peace process and I think that that expands the access to a dispute resolution process. I believe that it will make it more accessible and that cases will come forward and some of that niggly neighbouring stuff can get dealt with without having to go to the District Court. I know as I think Max is a bit of a recalcitrant offender so does our much-loved family dog Snowy—much to my chagrin—rush the odd stock agent vehicle such is his enthusiasm in his role of protecting the family home. If that was causing a nuisance I'd like to think that that access to a JP might allow a threshold that someone could take that case up where they may not want to take us to the District Court. Hopefully Snowy's OK. I think we've trained him up a bit better in recent times. But it is just an example of what does occur on just a regular basis. It's a very ubiquitous thing—having a dog—and many of us enjoy having dogs as part of our family or certainly in my case and in many farmers' cases they're working animals. To be able to do that is important but we also have to work in with societal norms as well and make sure that those checks and balances are in place and that those dogs aren't becoming a nuisance. So New Zealand First do support this bill and we commend again the sponsor for bringing the bill forward. It's another practical and pragmatic step which will make a difference to many New Zealanders. New Zealand First commend this bill to the House. Thank you.