Doggy freedom

Speeches by politicians are best avoided in my experience. Full of banal, platitudinous, dreary waffle.

But I rather liked this one from Rodney Hide, quoting John Stuart Mill in an effort to get his audience, the NZ Companion Animal Conference, thinking about some basic principles.

I stand for freedom. I take the view, and apply it as Minister, that less government is good government. I think government should leave people as free as possible.

I believe hand-in-hand with individual freedom comes personal responsibility.

Too many people want to be free to do as they please but then aren’t prepared to accept the consequences of their own decisions and actions. They prefer to offload the consequences to others.

The fact is we can’t enjoy individual freedom unless we also accept personal responsibility.

This belief is probably more popular in the abstract than in everyday life.

Faced with any problem, an awful lot of people immediately think that ‘there should be a law against it’. And an awful lot of legislators, listening to the people as they should, agree, and pass a law against it. Sometimes, this law works, and things get better. But mostly it doesn’t.

I think the lowering of road deaths is an example of stronger laws and heavier enforcement producing a good result. Sure we have had to accept random breath tests, but our roads are undoubtedly safer as a result. That’s a small price to pay for reducing the carnage on our roads.

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 want to announce today that I have asked officials to begin thinking about a first-principles review of the dog laws.

I have not asked that this be a priority, because I think the government has more important things to do. But 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 do not know what will emerge from such a first-principles review. In the lead-up to it, we can all do some thinking. Here’s mine: John Stuart Mill, the great 19th-century advocate of freedom, was responsible for what we know as the ‘harm principle’. It says 'the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection'.

More