Harawira Hone: Dog Control (Cancellation of Microchipping Requirements) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Harawira Hone: Dog Control (Cancellation of Microchipping Requirements) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:631;Page:3175] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 On behalf of the Maori Party I say that we would be happy to support any bill that will put a stop to this microchipping of dogs mania that is sweeping through the House. Unfortunately though I do not think this bill will achieve that. As Jane Clifton recently noted the debacle around microchipping has been a regular dog’s breakfast with National and United Future begging for scraps through their various amendments and exemptions Labour howling at the moon over the one law for all dogs and even the normally serene Greens seemingly being caught up in it as well. Indeed the frenzy and ferocity of the debate reminds me of the song “Who Let the Dogs Out?”. That line is a Caribbean reference to disrespectful men who hit on women and it is now a Kiwi reference to disrespectful politicians who hit on poor defenceless dumb dogs. 
Well the Maori Party will not be party to this madness because Maori have been there before. I refer to the infamous dog registration legislation of the late 1800s. I am the member for Te Tai Tokerau and I know that the history of the dog tax and its forceful imposition in the Hokianga is etched on our tribal memory. The Hokianga County Council decided to impose a dog tax of 2s 6d per dog per owner. Back in those days that was big money. The people of Waima rightfully refused to pay. Their dogs were their own not the property of the Government or the council. The people were threatened with arrest and even with banishment from their homelands. And that was over a dog tax for Christ’s sake! The people eventually marched on the county headquarters in Rawene to make their case and the Government responded with its usual overdose of power by despatching 120 soldiers two field guns two Maxim guns and a gunboat to deal with the natives. 
That is a little like a politician in 2003 who misread the feeling of “natives” here tried to stop a hikoi of 40000 by calling everyone “haters and wreckers” and then when she realised she had failed closeted herself away with a daggy old sheep she called Shrek. She overdosed in her response by ramming through the Foreshore and Seabed Act from which the Maori Party was born—the members of which rise every day to remind her of the foolishness of her ways. 
In the midst of the “dog tax war” my whanaunga Hone Heke Ngapua left Parliament and headed home to help diffuse the situation. Yet it was all in vain. Some people were arrested and imprisoned in Mount Eden Prison for treason. The dog tax remained and the Government stopped Hone Heke’s parliamentary pay while he was away even though the Premier of the time Dick Seddon said he “could recognise the patriotic and pure motives that prompted him and the interest he had in his race.” 
I refer to that incident in Hokianga because I know that in another hundred years people will look back at this microchipping lunacy and wonder what on earth was going through our minds for us to spend so much time trying to keep tabs on dogs while hundreds and thousands of our own citizens are living below the poverty line. I can see Federated Farmers marching against this madness just as my tupuna did 100 years ago. I can see local councils doing everything they can not to comply with this stupidity just as the Waima police refused to collect the dog tax in 1898. Unless some sanity prevails in this House I can see some poor bugger ending up in jail in order to satisfy the cravings of some lunatic for whom the microchipping of dogs has a higher priority than the health of the nation’s humans. 
This proposed microchipping mess is like the movie  
Dumb and Dumber 
. Microchipping dogs is a dumb idea anyway and trying to identify dangerous and menacing dogs so that we microchip only them is even dumber. I can just see it now—and I know the Hon Parekura Horomia will understand this. Some poor weedy little dog control officer will knock on the gate of the local Mongrel Mob pad and say: “Excuse me sir but I’ve come to see whether your dogs are dangerous and menacing in line with the Government’s requirement that they be microchipped.” The reply will be: “Who do you think you are you little nerd? Get out of here before I microchip you!”. The dog controller of course will rush off to change his or her pants and will summon up the courage to get the local cop to come along as protection—as if the cops have time for that sort of silliness! The next day they will turn up to find one of two scenarios: the first is that no dogs are there because the mob members have moved them somewhere else and the other is that the whole chapter is there with every dog they can get their hands on and they are all spoiling for a fight. 
Yes the Maori Party wants a healthy society where the public are not threatened by dangerous and menacing dogs and yes we will support this bill’s first reading to try to generate some light on this sad affair. But out of respect to Hone Heke Ngahua and his whanaunga who stood against a similar madness in 1898 the Maori Party urges the House to oppose this madness in 2006.