Hon David Cart er National Party Agriculture Spokesman
8 August 2005
Farm dogs to be strangled by Labour's red tape
New regulations that tell farmers to clean dog dishes daily with detergent and then dry them with a paper towel show how
out of touch Labour is with rural New Zealand, says National's Agriculture spokesman, David Carter.
"The idea that a New Zealand farmer is going to carry a bottle of detergent and a roll of paper towels with him to clean
the dogs' dishes each day is comical.
"But it's no laughing matter that a farmer could be jailed for six months, fined $25,000 or be banned from having
animals for failing to clean his dogs' dishes daily, or for having a draughty kennel.
"Labour is going to strangle the humble farm dog with red tape. Farmers do not need 61 pages of regulations to care for
their dogs properly.
"These requirements from Jim Sutton come on top of Chris Carter's requirement that all dogs be micro-chipped from July
next year.
"Labour's polices on dogs, public access, ACC, OSH, resource management and tax are regulating our farmers to death.
They do not need this sort of micro-management from Wellington.
"National will scrap Labour's law requiring all dogs to be micro-chipped and we will withdraw this daft draft code.
"We will work with farmers and kennel clubs on a simple common sense code focussed on preventing animal abuse, rather
than this politically correct nonsense," says Mr Carter.
ENDS