EHO Knows: Rooster Gate w/ Tanya Morrison

Shane: [00:00:00] Every now and then a journalist manages to break the big story. And so today, uh, we had Tanya on a couple episodes ago, and at the end of it we were talking about, you know, what makes for the ideal podcast story And we’re talking about, and she goes, oh, rooster Gate. And this is it. Today we are, uh, bringing the truth to the world. This is Rooster Gate in, its in its raw. Open behind the scenes horror story. Um, and, and what’s really interesting about this story is it actually ends up with a criminal prosecution. And so as we’re telling this story, the ending is really bad. Um. It’s even worse for the rooster. Just putting it out there, the rooster, not a happy ending. Um, but yeah, where this story starts and where it goes, totally bizarre. Uh, so Tanya Morrison, um, welcome back to EHO knows [00:01:00] Gate.

Tanya Morrison: Hmm. Yeah. Cool. Thanks Shane. Thanks so much for having me. Um, yeah. Look, rooster Gate by name. This is all about the story of one little noisy rooster, the Roy Rooster who could and did, um. The Rooster Gate is a bit of a play on, I guess, Watergate. It’s, it’s an ongoing saga. This one was going on for many, many years until we finally got a resolution.

Shane: Yes. Uh, so today, we’re not gonna mention where exactly it is. Um, so there are papers on. story, and it talks about the facts of it all. Uh, but we’re not going to where it is because partially we wanna talk about the personalities involved. And that’s not covered in, in, in the paper, and we don’t wanna murky stuff up. But it is a fascinating story because it’s not just about facts, it’s about people as well. And so we’re, we’re gonna be talking about the people, so we won’t name where it is. Um, but describe where it is, like, yeah. Where did it happen? What type of street? Whatever.[00:02:00]

Tanya Morrison: Yeah. This is a, a city that has got mixed use. You know, everything from, In terms of your normal CBD areas and things. So we’re going up into more the hills suburbs, into the residential areas. So when you start getting onto the outskirts of a city like that, then you get into your rural zones where you might see more home stay, you know, semi-retired people with a few acres or hectares, a few animals, things like that.

You, you kind of borderline moving into the countryside. So this particular property is up on a. Quite a hill section, which is relevant because it’s quite a rough cast section. Um, if you think of the square, then the left and the top side of the square have got residential streets on both sides surrounding this property.

Whereas to the right side and the bottom of the square, it kind of goes out into effectively bush, um, native land, grass, farmlands areas that you probably wouldn’t develop or live on. So, you know, it’s borderline on. [00:03:00] It, it’s cast as a rural property, um, in terms of district plans and zoning. Um, but it’s got residential, literally between a wire fence.

You’ve got a line of houses and the property.

Shane: what makes that really funny though, is you’ve got all these people who, you’ve got this person who owns the farm and they wanna own a farm and it’s, it’s zoned rural, so they’re doing what they want to do. Meanwhile, you’ve got neighbors and it’s res, it’s suburbia, But, but the people who live in suburbia, like they’ve moved into a house in one sense, knowing that there’s a farm out the back. Also in one sense they’re moving in there going, oh look at this. We’ve got a beautiful view out our backyard of trees. And um, and so it really is that suburbia and small farmland sort of property. Okay, so that’s the starting point. That mix [00:04:00] and, okay, so it.

Tanya Morrison: I mean, if we think of it as a square in terms of the property, knowing now that we’ve got two sides of residential and two sides that don’t, the house for, you know, the owner, um, is kind of right in the middle of the square, but it’s almost going, uh, down into a gully. So as we work our way back up towards the top edge of the square, if we think of it that way, as you’re listening, um.

Then the property’s going up, so the house is down and then there’s high trees right up on the top fence line, the top of our square of our property. Um, and then that’s relevant because being more of a free range property of reasonable size with animals running around, um, you know, they’re not all housed and this case chicken coops for roosters and things, they like to perch in the trees that are right up on that top boundary.

Right next door to all the residential houses. Um, whereas, you know, the, the owner’s house is actually some meters down. Um, quite a fair distance and they’re actually down from it. So usually with noise we joke about going up into the theater seats and when, [00:05:00] if you go to the movie theaters, that’s why it’s all teared.

It’s not just ’cause the bed of you, but the noise travels up. So the owner, Also a rooster lover. Not really bothered by the noise, but the people up on the top boundary with roosters free, ranging up on the trees, looking right into the houses. Um, absolutely huge, huge tension between residential and a rural property.

Shane: And in the rooster’s defense, it’s doing what’s natural. It’s going for the high

Tanya Morrison: Yeah,

Shane: Uh, it wants to be heard. It wants to

Tanya Morrison: absolutely. Yeah.

Shane: the farmer is either oblivious or happy with it, uh, but it is now level crowing. so that’s the background. When did the complaints first start?

Tanya Morrison: Yeah, so haven’t we looked back on records? this has been going on for years, couple of decades. So records were going back to around 2006 onwards, so. You know, for many, many a year, you know, on again, off again, complaints would come in, noise complaints, noisy [00:06:00] roosters. It’s waking me up early in the morning.

You know, that’s causing me all sorts of problems. My whole day’s just throwing out, um, you know, people, loss of concentration, appetite, mood swings, you name it. We know the effects of disturbed sleep. Just ask a new parent. Basically. Um, you know, you can’t control when you’re gonna get woken up. It’s quite frustrating day after day after day.

And so environmental health officers would visit the property, try to see what’s going on, talk to the owner. Is there anything you can do? You know, can you keep them in an enclosure? Can you put them in a coop? And on again, off again? For years, we’d have this pattern of complaints would happen. We’d engage with the owner.

It’d get a little bit better for a while. Some more time would pass, and now a few months down the road, we’re getting complaints again, and it was just a never ending cycle of up and down, up and down.

Shane: of scale, are we talking about one vindictive neighbor?

Tanya Morrison: Well, so that’s the thing. I mean, over the years we did have multiple people complaining, [00:07:00] but you know, getting into kind of the personalities here, you’ve all gotta live there, right? So there comes a point where sometimes if you are gonna get into a yelling contest across the fence or anything like that, it can make a very uncomfortable living conditions for people.

So whilst over the years there were a lot of people aggrieved by this. Not many were willing to engage with, with the owner, because you’ve still gotta live there. And it was a little bit of fear of retribution potentially as well. also, it’s been going on for so long. They, they honestly have ever learned to put up with it, rightly or wrongly or so frustrated by it.

They don’t think anything’s ever gonna change, so what’s the point? so it’s quite interesting. Yeah.

Shane: but it wasn’t a single vindictive neighbor. It was a string of neighbors over the years. So started. Officially 2006. And so by the time, uh, this is coming to a head, we’re now talking about, uh, 2018, is where the, uh,

Tanya Morrison: yeah,

Shane: pace really starts to pick up.

Tanya Morrison: yeah. So we’d looked at it.

Shane: [00:08:00] So, 2018, what starts

Tanya Morrison: We looked at it then going, look, this has been going on for years. We’ve gotta figure out a way finally to try and put this thing to bed or find some sort of a resolution and look one of those options on the table of a resolution could have just been throwing the hands up in the air going, look, there is absolutely nothing we can do.

Um, but clearly for years on end, the educator approach the formal letters. Trying to put the pressure on. You have to remember, there’s nothing stopping this person from owning a rooster. There’s no piece of legislation to this day in New Zealand that says you cannot own a certain animal if you choose.

So, you know, people might be thinking just go and take the rooster off it. Well, you know, you can’t, um, you can technically seize.

Shane: This is literally

Tanya Morrison: Yeah.

Shane: This is a farm. Chickens, eggs.

Tanya Morrison: Correct. Yeah. I mean, technically, you know, if you think about noise law, you can see someone’s stereo when they keep cranking it up and having parties and annoying neighbors.

So technically the source of noise can be seized. Now, if you were [00:09:00] to seize it, uh, what are you gonna do with it? Because in New Zealand noise law, you’ve gotta keep, you can keep seized equipment. If we think of a stereo for up to six months, well that’s pretty easy. Under a secure lock and key, it’s not easy to keep a rooster happy, fed and watered and in very good health for six months before you’re allowed to do with it whatever you like.

Shane: And just putting it out there. If you do keep the rooster, you’re not gonna get any eggs. Like you’re just gonna cop the noise without any of the

Tanya Morrison: yeah.

Shane: yeah, you

Tanya Morrison: what happens to the rooster?

Shane: can’t

Tanya Morrison: You know, look, if the rooster has, I don’t know, health issues or, you know, that’s a real gamble. So it, it was never a practical option to seize the rooster, even though it’s technically on the books as something you could consider. The reality is you’re never gonna do it.

Um, so 2018, we got quite a string of complaints coming through, so we decided to put, um, noise meters out on timers, um, at some of the complainant’s properties. And, um, so we’ve put them out trying to hit that early hours of the morning. ’cause [00:10:00] this is the time when people were complaining the most going, look, I’m getting woken up here.

Feels like the middle of the night sometimes it was. It could be anywhere from three, four o’clock in the morning onwards. And once it’s awake, the, you know, the roos is going to town. so you know, we are putting out meters on timers recording from like maybe a four to 7:00 AM period for three or four hours over different dates, collecting the data.

And when you see the graphs, it’s clear as day little clusters that are just spiking outta nowhere. And you play back the audio and it’s clear as day, you know. This rooster’s just going gangbusters. On and off, on and off. Once he’s awake, everyone’s awake. So, you know, then you’ve gotta do something, haven’t you, because we’ve got a pretty clear evidence here of going, right, this is actually a problem.

What are we gonna do about it?

Shane: We’ve now got proof that there’s a disturbance and so, uh, you approach the owner, what happens?

Tanya Morrison: Yeah, so at this stage we did approach the owner and we say, look, we’ve actually done some noise monitoring. Um, you know, we don’t tell people in advance. We’re doing noise monitoring. We go to them after the fact [00:11:00] saying, well, actually, we’ve had a complaint. We’ve investigated it, we’ve monitored, we’ve recorded, and this is what we’ve found.

So. With the history of trying to work with the operator, uh, the owner, sorry. And knowing that we’re probably gonna get maybe some short-term relief, but not a long-term solution. We actually ended up serving an abatement notice. Um, so basically we were trying to put a formal notice in place to say, you need to keep that Bruce quiet.

Um, failure to do that. If we evidence any breaches, you know, look out, you’re in trouble. so we, we served an abatement notice around July, 2018. And it seemed to work for a while. We didn’t really get any complaints. Uh, we didn’t hear anything. What we think actually happened is that she actually just maybe cued the roosters or, you know, did a bit of a cu and we, nothing really f flare up again until, um, probably a good year later.

It was around about August, 2019 that it all started to flare up again. We started getting complaints.

Shane: so. What’s the owner like? Let’s, [00:12:00] let’s just drag in all the stereotypes. What’s the owner actually like? Um, are we talking about, uh, male, female, couple? Um, older, younger.

Tanya Morrison: Yeah, so it was, um, a female owner, um, a small section, you know, In terms of just had a handful of animals each, you know, maybe a couple of dogs, a couple of sheep, and so it was real kind of live off the land kind of thing. You know, the having chickens, obviously Rooster helps with that as well, but you know, you’re using the eggs, you’re using the meat.

She would use the feathers and weave beautiful Maori cloaks, you know, so everything has a purpose, everything has a use. Um, you know, wool from sheeps from the sheep and things. She could spin that.

Shane: So we’re talking about the

Tanya Morrison: Yeah,

Shane: sort of

Tanya Morrison: yeah. Living off the.

Shane: and I just demonstrated my age by quoting the good life, um, so that that idyllic. A farm. Uh, So from their, their point of view, then that’s a lifestyle that’s being challenged and an ideal sort of, of dream. Um, were they friendly and [00:13:00] outgoing or were they defensive and, and hostile?

Like what was the, when you’re talking to them, what are they like?

Tanya Morrison: We’ve got a little bit of both at times because, you know, it was kind of like, well, I’m allowed to have these animals. I choose to live this way. What is wrong with the way I live? Why do people keep complaining about me? You know, aren’t they the problem here? Not me. But then of course you show some evidence going, look, you’ve got some pretty noisy roosters here.

Can you see how, even if it doesn’t aggrieve you, some people don’t wanna be woken up at 4:00 AM um, by nature’s alarm clock, and especially when you could do something about it. You know, or we believe you could do something about it. So then you kind of got the attitude of, oh, well yeah, but, hmm, okay, but what am I supposed to do about it?

You know, you know, what do you want me to do? Um, so there was a kind of a,

Shane: Sunday

Tanya Morrison: well, yeah, joking, not joking, right? But, um, but. You know, it’s like, well, what is practical? ’cause on one hand you go, well, you try to keep a rooster contained when it’s free range and perching up the top of a tree, you’re not gonna get [00:14:00] it down, are you?

It’ll come down when it wants to. But on the other hand, we’re like, well, do they need to be free range like that all the time? Or is there a way that you can. You know, build a bigger enclosure or a coop or something, you know, and there’s a bit of a balance there too, because you are also dealing with a personality who doesn’t want to have her animals caged.

She wants them to be free range because that’s part of also who she is. Um, but be the delicate one. You know, never nasty or anything like that to deal with, but you, you’ve really gotta try and, I guess, win over and just say, look, I understand where you’re coming from, however we’ve gotta try and meet in the middle here and make the best of both worlds.

How are we gonna do that? But years and years of on, again, off again, gets a bit better, flares up again, gets a bit better, flares up again. Like we really had no choice. So the, the notice had to go on as it did in July. A year or so later, complaints flare up again. We, we make contact with her going, okay, we in complaints again.

What’s happened? What’s changed? Oh, I’ve got roosters back [00:15:00] again. Um, you know, ’cause I need chickens, so I’ve got roosters back again. Fair enough. But now we’ve got noise complaints happening again. So here we go again.

Shane: Yes.

Tanya Morrison: Yeah.

Shane: So that’s, it’s an interesting mindset though. You know, I got rid of the roosters ’cause of the complaints. Oh, I need chickens. I’m gonna get roosters back. And so let’s just forget about everything in the past and no one will notice. Okay, so one year later complaints are up again. Now what

Tanya Morrison: So even though the abatement notice from the year prior technically was still in effect, it didn’t have an end date, we decided that with a year passing, even though there was a big history, we needed just to monitor again to make sure before we do anything else, look potentially a new rooster we’re dealing with, even though we feel like this is deja vu.

Um, let’s monitor again and just be sure. We did some more monitoring, put the noise meters back out at the complainant’s properties, um, you know, throughout the rest of the year trying to work with the owner. This is [00:16:00] heading into the wards. The end of 2019. We had clear evidence again from a couple of different days.

We’d put the meters out. You know, these roosters going gangbusters again with the same problems here, the same amount of noise, the early wake up calls. We’ve gotta do something. Um, so it was actually rolled into early January, 2020, we reissued the abatement notice and we kind of beefed it up a little bit at that point as well and got a little bit more prescriptive about.

You need to take what’s called the best practical option to try and once and for all contain and keep these animals quiet because they are causing a nuisance. And if we evidence a breach, we will hold you to account for the breach. yeah, and then roll, roll on. Then here comes the next chapter. After that, now we’ve got a new notice in effect, and the complaints kept coming.

Shane: but then by the timeline, we’re now rolling into 2020,

Tanya Morrison: Yeah.

Shane: um, which once upon a time would’ve just been, [00:17:00] Hey, we’re just rolling over into a new year. But we’re not, we’re rolling over into a pandemic. and so now you’re suddenly talking about

Tanya Morrison: Yep.

Shane: who are permanently at home, um, and you’ve got a rooster.

Did that complicate

Tanya Morrison: Yeah, definitely. So, you know, revised abatement, notice in effect, um, we did some monitoring, I think at the end of February, literally about, must have been a late year, I think it was about the 28th, 29th of February, uh, we evidenced a breach. Um, so at, at, at that point in time, the laws have actually just recently changed on this.

A breach of the abatement notice was a $750 infringement. So that’s what we could have been looking at there. Um, but middle of March we went into nationwide lockdown with COVID. So yes, now everyone’s at home. So yeah, everyone’s hearing the rooster whether you want to or not, but we as officers, we’re grounded as well ’cause.

We were at with our levels in New Zealand here, we had a level four lockdown. You know, whilst technically we were essential [00:18:00] workers, the design of it wasn’t for us to be leaving home at that point in time to deal with a noisy rooster. So we were still getting complaints. We knew that nothing had changed, but we’re literally all grounded.

And so it wasn’t until a couple of months later when the COVID restrictions finally loosened. That we did a second lot of monitoring, which was towards the end of May, uh, 2020, and we evidenced a breach again, um, which could have been an infringement $750 again. Um, but we looked at it at this point going, look, the abatement notice is in, we know COVID isn’t ideal, but it actually doesn’t change anything here.

You’ve been given plenty of time over the years. Even this notice is, you know, five, six months now. We’re getting breaches. We’ve got an option here. We either keep serving infringements, you ever pay them or you don’t. Courts couldn’t chase you there or the, you know, debt collectors, whatever. Or we can take you to court once and for all.

And so that’s the decision we [00:19:00] made. We’re going to court. We’ve had enough of this. We’re going to court.

Shane: So first of all, $750 is a lot of chicken. Um,

Tanya Morrison: Yeah, that’s right.

Shane: A bloke, technically that’s 75 Cook chooks from Woolies. Um, but yeah, so it was getting to the stage where this, these roosters were gonna be $750 effectively a pop every now and then. Um, but you decided to, uh, take it to court. Now, the moment you decide to take it to court, do they have the option of, of backing out and just saying, look, we’re gonna get rid of these chooks.

Totally. Or what was the path from that point on?

Tanya Morrison: So it is an interesting question because the breach of the abatement notice is why we were going to court. I mean, yes. Why was the abatement notice in place? ’cause you’ve got a noisy rooster. But actually the technical legal speak was you have breached an abatement notice more than once. So, you know, you have failed to comply with a statutory requirement, a statutory notice that has been served on you.

Um, and, and that’s [00:20:00] what we looked at, was going, well, we can find this person. They either pay it or they don’t. It doesn’t make them do anything. It doesn’t make them solve the problem. And history would suggest that, you know, whether they pay it or not. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. We need the behavior to change.

The only way that this behavior’s gonna change is we’ve gotta ramp it up. Only option left is we’re going to court. So I think it was about, um, yeah, about August, by the time we got everything together and we laid, we laid charges, we, um, in terms of filed it with the court and um, yeah, we’re going to court.

Shane: Anything like this happened in the courts

Tanya Morrison: Never, it’s, it’s. To this day, it’s, uh, first and only in New Zealand. Um, yeah, it’s worth a little Google there. Um, when it made the media headlines and things, eventually, man, they had a field day with the headings. I think it was Oodle Don’t, um, there was, there was some really great headlines. It made national media headlines.

This one.

Shane: Yeah, there’s so

Tanya Morrison: so.

Shane: that, yeah, the media and, um, and just putting it out there, we’re running with Rooster Gate, as tempting [00:21:00] as it is to do so many other titles. Um, but yeah, I could just imagine that. So, so then that means suddenly this farmer is, is not just getting going to court, but suddenly getting all this national attention. Um. was the general media’s response like? Were they falling on the side of the farmer or falling on the side of the neighbors?

Tanya Morrison: to be fair, most of the media attention probably came out, um, the following year after the actual court, um, appearances and things were done. It got reported on, um, you know, kind of the outcomes and what happened. Um, they didn’t really take aside too much. They just kind of called it down the middle and just said, this is what’s happened.

It’s been going on for years, you know. Um, so it, they didn’t really take a angle too much, which in some ways is, is good. Um, because you, you’re gonna have people who have differing opinions on this going, oh, leave her alone. Like she’s allowed to have them. It’s like, absolutely don’t disagree. But would you like to next [00:22:00] live next door to that?

Like every single day, there is no day off here. It’s not like it’s the weekend and you don’t have to get up and go for, you know, go to work. So you turn your alarm off. Oh no, this one will wake you up on a Saturday or Sunday. Could be three in the morning, could be five in the morning. Who knows?

Shane: Okay, so the tail end of this is the fact that yes, after the court case, that’s when really hit the media. And so, um, so just as a strange repercussion as to, you know, ultimately where it ends up. Uh, okay, so court, what’s the judge say? Like, you know, you’ve got Rooster Gate being opened up in

Tanya Morrison: It was, it was so, especially in hindsight, it’s, it’s actually comical when you look back on it going, wow, we were in environment court in front of a judge, literally in the courtroom, you know, up in the witness box stand and everything like that. At the heart of it, we’re talking about a rooster. You know, this is the legislation in New Zealand, you know, the Resource Management Act, where, you know, if somebody dumped oil into the ocean, like the bad man did, the [00:23:00] really bad thing, like you’re going after people, big contamination of land.

Whatever else. Some real big bies, but it’s the same legislation that all our noise provisions sit under. So it is still environment court and you’re still sitting in front of a judge, but. I can guarantee that Judge has never had anything like this in his life. Um, so yeah, court was interesting as well because she, the rooster owner, self-represented.

She didn’t have legal representation, which was completely her choice. Um, so we were there and we, you know, had, you know, legal representation and things there, fighting this one on behalf of the council and we’re coming up against her completely on her own. So that was a wild card because you’re allowed to cross examine in courts, which means she could ask me on the stand anything, and she did.

Um, so that was quite interesting as well. But, um, essentially the judge wanted to know three things. He wanted to know, well, was the noise unreasonable? And if it was, you know, then you [00:24:00] justified in serving an abatement notice. Did you serve that notice correctly? And if that was the case that was served correctly, was it breached?

So. The first comical moment of courtroom was trying to establish was the noise unreasonable. So I had a audio clip that was 10 minutes long that was from a recording we’d done at the complainant’s address. Um, at some stage I’d set the noise meter on time at a start at 5:00 AM Now obviously I didn’t check in with the roosters first or anything like that.

I just went off what the complainant was telling me. It’s about 5:00 AM most morning, so from 5:00 AM till 5:10 AM. I had a recording with 42 crows on it loud as you clear as day. We started playing that for the judge in court. We got about a minute and a half into the recording and he politely asked my lawyer how much longer this goes to, which she’s pretty much elbowing me, whispering going, how much longer has this got?

And I’m like, eight minutes. And said, eight minutes, your Honor. And he said, [00:25:00] put his hand up. Said, I’ve heard enough. So that was easy. That was tick box number one. He didn’t want to hear anymore. He’d heard enough. We’d serve the notice correctly. So then the whole, the whole crux of this came down to, was it breached?

Shane: Yes. Um, so take Home Message Environmental health Officers is, um, just make sure you do your job. Correctly because one day you’ll be in front of the judge and, uh, and it’s really just as long as you do your job by the book, um, everything’s fine. There’s a really awesome podcast, a couple episodes about if you ever rock up in court what you have to do. Uh, so just a plug for, for previous episode. Um, but yeah, so you’ve, uh, you demonstrated that. There was a problem, uh, demonstrated that you had done things by the book. And, um, onto the last one, just doubling back to playing the recording in court. is a really funny thing in terms of, if. you know, it’s the middle of the day now.

There’s white noise happening all around or [00:26:00] whatever. And so if you hear something, it’s not as loud as if it’s the middle of the night and it’s dead quiet and you suddenly just have this, this noise coming out. Um, but in this particular case, you’re talking about a judge who’s sitting in a courtroom, so it’s not a quiet environment in the first place. and he’s listened to minute of a rooster crowing. And he is going, I’ve had enough. And so,

Tanya Morrison: bad.

Shane: so in one sense, from a prosecutor’s point of view, that’s your dream scenario where you’re going, the judge cannot handle 10 minutes of this, and yet this has gone on for years. so that’s the starting point.

And so slam dunk, was there a problem followed by Yes, we’ve done the paperwork, which then brings us onto the third bit. how did that pan

Tanya Morrison: So, so this is where a bit of the fund started. So in drafting our notice, we’d asked her to take the best practical option, um, which wasn’t limited to, you know, we’ve given her six things. She could have done other things [00:27:00] on top of that, but there was six particular things we wanted her to do. Um. I’m gonna come back to the first point ’cause this is the kind of the sticky one.

So I’m gonna jump ahead to kind of two to six here. But we wanted, there was a small coup chicken coop behind her house, so we’d said, look, you’ve gotta try and keep the birds in there. Um, you’ve gotta try and blacken out the whole coop and enclosure as much as you can. Uh, we think that you should try and install some insulating materials in there to try and reduce breakout noise.

We want you to keep the roosters, um, in this enclosure between 9:00 PM and 7:00 AM daily. We understand if you wanna let them out through the day, but you’ve really gotta keep, get them in at night. Um, make sure when they’re in there, however you do it, it’s gotta be basically shut up, shock, you know, tight, blackened out, insulating materials, keep all the openings and things covered.

So that was basically the, the last five points that we wanted to do. So when we were working through these one by one, the [00:28:00] judge just said, well, you know, how, how was the coop blackened out? And she said, well, I, I threw a tarpole over it, you know, a big canvas tarpole or something. And he said, well, that would probably reduce some light.

Okay. What’s the insulating materials that you used? Did you line the coop with something? What did you do? Well, I’m remembering that she lives off the land. She had s shown a couple of her sheep and she had hung the sheep’s wall loosely inside the enclosure. That was her insulating materials. Um, the rest of it wasn’t so much, you know, the solid door to fix on the coop and keeping all the openings closed because the judge then directed towards me and said, so you’ve asked the rooster to be in between 9:00 PM and 7:00 AM.

Did you ever go and inspect her property between 9:00 PM and 7:00 AM to ensure that the roosters were in there, the insulating materials were in there, um, the coop was blackened out, the doors were shut, et cetera. And we said, well, no sir, we didn’t. Because, [00:29:00] you know, there’s also the element of being a warranted officer.

Absolutely. But to go onto someone’s property for a basically a nuisance complaint, you’ve gotta do it within reasonable hours. I, I mean, it’s not because I’m not interested in getting outta bed, but it’s like, who’s realistically gonna go to a property between 9:00 PM and 7:00 AM You’re basically gonna have to make an appointment or tell her that you’re coming ’cause that’s kind of polite.

Or I’m gonna rock up literally in the middle of the night to this woman’s house. On a farm, right? So we, we had to say on the stand, well, no sir, we didn’t. He said, well then you can’t disprove that. She didn’t do any of those things. And wool, even if you don’t think it was a noise insulating material that you had in mind.

Um, wool has insulating properties that’s quite well known, even if it’s insulating for warmth. You’ll notice said insulating material. You didn’t say noise. Insulating material. So you’ve, those points are all proven, basically. You can’t say she didn’t comply with those points. [00:30:00] And from that, from that perspective, he was right.

And we kind of sat there going, Ooh, he’s got us there. So it all came down to the first part of the notice. The very first thing we’d asked her to do was to move and house the roosters, oh, to the southeast boundary of the property. So basically move them as far away from the residential properties. So if we think of our square again with our left and our top side, having the residential properties, you know, knowing that the bottom and the right hand side of the square is going out into basically bush and grass and native land.

We wanted her to move them as far away from those residential properties as possible. So we wanted her to go to the southeast boundary. And that’s the exact words that we used, the southeast boundary. So then we got into a bit of a bun fight over what is the southeast boundary, and that’s where the fun started.

Shane: So how can you debate South, southeast, or Southeast? Compass will

Tanya Morrison: Yeah.

Shane: boundary [00:31:00] is fence line. Uh, how can you debate Southeast boundary?

Tanya Morrison: So the judge asked a really reasonable question, and he asked it to the rooster owner. He said, what did you think was meant by the words southeast boundary? Here’s a map, aerial map of your property. X marks the spot. So I was on the witness stand at this point and the court registrar brings the map over to me, gives me a pen, and said, mark, where you wanted her to put it?

So I put a big red cross in the corner. So if we think of our square again, this is our bottom right corner. I put it right in the corner as in, as far away as possible. And that went back to the judge and he had a look at it going, okay, I, I see where you’ve put your cross. And then, so please go show the, the rooster owner.

He said, did you believe that this is where the officer meant you to put the coop? And she said, yes. And that. That alone is what won us the case [00:32:00] because, well kind of, so the word we never put in our notice was the corner of the boundary because he said, well, was it the south or was it the east boundary?

So if you think of your square, he said South could be anywhere along the bottom. Edge east could be anywhere along the right edge. He said, you know, you assumed corner that you never said corner. You marked X marks the spot in the corner. And she agreed that that’s what she, you thought that was meant.

You never actually told her to put it there, did you? Now, the fact of the matter is she didn’t move the coop at all. It was still next to her house, so that’s why we won the case because we couldn’t, we couldn’t prove anything else.

Shane: the. Instruction and chose not

Tanya Morrison: Yeah. But if she had moved that coop to either the south boundary or the east boundary, we would post, but she hadn’t moved it at all, thankfully.

Shane: yes. And technically we’re not. So we’ll put the, um, the photo up in the video, but everyone else who’s listening [00:33:00] to the audio, it’s not gonna help you. but technically we’re not talking about just a rectangle that’s nicely north, south, east, west. Um, it does slant. so the southern boundary does go southeast as it goes down.

So technically, if you were south. But at the west end, you are, you are close to the residential, and if you go east, the further east you’re going the further southeast technically you’re going. So it’s, it’s sloping. Um, and so because of that, yes, if they hadn’t moved it south, just a fraction they would’ve been complying. Um, but still

Tanya Morrison: even though she hadn’t moved it, you know, if she turned around and just said, I didn’t know what was meant by the Southeast boundary, then we would’ve been in trouble.

Shane: yes.

Tanya Morrison: Um, I. So, yeah. It’s funny how a, a day and a almost a day and a half battling in court and that’s where we ended up. That’s literally what cinched it for us in the end.

Shouldn’t move it.

Shane: Yes. It is [00:34:00] a clever question though. You know, put an X there, would you? Yeah. Is that where you thought they meant? Yes. question. And so one question then led to what Conviction.

Tanya Morrison: So in the end, um. She did get convicted because the conviction was failure to comply with an abatement notice. Of course, it’s a, it’s a lot more fun to say colloquially that she, you know, got prosecuted and convicted ’cause she’s got a noisy rooster. ’cause really that’s what it was all about. That’s not what any conviction sheet’s gonna read.

It’s gonna say failure to comply with an abatement notice under the Resource Management Act. Um. The judge chose not to put any penalty in place. He could have fined her a lot of money, but what’s the point? What he did instead was he actually put a court order in place and we were allowed to have some feedback into what this might look like, but ultimately the judge had the final say.

Essentially it was a little bit of a. Tidy up revamp of our abatement. Notice with the correct wording in at this time around the [00:35:00] specifics. Um, and essentially if there were more complaints received, we were expected to monitor. If we evidenced a breach, we come straight back to court and say, we think she’s breached the notice.

And then basically that would be assessed. And heavy penalties, probably huge fines would apply. So yeah, funnily enough, the court order didn’t say she’s not allowed to own any roosters, so she still has roosters. I believe the OR original rooster is no longer with us. So I think we’ve now got son of a rooster.

Um, but that’s fine. And the thing is we actually touch wood, haven’t had complaints since. And I think the reason we haven’t is because the complainants know, Hey, look, we were going at this for years, you know, from a council point of view. This was out of the box for them. Even they could see that this was bizarre for us to be going to court over this, but we did it.

What else can we do seriously? What else can we do? So I think it’s still happening, if I’m [00:36:00] being honest. I’d be surprised if it had wasn’t, but people know now that there’s, there’s nothing more that can be done,

Shane: So in one sense, that’s the

Tanya Morrison: Yeah.

Shane: where this rooster’s crowing, there’s nothing that can be done. Uh, though technically now they’re in a better position because if you record it and you hear it, you can go straight back to court. so in. fact they’re in a better

Tanya Morrison: Yes.

Shane: but. Then yeah, they’ve, it’s been through court and it would be interesting to actually talk to the neighbors and say, have you just given up or has the problem actually disappeared? Um, in one sense, it’s a really good outcome because you’ve actually had a successful, uh, prosecution. Uh, like you said, this is normally reserved for people dumping oil and doing really, really bad stuff. Um, and so now you’ve actually had something that’s as. Uh, in context oil as trivial as a rooster, um, and going, well, [00:37:00] no. You know, if you’re told to clean up your act, if the council is there telling you to clean up your act, the court will back council. Um, and so no, this, you know, is a breach. And so it’s a small win, but it’s a powerful win because it’s reinforcing, um, the powers of council rather than going, oh, look. cares?

Let’s just write this off. In which case you go, well, what? Why do we bother doing this in the first place? So small win, um, hopefully a powerful win.

Tanya Morrison: Just

look at it though, after all of these years, I mean, you know, we got nothing outta that process. Not financially, we didn’t benefit from it in any way, shape, or form, arguably, except I guess sending a bit of a message and having an outcome. A little bit of a resolution, um, a little bit of closure for those complainants, even though the situation practically might be the same as it was.

You know, we actually followed through and I’ll tell you what, it was one out of the box. You know, we learned a lot as we went. [00:38:00] Um, now I can hand on heart, say, if we were ever to go down this road again, we know exactly what we need to do in terms of proving the offense, even writing the notices to very specific language.

I mean, these notices were drafted by, you know, EHOs. It had legal insight into it, but it’s not until, you know, someone just asks you that question from a different perspective and you’re just going, I never said the word corner. Why didn’t I say that? I know what I meant. Thankfully she knew what I meant, but I never said it, you know?

So, yeah, it, it’s, it’s good from a learning point of view because I think we’re always learning in this game. And, you know, this had never happened before. It hasn’t happened since. So you haven’t got any precedent to rely on. You’re going off your intuition, you’re trying to resolve and do the right thing.

Um, but ultimately you’ve gotta take it on the chin and just say, look, next time I’m probably gonna write that notice a little bit different.

Shane: I assume that the, um, the person involved was the opposite of [00:39:00] ESL is. English as a first

Tanya Morrison: Yeah.

Shane: but so communication wasn’t a problem. Whereas I know like here in Sydney, um, we have a lot of, still within the Sydney base and a little, farms, you know, blocks and they tend to be migrants who are still just doing a little bit of, um, farming for themselves. so now language is a, a huge barrier. So for you, you thought you were both speaking the same language, clear communication, um, and fortunately in your case, they turned around and said, yes, we understood. What if this person had been, um, ESL or you know, where English virtually isn’t on it, and. That question, did you understand what was meant? could hand on heart say, I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about. Um, and then your case would’ve fallen out because no, you didn’t specifically say in the corner, you weren’t clear. so it’s, in one sense, it’s a problem that’s gonna [00:40:00] become worse in the future because of who the offenders are likely to be. But then at the same time, you feel for all parties, because in one sense you’ve got a farmer who’s just trying to live the good life, uh, and you’ve got neighbors who are just trying to live the quiet life, um, coming head to head, um, because of urban planning, rural, that’s suburbia

Tanya Morrison: think

Shane: and

Tanya Morrison: planning issue is the thing here, isn’t it? Because, you know, it’s not even who got there first really, because this is what we see across the world. Um, you know, cities growing up around the country and industrial areas. Uh, you’ve got houses opposite factories, and yet people’s expectations of the quiet life.

You know, maybe if you buy a house opposite of factories, you probably realize there’s a factory there When you buy the house. Um, by and large farming kind of lifestyle block, you’re gonna say probably shouldn’t cause any real issues. You know, a lifestyle block is, you know, very small. You’re not [00:41:00] likely to have the tractor plowing the field.

Um, but then all of a sudden now you’ve got a rooster, you know, so. How many times would you actually see that happen? But there is a planning tension there because it’s literally a wire fence that separates these two zones and the zones have different requirements. So that’s the other thing that’s interesting is the, um, within the city there’s, you know, keeping of animals bylaws, but they only apply to residential zoned properties, not to rural zoned properties on the other side of the fence, quite literally.

Shane: So the people making the complaint, it’s illegal for them to own a rooster, but it was literally legal for their neighbor directly behind them to own a rooster.

Tanya Morrison: Yes.

Shane: Uh, so two totally different, sets of laws, with a wire fence in between.

Tanya Morrison: So that’s probably one thing that came out of this. So at the time this all happened, it wasn’t illegal for anybody to have a rooster, even in a residential area. [00:42:00] There was no bans or anything in place. So following this was a bit of a. Catalyst. When that bylaw came due for review again a couple of years back, um, then a permit system was put in place to essentially say, if you are gonna have a rooster in a residential area, you need to apply to have a permit to keep it.

The permit will only be issued if we’ve never had a complaint about it. And that permit can be revoked at any time, should we get complaints about it? ’cause the reality is there’ll be roosters all throughout the city, but if we never care of them, quite literally, who cares? Um, if you’ve got a track history or we’re getting complaints, well, I’m sorry.

As, as the letter of the bylaw says, now that it’s being revised, after this all happened, you can’t have the Brewster. But it doesn’t affect rural zoned land. So even though that bylaws change, it makes no difference to said rooster owner. If, if this all flares up again tomorrow, I really hope I haven’t just drinks that.

Um, then, um, we’re [00:43:00] gonna be in the exact same position except for the fact that we’re gonna be looking at the court order that’s still in place and whether she’s complied or not.

Shane: Yes. so you said making, you know, in hindsight, making sure documentation is clearer. Uh, what other things would you have done differently now in hindsight?

Tanya Morrison: I mean, it’s nice to say coulda, should’ve, would’ve after all these years, could we have done this a lot sooner? But you know, the reality is you’ve gotta look at it from a council, you know, perspective rate, payer money and everything like that, that goes into local councils. Um. You try your best.

Shane: For the amount of money

Tanya Morrison: Yeah,

Shane: on this, you could have given the farmer a lifetime supply of frozen

Tanya Morrison: probably.

Shane: Uh.

Tanya Morrison: You know, and you’ve gotta look at it like you want voluntary compliance. We don’t wanna take people to court. We actually don’t. It’s not because of the time and the expense, but who, who really wins out of this ultimately, but. We felt after all those years, we had no choice. And if [00:44:00] you’re not willing to follow through, then also what message does that send to your complainants about the process when there is a problem and the problem’s not getting any better.

so, you know, on one hand it’s a really, really great outcome. You know, on the other hand, it’s, there’s so many things. We could have done it a bit earlier, we could have done it a bit differently. Things like COVID didn’t help, but we got there in the end.

Shane: So finishing up, it hits the media you’re talking about, you know, is, council, uh, ineffective in being able to follow through and you’re going, well, no. We, do follow through and the court backs us and now hits the media. Has it been a win or a loss from a general public perception point of view? Um, yeah. What do they now think of, of counsel from that point of view?

Tanya Morrison: I think people will have differing opinions on it, even to this day. And that comes back to whatever side of the fence you’re on, quite literally, because. [00:45:00] Again, this person, like anyone else, can own whatever animal they want, but I also think that it’s, you can’t argue with the evidence in terms of how annoying and the nuisance that this was causing people and how long it had been going on for.

If you were living next door to that, not many people would be able to withstand it at all. So, you know, our role here, rightly or wrongly, enforcement and regulatory, we get put in these positions and investigate complaints. We’re down the middle. We’re not for or against either party. We we go on evidence and the evidence says, we’ve given you the opportunity.

We want you to voluntary comply. We’re trying to assist you, we’re trying to direct you to employ comply. You know, the only thing left now is enforcement. And that’s what had to happen. So I think on one hand it showed that council’s prepared to do it, which is a good thing.

Shane: is there a line, oh, I could just imagine it on one side, playing out of. Um, nanny state, big Brother is [00:46:00] watching you. We can’t do anything anymore. Um, but then on this, um, the flip side, there’s people who are going, um, no, it’s, it’s good that the council has this power and can actually follow through. Or even just that subliminal, oh wait a minute. Um, yeah, that fear of, you know, the environmental health officers stepping in because, uh, they can. you to court, they can issue fines or whatever. Um, so it’s that fine line from an environmental health officer’s point of view of a little bit of fear is a good thing. Too much fear is a bad thing. Um, but then also just being seen as unnecessary. Um, control is a bad thing. Or wait a minute, this isn’t someone who’s enforcing boundaries. And that’s what keeps, Big fences, whatever, make happy neighbors or whatever it is. And that concept of how do people live together in clear boundaries? Uh, so, so there you go. [00:47:00] So, rooster Gate, um, dragged on for decades, escalated with, you know, the whole process going on. Uh, technology being dragged in, proof happening, documentation, da da da ends up in court. Did the judge have a week?

Tanya Morrison: No, no, no. He doesn’t actually.

Shane: Oh, good. Okay. So I can’t finish with the visual of judging. Wig gavel coming down guilty. Um, but yeah. And then now this, breach, um, rooster, no longer a happy rooster, but did pass jeans on next. Rooster. Rooster. And farmer still, farmer neighbors, still neighbors, um, and Rooster Gate in the media. And, um, and hopefully it’s finished there. In three years time, we’ll have Rooster Gate two. You know, the Agate continues. Uh, we’ll bring back all the big names. We’ll introduce a couple more big names, um, and we’ll [00:48:00] have the sequel episode. Um, but yeah, so Rooster Gate, That’s it. So it’s been revealed.

Thank you, uh, Tanya. And now I’m not sure where we’re gonna go on from here. What’s gonna be the next big one? So thank you very much, Tanya for, for bringing us Rooster Gate.