Mitchell Mark; Dean JacquiPOLICING (KILLING A POLICE DOG) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingDebate resumed from 7 April.Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you Madam Speaker. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to take a call on this bill or not because whenever I speak about my police dogs I tend to get emotional. But I felt that it was appropriate to support my colleague Matthew Doocey and thank him for bringing this bill to the House. Reflecting back and responding to what was a very strong feeling and message being sent to him by his own community in relation to police dogs and them being killed on duty I thought the best way for me to do this was just to share some personal insights and tell a story to the House about exactly what police dogs are all about. I wanted to respond in particular to the comments made by the Green Party member Ricardo Menéndez March calling them attack dogs. So firstly let me talk about my own dog Czar and the section that I was a part of. Czar and I in probably the first couple of weeks we were operational were called out to a job where a young guy—it's a sad story; he was suffering from mental health—had armed himself with a samurai sword put a bulletproof vest on and went up to Rotorua Hospital with the intent of killing some of the nursing staff up there. I was called out. Fortunately they managed to lock the doors and he couldn't get in and when I arrived he was making his way down to a primary school in Rotorua. During the arrest both Czar and I were stabbed with the samurai sword. I wasn't sure whether Czar would make it but he did. He returned to duty and he worked out a fully operational police life. I'll come back to Czar but I want to talk about Rajah. Rajah was Kevin Weatherly's dog. In Gisborne Kevin and I were the Armed Offender Squad (AOS) dog handlers there for many years and so Kevin and I worked very closely together and our two dogs Czar and Rajah worked closely together. Kevin was called out to a violent domestic one night where the offender had taken a baseball bat and he'd assaulted his partner so badly that she was crippled on the floor and couldn't move. When Kevin arrived the offender moved to the kitchen and took out a butcher's knife with the intent of finishing what he'd started. Kevin and Rajah intervened immediately got into the house and Rajah was stabbed in the neck and the chest during the arrest. Rajah never really made a full recovery in my view in terms of returning to work. Then I want to talk about Woolf Bill Eivers' dog in Gisborne. During an arrest Woolf was stabbed through the eye and lost his eye. Although he returned to police duties he was never the same as well. I spoke with Mike Sandle today. Mike is actually the manager of the Black Caps and has been for 10 years and has been a part of what's been a very successful leadership team with them. But he was a police dog handler with me and he reminded me of his dog Rock. Mike lost contact with Rock one night with a very violent offender that had managed to escape an AOS cordon and Mike lost contact with Rock. Rock actually found the offender. They tumbled into a river and the offender drowned him—held him under and drowned him. This story actually has a happy ending because somehow—they're not sure what happened—Rock who was obviously being held under had let go of the offender. He was washed down the river and somehow got a gasp of air. When Mike found him they were able to revive him and he actually went back to duty. I just want to tell one other very quick story. Czar and I were called out one night to go to the Taupō emergency centre. Pete Masters was there a very well-known New Zealand rescue helicopter pilot. It was a terrible night there was a storm—snow sleet gale-force winds. He said There's a two-year-old girl that's gone missing down at Ruapehu at the national park. It's marginal flying. I'll go if you'll go." and I said "We have to go—it's a two-year-old. We've got to get down there as quickly as we can". Czar lay on the floor basically on our flight down—I don't want to recount that flight again. We arrived there Czar worked tirelessly through the night in sleet and in rain sucking freezing cold air up over his olfactory glands. His feet were torn up with volcanic rock and snow. Thankfully a guide—Cliff Jones—and Pete Masters went back up in the helicopter and went ahead of where I was tracking. We found that two-year-old. I'll never forget the look in Cliff's eye when he came out holding her and you know what? Czar wanted to get to her. Czar's tail was waggling and—for Mr Ricardo—he didn't want to bite her. He wanted to nuzzle her. He wanted to give her a lick because he'd been working for three or four hours to try and find her in very difficult conditions. A week later he was down in Tūrangi confronting an offender with an axe who was on methamphetamine. This bill is about what value do we do put on our police dogs. What value do we put on them? I say that the five years in Matt Doocey's bill is a fair value to put on the life of our police dogs. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The member's time has expired."