Andrew Hoggard: Associate Agriculture Minister on the Government's plan to crack down on dog owners who tether their pets

The Government is cracking down on dog owners tying up pets for long periods. 

SPCA and MPI Animal Welfare inspectors can now issue fines over dogs found tethered in poor conditions and displaying signs of frustration like excessive barking. 

Practical exemptions are included for farm dogs. 

Associate Agriculture Minister Andrew Hoggard says there was a 'gaping hole' impacting animal welfare inspectors' ability to handle people who mistreat their dogs.

"They could either just offer advice or go the whole hog and take people to court - this is about having a middle step in there and hopefully preventing people from going to court and the rest of the rigmarole that goes with it." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now on something else, different kind of crackdown altogether. The
government is planning to crack down on dog owners who
tether their dogs up for too long.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Now.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
The SPCA says this is a significant issue. They get
complaints about this every day and the new rules will
allow animal welfare inspectors to intervene earlier. There will also
be some protections for pregnant dogs, nursing dogs, and young dogs.
Andrew Hogart is the Associate Agriculture ministand with us now Andrew, Hello,
good right. If you guys, if these officials come across

(00:27):
a dog that's been tethered too long, what kind of
punishment could the dog owners face?

Speaker 3 (00:32):
So there is the ability for a five hundred to
fifteen hundred dollars fine if it goes to prosecution. That's
the sort of legal fine. I mean this not so
much a crackdown. It was just there was a gaping
hole in the animal welfare inspector's ability to you know,
they could either just offer.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Advice or go the whole hog and take people to court.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
This is about having a middle step in there and
hopefully preventing people going to court.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
And all the rest of the rigmarole that goes with It.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Strikes me that the kind of people there will be
a proportion of the kind of people who tether up
a dog for too long, who just simply will not
pay a fine.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Is that right? Oh? Quite possibly.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
There's people who don't pay any fines at all for
a whole range of things. But end of the day,
it provides RSPCA and MPI welfare inspectors a step. So
if people aren't willing to pay a fine, they keep
doing it, then that's a clear signal to take it
to the next level for prosecution.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
How long is too long to be tethered?

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Well, I mean quite frankly from a personal level. You know,
I don't like buying our goldie up for too long.
It's only if she breaks the fence and just sneak out.
But you know what we've got in these regulations is
some sort of outcome based measures, so you know, if
the dogs where in a path, if it's got brasions

(02:02):
on the neck from the collar, if there's lots of
inability to lie down and sleep somewhere where it's not
in its own feces.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
And urine animal abuse right.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Clear animal abuse? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, okay, are you planning to do anything about unregistered.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
Dogs that falls outside of my area, because that is
sort of a mix between THEA and local government.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
There is an element of.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Welfare in there and something sort of have approached other
ministers about, thinking, you know, is there something we could
be doing this space. But it is quite a technical
thing because it sort of cuts across so many different
ministries and departments. And also, I mean local councils do
have abilities to manage animals within their districts as well,

(02:55):
so it left they don't have to wait for government
to do it. They can take actions.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Are they doing it fast enough?

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Do you do?

Speaker 1 (03:01):
You can you point to a single council in this
country you go, yep, they are cracking down on unregistered
dogs and we like it.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
I haven't looked into it, and so I wouldn't be
able to say yea or nay, yeah, yeah, yep.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
I wouldn't be able.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
To comment or disparage any particular council for anything it
may or may not be doing.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Hey, Andrew, while I've got you, because you know, I
get quite I get quite hot under the collar about
this infant formula.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
But now it's coming.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yeah, I'm glad, you know, what's coming. I'm glad that
you're prepared for this one. Are we doing a U
turn on it?

Speaker 2 (03:32):
No, we're not.

Speaker 3 (03:34):
I will be taking some options to cabnet and we're
too next but I can I can't go into the
details of those. But our position has always been the
same from day dot. Basically ninety nine percent of the standard.
We agreed with all the composition stuff, totally on board
with all of that. It was some labeling that was
going to cause a hell of a lot of economic loss,

(03:56):
potential economic loss for our companies in China and also
for those in New Zealand that wanted to know, hey,
this is in the product.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
That's their choice.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
So it's simply those labeling clauses that we want gone.
And so we've always wanted a modified standard that works
for New Zealand that won't change.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
I was I was frustrated on your behalf. Maybe I've
been too sympathetic to you, but I was frustrated on
your behalf. When on maternity leave, I was reading all
these stories about your sister lobbying you, and I thought, well,
maybe your sister lobbied you, but only with common sense,
am I right?

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Well, she didn't actually lobby me because the Dairy Company's Association,
with which she's the executive director, they didn't take a
position on the final decision, so there was no lobbying
on that. Anyway, My office did ask Dairy Company's Association
on a technical point around codex what is X Y
and zming and that was the answer we got back.

(04:56):
To be honest, my golden retriever probably gave me more
lobbying over the dog thithering and much just to do
an infant formula.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Good on ya. I probably gave you more lobbying on
the infant formula myself, Andrew, thank you appreciate it. Andrew Hogart,
Associate Agriculture and So I don't know if you've caught up
on that, but go away and read about it. If
you're slightly interested in convoluted theories about how he came
to reach his decision, I'll give you a simpler theory
as to how he's re released his decision. The infant

(05:23):
formula rules are nuts, so they completely gaga. No one
wants to sign up to it, so he didn't sign
up to it. Oh, it's got to be his sister
got to him on the blower.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
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