Council too easily bullied by a yowling online mob ...

Does the council now make decisions based on who yells loudest? Photo/File

IN THINKING about that battle here last week over the gassing of pound dogs, I wonder if there were any winners.

Surely not the dogs - hundreds of them will die anyway - and the district council certainly won no honours for their giving in to bullying.

Wanganui got some more tarnishing of its reputation through a petition that drew interested parties from across the country and outside of it. Lastly, the democratic process took a licking.

Most commentators - including Charlotte Goldsworthy, who is credited by this newspaper as having organised an online petition to end the gassing of the dogs - agree that the problem of the unwanted dogs originates in the community, with dog owners apparently lacking in responsibility for their pets.

Changing the means for destroying the dogs provides no solution for that irresponsibility.

If anything, as Ms Goldsworthy acknowledges: "... even administered with more respect and dignity, the reality is hundreds of animals will still die."

And, as an unintended consequence, the owners of those unwanted dogs can have a clearer conscience as to the means used. Out of sight leads quickly to out of mind.

And there remain the questions ...

A total of 33,000 names are alleged to have been on a petition collected in one week.

It's a number more than 150 per cent of our electoral rolls. Some petitioners were reportedly from outside the country, which raises questions as to their qualification to address a local issue.

I must acknowledge here that I don't know how the petition was worded. I wasn't asked to sign.

Nor do I know anyone who acknowledges signing. Most petitions require signatures, addresses, phone numbers - they take a lot of time to organise.

The seabed mining issue has attracted media coverage for months yet only 4700 expressed themselves on a matter that may have long-range consequences for New Zealand.

Accompanying this campaign was a significant volume of emotional outpouring which police described as "obscene and threatening comments made on social media (sites) about specific members of the public". Councillors and staff were treated with threats and obscenities via social media, emails, phone calls.

Just as the dog owners who wantonly discard their pets are irresponsible, so also are those who take their freedom of speech to be licence to abuse and threaten in pursuit of their ends. They too are crossing a line.

It's the difference between orderly and reasoned debate about an issue and a yowling mob. There were probably quite a few who participated in this campaign with tolerance for the opposing views, but the noise of a mob drowns out reason. The failure of adult supervision of social media tars the entire enterprise.

And if this campaign, as described, was conducted on social media, then it was the responsibility of its originator to act as a moderator - or appoint a moderator - to make sure that comments remained within the bounds of civility.

The council itself has some explaining to do. If, as has been contended, carbon monoxide gassing has been long used here with the approval of the SPCA and the veterinary physicians of Massey University, why would mayor Main and council suddenly reverse themselves, stop the practice and seek new "options for the future operation of the pound"?

Council had the alternative of responding with facts to the emotional outpouring, educating this community as to the problem and the means and methods it has used to deal with these sorry creatures.

Instead, it has apparently allowed itself to be bullied to comply with a mob's demands and set a woeful precedent, one that raises continuing questions as to the way decisions are made by council.

Is Wanganui council a deliberative body that uses all the facts to decide an issue or does it respond to those who shout loudest?

This episode casts serious doubt on the manner in which council decides the serious issues that come before it.