In a speech to the 2009 NZ Companion Animal Conference Hon Rodney Hide, Minister of Local Government, spoke of the possibility that some restrictive dog laws could be relaxed:

I believe that dog owners should be free to enjoy the companionship of their dogs and that their freedom should only be constrained if they or their dog interferes with the rights of others. I would go further, in fact, to say ‘significantly interferes with the rights of others’.

This is great to hear in a country where local councils seem often to treat all dogs as dangerous creatures to be confined, restrained and regarded with utmost suspicion at all times.

Hide calls for a balance between freedom and responsibility.

Hide’s speech is well worth reading in its entirety, but below are a few points that I see as being of particular interest. What follows has been heavily edited.

Hon Rodney Hide.

My belief in the need for individual freedom and personal responsibility impacts directly on my job as Minister of Local Government, which includes consideration of the country’s dog laws.

I expect that sometime in 2011, you may be asked for your views.

In the meantime, the present laws will apply, although I hope that local authorities will work hard to ensure the emphasis is on freedom, rather than restriction.

I think it is clear that people have a right to be protected in their own property from wandering dogs, or from dogs barking so they can be heard on other people’s property over a significant period, or unreasonable hours.

I think people should be protected from dogs who bite them, or push them over, or act in a way that makes reasonable people with some experience of dogs feel threatened with attack.

I think drivers should not have to face wandering dogs on busy roads.

I think it is reasonable that people whose dogs soil public or other people’s private property should clean it up.

I think farmers have every right to shoot dogs that pose a threat to stock on their farms.

But I am not sure that people should be protected from dogs running on a beach off the leash, or from dogs on private property marked with clear warnings about the dogs, or from people owning a large number of dogs on private property, or from being approached by a dog.

I am not sure that people with an irrational fear, however real, of dogs, have a right to require the physical restraint of all dogs in public places.

I worry that councils take dog regulation too far.

The dog laws themselves allow councils to make their own decisions about dogs. There is anecdotal evidence that councils have restricted dog owners to an extent that goes beyond the removal of significant threats to others.

[Via : Beehive - Speech to NZ Companion Animal Conference, Auckland.]