13th June, 2006
Dear Prime Minister and your Cabinet.
On behalf of Waiheke Island Residents, we enclose a petition holding 317 Signatures. The petition was held on the island for 3 weeks during the months of May/June, ending Monday 12th June. The purpose for this petition is to object to the micro-chipping of dogs on the island.
We have previously sent you email correspondence, informing you of our intentions to object to the regime of micro-chipping dogs, effective in law July 1st, 2006. This petition accompanies the “Federated Farmers’ Petition”, and together we have united our allegiances to oppose this immanent law. They will submit this petition on our behalf with their own. Meanwhile we will continue to gather more support from the people of New Zealand to oppose the new law.
We also wish to know the answers to the following questions.
1. It is known that certain States in Australia have had dog micro-chipping laws in place for several years. We want to know what research has been done in Australia, if any, that indicates that micro-chipping has prevented children being attacked, or any other measurable benefit and if research has been carried out, by whom and what are the before and after statistics.
2. We presume the government has done its own scientifically based statistical research to support its current stance, so again we would like copies of the research papers supplied. We would not consider theoretical propositions supplied by any government department to be classified as a serious scientific study. As New Zealanders we fail to see how unregistered dogs with non compliant owners who often are the cause of attacks on small children and others, will be responsible for micro-chipping their dogs. Our conclusion is; how does micro-chipping dogs effect those who will disobey the law as they have done for a long time?
3. When an animal bites somebody you have to catch it to scan the micro-chip in order to find out who it belongs to so that it can be put down. Is that the theory. What is the difference then, between taking an animal to be scanned and reading the tag that is supposedly hanging around its neck now. If the animal doesn’t have a tag, I would suggest it also doesn’t have a micro-chip.
We believe that most of the animal attacks have been random by dogs not prone to biting. There are probably events that lead to such attacks, and once an attack is happening it is very difficult to stop it. We fail to see how a micro-chip will help in any way at all.
4. During this petition many people were wary that this motion to microchip dogs is the precursor for micro-chipping people down the track, as an identity device. We would like a statement of intention on government stationery, that such an action would not be brought to the people, and should such a statement not be given to us, we would have to assume that the governments’ long-term intention is to extend micro-chipping to the population at large, perhaps staged initially to small groups, such as the US proposal to micro-chip immigrant workers. Should this happen, the people of NZ would effectively be betrayed in our civil liberties, and we suggest that would consitute a treasonable act by the New Zealand Government. Treason in this instance is defined as “a betrayal of trust or confidence” (ref – www.dictionary.com).
We did not have the opportunity to reach all the population of the island in the short period of time we conducted the petition, to hear their views on this subject. We do believe the numbers represented in this petition are indicative of those who feel strongly that micro-chipping dogs is on the way to not only a non solution for resolving the issue of children’s safety but also it will inevitably breach the civil rights of all New Zealanders should this lead to law allowing the micro-chipping of people.
Yours Sincerely
Delaine Jones
Francis Evans