How to write legislation for your own business plan

I have recently become  aware of the word Kaisen  , it means to   bring about change  gradually, a bit  like boiling a frog,  you start heating the water slowly and  he doesn’t realise  he is done for until it is too late.

And so it is with the animal welfare legislation. To illustrate this I will focus on one person Mr Neil Wells .  A short chronology according to his own   CV .

It shows Mr Wells as being a key player in the RNZSPCA joining in 1971  , becoming president of the  Royal Federation of NZRNZSPCA in 1976  .

It is believed by  some that  he became a barrister in animal welfare law because the RNZSPCA paid for his degree, I have not been able to confirm this either  way.

In 1984 he was a founding member   of a “National Animal Ethics Advisory Committee” and “Animal Welfare Advisory Committee”   the status of these bodies   is unknown to me but it would appear that they lobbied   for an animal Welfare advisory Committee to be set up by Government . This occurred in  1989 when Colin Moyle acceded to the submission of lobby groups.

I believe Mr Wells to have been part of the animal advisory committee due to the acknowledgment by Mr Falloon in a discussion paper “A review of the animal protection act 1960” as being a contributor.

Neil Wells had  already  set up a pilot program in Waitakere with his mate  Bob Harvey ( Bob and Neil worked in advertising and  had been responsible for  getting the   Kirk labour  government  into power ) .

Tom Didovich was the manager of the Waitakere  council dog pound  which  during the  early association with Wells changed its name to Waitakere Animal Welfare  .

In 1996 Wells shares his vision for  a territorial animal welfare service with Didovich , there is no doubt  in my mind that this is a business plan for Wells own venture one which needed legislation   to facilitate it.

As luck would have it the Lobby groups ( many of which include Mr Wells in some capacity )  push for a new animal welfare Act and Neil Wells volunteers to write it. This will become the No 1 Bill or the other wise known as the Hodgson bill .

Concurrently Wells  sets up a training program to  train dog and stock control officers, his fees  to train the dog and stock control officers   are $2500 + GST and there are  fees of $1250 + GST p.a. per council .

He takes the training program to Unitec   and  works with them and NZQA  to  facilitate a course  in anticipation of his plan going nation wide.  He was actively   approaching councils for interest at this time.

I firmly believe that  due to this  he had a vested  interest in the legislation he was writing and  consulting on

It was going to provide him with an income stream for   his territorial animal welfare service and the  lecturing at Unitec  and through the prosecution of animal welfare offences.

A significant  change in the new act  is that  offences now became strict liability offences,  that is  no intent needs to be shown , the offence is complete if you are the owner of an animal found to be suffering.

But  most significant  part  is  section 171 of the animal welfare act  is that  the   fines could be paid to the organisation  brining the prosecution.

Every thing   you would ever need for your own business   all in the legislation which you have  helped write.

The legislation  was passed when a second bill was considered with the no 1 bill

But when a second was bill was introduced    and the primary production  committee  took 39 hours and 22  minutes to consider both the bills after  hearing 15 hours and 22 minutes of  submissions.

Fortunately they had assistance and I quote form the animal welfare legislation booklet which Mr. Wells himself wrote   –  the committee recorded  “ we Received advice from the ministry of Agriculture and forestry ( MAF ) we also employed Neil Wells as an Independent specialist adviser who assisted our consideration. Neil Wells , a barrister who specialises in animal welfare legislation , had earlier been involved in the draft Hodgson bill”

Of note again was that   Mr Wells was a legal adviser to MAF during this time and it appears to me that he had more than one finger in the pie . I cannot find anything  anywhere where he declared his conflict of interest to the  Primary production committee  although I did  find a reference  that Mr. Wells   told MAF that he had verbally told some one  of the conflict, I have been unable to prove or disprove this.

And so the  act   became law  an act which gave  inspectors wide sweeping powers, , the ability to become a private prosecution  authority with  little or no accountability  and  to keep all funds arising out of their action.

The select committee is currently looking at increasing the penalties for offences under the animal welfare Act .

In an interesting twist  Tom Didovich  who worked with  Mr Wells so closely with in  setting up the integration of dog and stock control with  SPCA  duties, is now well placed in the RNZSPCA  ready to  turn the  RNZSPCA into a  prosecution authority instead of the  helpful   and service it once was.

Didovich is also a “ trustee” of a trust named the Animal Welfare Institute of New Zealand which bears the  same name as an approved organisation which gained “ approved status from the labour cabinet after  the  president of  the labour party at that time, Bob Harvey  was consulted. The fact that there was no evidence of the  of an organisation by the name of  the animal welfare institute  existing  was  apparently not important … Untill I asked  and then I was sued.

See diagram of the  interactions

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