Baldock Larry: Local Government Law Reform Bill (No 2) — Consideration of Report of Local Government and Environment Committee 
Baldock Larry: Local Government Law Reform Bill (No 2) — Consideration of Report of Local Government and Environment Committee 
[Volume:613;Page:9760] 
LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) 
: 
 I rise in support of the bill on behalf of United Future. Since its introduction in July 1999 the bill has undergone a somewhat elongated process. More recently following a recent spate of highly publicised dog attacks in particular the horrific attack on young Carolina Anderson it seems that the Government has been moved to respond by addressing the dog control laws and putting some new teeth into the regulations. It was particularly pleasing to receive a call today—and I imagine many members of the Local Government and Environment Committee may have received a call—from John Anderson the father of Carolina who indicated his pleasure with regard to the way that the bill has come out from the select committee. It is always rewarding to be able to make a member of the New Zealand public happy who has gone through such a horrific experience. 
I want to express my appreciation to the officials who helped us through the process and for the excellent chairmanship of the committee by David Parker who took us through the process very efficiently without any roadblocks or delays. It has been good to work on this bill because we have I believe come up with very good legislation and it has been great to see the cooperation in the committee stage. The committee has done a comprehensive job of striking an appropriate balance between public safety and dog owners’ responsibilities. That has included removing some of the more draconian ideas that were contained in the initial Government proposals—for example the fencing requirement that stated there had to be unimpeded access to the front door of a house. That has been abolished in favour of requiring dogs to be made secure on a property. Farmers’ working dogs will be exempt from that requirement. 
The committee also addressed the issue of breed bans. We heard a great deal on that issue from the submitters. While banning the importation of certain breeds such as the Japanese tosa the Brazilian fila and the dogo Argentino is fairly straightforward many submitters considered identifying the American pit bull terrier too problematic in respect of the number of crossbreeds and associated breeds in the country. Hence the amendment by the committee to define the pit bull as a type of dog rather than as a specific breed. The intended effect of that is to make enforcement of the new measures concerning pit bulls less prone to the technicalities with regard to crossbreeds. I believe that we have come up with a reasonable working solution. 
While the committee was still deliberating on this bill I was in Europe and managed to meet with the UK dog legislation people to check out that legislation. We heard a great deal during the select committee submission process about how the UK legislation was not working. I point out to the House that the UK legislation is very very different from what we are introducing here. For a start there is no dog registration at all in the UK and it completely stunned me to learn that. The UK has a ban on the ownership of pit bulls which enables the police there simply to apprehend any pit bull dog or any dog they consider to be a pit bull to remove it and to fine the person who may be the owner of it. We are not taking that measure here; we are not banning the pit bull. We are simply classifying it as a menacing type of dog and giving some power to dog control officers to require the owners of such dogs to muzzle them when they are in public. I do not feel that is too onerous a requirement for those who do love their dogs. We have a German shepherd and would be very disappointed if we had to get rid of it. We understand the sentiment behind many dog owners opposing the breed-specific legislation but I believe we have found a reasonable balance. I received a letter today from the New Zealand Veterinary Association. I believe there is still a lot of misunderstanding about what we achieved in the select committee because the association makes the comment that dogs should be classified as dangerous by their actions rather than on the basis of their breed. Well of course we are not classifying certain breeds as dangerous; we are classifying them as menacing. The requirements are reasonably light I believe. 
We also discussed in the select committee an exemption for those people who take their dogs to dog shows in the weekends whether it be to obedience trials or to dog shows. That is a very common and favourite pastime across New Zealand. If an owner has a dog that has been classified as menacing he or she can have an exemption so as not to have to muzzle it while it is performing or competing in the show. 
As far as United Future is concerned the issue has always been about better enforcement of the existing laws and providing dog control officers with the tools and resources they need to do that. To that end we are pleased that the bill contains a number of positive amendments to the principal Act. I am particularly indebted to the Tauranga District Council’s dog control officer John Payne who has an excellent knowledge of the existing Act and was able to give me some very very helpful guidance as we went through the process of making amendments to the legislation. He has come up with a number of suggestions which I am happy to say have been adopted by the committee and by the officials to improve the existing legislation. Dog control officers have been given increased powers and rights to enter private property in order to apprehend dangerous dogs and impound them. Councils will be audited to ensure that they are applying the law. That is very very important. We have a wide range of compliance across the country and it is important that councils do their part in applying the existing laws and these new laws that will be given to them in the near future. 
Infringement fees have been increased to some extent—in particular the fee regarding non-registration which I want to mention briefly. I believe we will have a discussion in the Committee this week. It is important we do not increase that infringement fee too much or else councils will not enforce it. The problem today is that many councils are not enforcing that fee. They are basically letting people not register their dogs and when they are caught they can then register them. That contributes to the problem rather than providing a solution. 
The probationary category of dog ownership will be retained and that is important. For most dog control officers dog control enforcement is not necessarily about heartlessly locking up people’s dogs if they have been found to be out of control and fining the owners. By and large their approach has been to try to work with dog owners and to educate them so that they can better control their dogs. Many dog control officers report that the probationary dog ownership status is an essential part of the process of producing good dog owners as it can require dog owners to undertake dog education and learn from those who are experienced with dogs. Dog control officers report that there are problems with the surcharge provisions within that probationary category. I hope we may address them in the Committee stage because those problems have often led to dog control officers not using that category which otherwise would be very useful. 
Of course there will always be dangerous dogs out there that need to be taken off the streets and their owners penalised for their disregard for public safety. The bill deals with those sorts of offenders as well. A jail term of up to 3 years or a fine of $20000 is a significant new deterrent to would-be irresponsible owners. However all the new penalties and infringement fees operate after the fact of an attack. They do not stop children receiving injuries and do not stop dangerous dogs attacking people. Preventing attacks will not be successful unless councils get tough on stray dogs and ensure that owners keep their dogs under control in the first place. 
One aspect of that is the establishment of a national database for dogs. It is United Future’s belief that essential to dog control enforcement is the ability of dog control officers to distinguish quickly and accurately between registered dogs with owners and strays. With effective identification through reference to a nationwide database strays can be impounded and the owners of registered dogs can be tracked down and dealt with appropriately. United Future is not presently convinced that the mandatory microchipping of all dogs is necessary for such a database to be effective. It is after all just a method of identification. Although in some cases it will provide a better method than those currently used we are still not fully convinced that the merits of requiring all dogs to be microchipped are there. 
However it is important that we see the establishment of the national database for that is really the key issue. We want to see the Government committed to establishing a standardised nationwide database so that when called upon accurate information about any dog can be retrieved quickly. Our present system of ad hoc local databases is clearly failing us. Presently many local councils do not bother to adequately maintain or update them. They all have different kinds of information on them. I believe that one idea which was not discussed within the committee was that it was not necessary to have mandatory microchipping in order to have that database. We could have a database based upon all the information already contained within councils relating to owners who register their dogs. So a combination of both would be a useful tool for dog control officers to use and we hope to see that advanced through the Committee stage also. 
There are many other amendments that again have been addressed through the help of the submitters. One in particular is concerned with the leashing of all dogs. There was a great deal of concern from submitters that we would mandatorily require all dogs to be leashed at all times in the public arena. We found a sensible compromise there by requiring owners to at least have a leash in hand so that if necessary they may control their dogs. I believe that results in a much better bill and I commend it to the House. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.