Matt McCarten: Political energy on microchipping better used to deal with child abuse

Some of the Greens going dog on the Government this week must have brought home to many of us how much politics under MMP has changed parliament. I can't think of any other time that a governing party didn't know they had lost a vote before it hit the debating chamber. It was a humiliating blow to Labour and personally embarrassing to Jeanette Fitzsimons, who had been caught out by Nandor Tanczos flipping at the last minute.

As every MP knows, the first rule of business for any government is never put up legislation that gets beaten. The proposed law to microchip all dogs was always a stupid and ignorant law introduced by opportunist MPs caught up in the hysteria after seven-year-old Carolina Anderson was attacked by a dog in Auckland. I'm sure Labour thought they were on to a winner when they introduced the legislation three years ago. At the time every parliamentary party except Act jumped on the bandwagon.

Even if the legislation had been passed in the form that the Government intended, it wouldn't have worked. Did anyone really think for one minute that microchipping dogs would make any child safer? As any enforcement officer will tell you, the very people who breed attack dogs are the very people who don't register their dogs in the first place.

As one enforcement officer I spoke with said: "Any dog enforcer with a healthy sense of self-preservation doesn't go near these dog owners." Rather, it appears that the enforcers hide in bushes near parks catching their daily quotas of offenders in the quieter suburbs.

But now with the Green MPs splitting their vote and allowing some dogs off the leash, so to speak, they have made the law impossible to enact. As the Green party never supported the Bill anyway, the four Green MPs who voted against it knew exactly what they were doing. Fitzsimons, in response to Helen Clark's claim that the Greens had broken an assurance, conceded as much when she said, "We wanted the opposite of what they (Labour) wanted, so in that sense we didn't owe them anything."

Tanczos was even more direct when he said, "The system would (now) be unworkable," particularly as the legislation not only exempts "farm" and "work" dogs, but your "companion" dog is also exempt. Even the experts say that any dog owner could claim "companion" status for his dog.

The National MPs, of course, are gloating. For them, it's not about dogs at all. What this Bill has successfully done is humiliate the Government and caused a split between Labour and the Greens. Labour MPs are already muttering about the "unreliability" of the Greens who, on the other hand, may think it wasn't a bad message to send to Labour, given its declared, more independent position. If they keep this up, Labour might think twice about leaving them out of the next Government.

The real credit must, of course, go to the farmers' trade union, the Federated Farmers. They have run a superb campaign on behalf of their members and succeeded against all odds. The urban dog owner groups should take some lessons from their rural counterparts and re-launch a campaign to get the whole thing dumped as unworkable. A mass threat by urban dog owners not to comply should get councils to get the Government to repeal this nonsensical legislation.

It is revealing that while our MPs have been revelling in their fun with the four legged dogs, little is being said about real attack mongrels. I wish the same amount of energy MPs put into controlling dogs went into controlling the two-legged mongrels who maim and kill defenceless children.

This week on the same news pages that had our MPs yapping on about microchipping dogs was the deaths of 3-month-old twins Chris and Cru Kahui. The police interviewed the parents and extended family for hours last week. All have kept their mouths shut. CYF have removed the other children from their care. The local cops say "there is a lot of grief and guilt within the family" who "wish they had done more to keep Cru and Chris safe". Bully for them. The extended family knew about the neglect and the treatment of the kids and did nothing. Obviously some of them still don't feel enough guilt to name the offender.

In 10 years, 103 children have been murdered, and 48 were Maori. A well-meaning academic was reported this week as saying that "violence by Maori" had to be "tackled in tandem with the way society is violent to Maori". Oh please! She is possibly right, but misses the point. There is no excuse for violence by adults against children. None! Zilch! I know the advocates of a parent's right to use violence against children should be protected. But they are wrong.

I'm heartened that Pita Sharples is helping organise a thousand local Maori to turn up at 5am on Tuesday at Mangere Mountain to welcome the Maori New Year (Matariki) and carry out a torchlight vigil pledging an end to Maori violence. Great. Why don't all of us who are appalled at this sickness attend as well and make it a real turnout in support. I suspect the bullies that should be there will still be in bed. The rest of us can make a big enough stand to send a message to these thugs and politicians.

I wish as much public disgust and hysteria could be pumped up by our politicians and the media over the deaths of children by caregivers as was rightly done over the horrific dog attack on young Carolina Anderson.

Even I'd be open to be persuaded to microchip these attackers so we could keep them away from children.