McAnulty KieranKIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Malo e laumalie 'Eiki Sea. It's just a marvellous privilege to stand here and speak in support of Ian McKelvie's member's bill. I want to acknowledge Ian McKelvie. He is one of the only gentlemen in this House and I enjoyed—[Interruption] That's right. I shared a dinner—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order! All members are considered honourable. KIERAN McANULTY: Yes that's right—that's right. But he's a special case Madam Assistant Speaker. I enjoyed my dinner with him and his lovely wife at the Thoroughbred Horse of the Year Awards a couple of weeks ago. We both rejoiced in the absence of David Bennett who sat at another table. So we enjoyed our company. It was a marvellous evening and it is a great privilege to put forward the Government's position—or the Labour Party's position I should say—on this particular bill. It's not a big bill. It's pretty much consists of that and despite that I'm very disappointed that I only have 10 minutes to speak on this bill because it is a big issue as has been outlined by Mr McKelvie. These particular issues do come up from time to time in our respective offices. However what is of more pressing issue is the demand on our District Court structure at the moment. So there are three areas why the Labour Party will be supporting this bill. It improves court efficiencies and frees up the District Court judges to deal with other matters. It improves the welfare of dogs—Angie Warren-Clark: Oh that's good. KIERAN McANULTY: It is good isn't it? It is. We should always strive to improve the welfare of our animals—particularly our beloved dogs—by involving prosecutions under the Act and it also reduces the burden of pound facilities. A lot of pound facilities are run by local and district councils and of course some of them are very small. There are a couple of very small district councils in the area where I live in Wairarapa and of course it puts them under tremendous strain when dogs are there for unnecessarily long periods. So the bill allows the judicial officers who are justices of the peace or community magistrates to hear category 1 offences. For the benefit of the members in the House those are offences not punishable by imprisonment under the Dog Control Act 1996—with which I'm sure we're all familiar—essentially as I mentioned to reduce processing times. We believe it is likely to improve court efficiencies and free up District Court judges for a number of particular reasons and the most prominent I think is for more complex cases. It might interest members to know that in the past several years District Court judges have found themselves under strain. The resources they have available to them are putting them under pressure and so they're responding to more category 3 offences which take up a lot of time. What they do not want is for that precious time to be blocked up with category 1 offences so I commend the member for identifying this as one particular way in which to relieve the stress that we are seeing in our District Court system. I note that it says here that the active criminal cases in the District Courts have increased from 28529 in 2013-14 to 33038 in 2016-17. That's an increase of over 4000. So I ask members: do we want our District Court systems to be overburdened by this number of cases and this number of increases in category 1 dog offences? I suggest we do not. So that is why the Labour Party will be supporting this bill today. The second point I mention is around improving the welfare of dogs. We believe that this will reduce this burden in three ways. Pound facilities which I have mentioned are typically held for the duration of proceedings. So if a category 1 dog offence is in the District Court system which is overburdened—as I've mentioned—that not only holds up the court system but it also holds up the ability for a family to get their dog back. So the dog has to stay in the pound the whole time. We say that's wrong—Angie Warren-Clark: Like a remand system. KIERAN McANULTY: Just like a remand system—you're dead right. I acknowledge Angie Warren-Clark for that very helpful comment. There are many dog owners here I'm sure. I was a dog owner. I had to give up my precious dog Max when I was elected to this Parliament because I didn't feel that I had enough time at home to look after him. So—Hon David Bennett: What did you do with it? KIERAN McANULTY: Oh he's now with a lovely family David Bennett. He's now with a lovely family in Gladstone. Gladstone's just out of Masterton. It's sort of just in between Masterton and Carterton. Two young girls—they love him to bits. They send me photos regularly. But I do miss my dog Max. But dog owners—when they are separated from their dog this is a stressful time. I see the honourable member Priyanca Radhakrishnan nodding. I've met both her dogs—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order! Can you just come back to the bill please. KIERAN McANULTY: This bill is about dogs and I think that it is great that Ian McKelvie has had the foresight for the second time this year to put forward a member's bill that is of interest not only to regional New Zealand as his first member's bill was but across the board. I mentioned earlier the territorial authorities. They are required to manage and enforce provisions in the Dog Control Act and this will reduce that burden to them as well. It might interest members to know that over 90 percent of dog control cases are category 1 offences. So you might think on first reading the bill—it takes about 10 seconds to read it—that this is only a particular small aspect of dog control cases but no it's not. It's the vast majority. In the year 2015-16 there were 456 charges under that Act and of these 427 were category 1 offences. So that's 427 cases that by supporting this bill if we get this through the select committee—and I note it's coming to the Primary Production Committee and what a marvellous select committee that is. The—Hon David Bennett: Great chair—great chair. KIERAN McANULTY: Yeah a pretty average chair but a pretty decent deputy chair I've got to say. By looking at the 427 cases if we get it through the House we have an opportunity to reduce that pretty decent chunk of work. We do have some reservations though. I think it's fair to outline those now and we're hoping that these will get thrashed out at the Primary Production Committee. David Bennett—you know I like to give him a bit of stick. I mean it's an easy target; that sort of stuff writes itself. But in fairness he does a pretty good job of chairing. Labour does have some reservations around this member's bill and mainly it's around—we've got a question here: do judicial officers have the capacity to deal with these new cases? We're focusing on relieving the District Court system of the burden that they face by dealing with the cases but do the judicial officers have the capacity to deal with it? That's a fair question we think. It wasn't outlined I don't believe in the opening speech and hope that members opposite when they rise in support of their colleague might look to address that question just so that we can head into the select committee stage with that particular piece of knowledge there. Also another question: should additional offences be considered where judicial officers should be excluded? That's a fair question too that I think we should put forward to the select committee. I think we learnt something too with the livestock rustling bill where the intent was clear and there was unanimous support in the House for that particular bill. What we learnt however when we got to select committee was that the scope was too narrow and we hope that that is not the case now. We hope that it's not likely to limit the possibility for other matters to be included. You know we do acknowledge that this is an issue but perhaps there are other issues as well. We hope that the scope is not too narrow and that the select committee won't be restricted to include other things that are relevant to this for the purposes of reducing the burden on the District Court system. You know Madam Assistant Speaker it's hard to believe that over nine minutes has gone. I mean it's absolutely flown by but it is a great pleasure to stand here and put forward the support of the Labour Party. I again acknowledge the member Ian McKelvie from Rangitīkei for having the foresight to put this bill forward. Two in one year—it's almost some sort of record. The Labour Party stands in unison with you comrade in support of this particular issue. Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.