Animal Welfare Amendment Bill

I remind members that they are able to participate remotely. If you are on Zoom and want to take a call, please type “call” into the chat. You should also use the chat if you want to raise a point of order. If we receive a new tabled amendment, I will advise members so that they can refresh the House papers page to see the new amendment. Finally, it would be helpful for members to ask multiple questions, if they have them, of the member in charge during their call. Members, we come first to the debate on clause 1.

Thank you, Mr Chair, for the opportunity to question the Minister on the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill.

This is ideological, as I would assert. It’s the idle vapourings of an ideological mind all asunder. We’re trying to ascertain, in the rural sector, what the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill will ultimately mean to rural New Zealand.

I ask of the Minister to give clarity to multiple parts of the bill. How does he reconcile that this blurs the lines, as has been asserted with the downing of Gulf Livestock 1 and animal welfare of animals in transit? I’m trying to ascertain that.

Obviously we acknowledge that there was a terrible loss of life, but how does he reconcile this difference that Ministry for Primary Industries reviewed the transport of animal livestock in 2019 and found that it could continue? I acknowledge that Mr Chair’s going to ask me in quick succession to speak on the first part of the bill, but this speaks to the onerous nature of yet another piece of legislation that is going to affect the rural sector.

My question to the Minister is: how does he reconcile the $261 million loss to the rural sector in terms of an economic earning revenue stream? There have been assertions that this could potentially be $475 million over two years in short order, should—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Can I remind the member that we’re on clause 1, which is the title, not a second reading speech about the whole overall bill. If you could relate your comments to the title, that would be great. Thank you.

MARK CAMERON: Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you for the opportunity. I reiterate my concerns in regards to the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. There are real concerns that this has been blurred between what is the animal welfare issues that this seeks to address, and is it not an ideological blurring of the lines between animal welfare in transit and the downing of the Gulf Livestock 1 ship? Can the Minister please clarify the difference in that regard?

Point of order. Mr Chair, I wonder if, to ease debate, and noting the member’s speech, I can seek leave that the bill be taken as one question.

OK. Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection. Who would like a call on clause 1? I call Nicola Grigg.

Sorry, Mr Chair. I’m not particularly organised today. Look—

Hon David Bennett: Better organised than the All Blacks.

NICOLA GRIGG: I beg your pardon, David Bennett; be quiet! Look, thank you for this opportunity, and I’m very much looking forward to Minister Damien O’Connor actually taking the chair himself, because we’ve got a number of questions for him, so hopefully in his absence, the Minister that has stepped in will be able to—

Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order. The member is not permitted to mention the absence of another member.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Sorry, did the member—I was otherwise focused; not focused, rather. I think the member knows that she shouldn’t do that.

NICOLA GRIGG: Thank you, Mr Chair. The title of this bill, the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill—very lofty, lofty words and lofty goal, but I wonder if, having sat on the Primary Production Committee throughout the duration of the consideration of this bill, the Government was presented with an enormous amount of evidence that would prolong and improve the welfare provisions for live animals on shipments leaving New Zealand. A number of proposals were put to the Government seeking not to reinstate—

Dr Duncan Webb: It’s the title—title.

Mark Cameron: Do you want to take a call?

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Carry on.

NICOLA GRIGG: Thank you. It’s nice to actually address the Chair. The title of this bill, as I mentioned, is the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill, hence I’m focusing my comments this morning on the welfare of animals, to the member for Christchurch Central, who I don’t think would actually understand what live exports entail, let alone animal welfare. As I was referring, the amount of submissions that were directed towards the Government during the Primary Production Committee hearings around this bill offered up multiple opportunities for the Government to take on science-based, evidence-based, fact-based, experiential opportunities to improve the welfare standards for animals on ships or aeroplanes—particularly around ships—or any form of export leaving this country.

Unfortunately, as we discovered on the select committee, it was a predetermined outcome and the Government was not prepared to listen to opportunities to improve the welfare of animals in this amendment bill. That’s very unfortunate, because the Government is now shutting down an industry that it claims is worth $261 million. Yet data just released from Infometrics shows it’s closer to $420 million per annum in the short term.

Regarding the welfare of the animals on the shipments, we maintain on this side—having considered the evidence very deeply and negotiated and discussed with those businesses that are in the industry, that are operating in this industry—there is an opportunity for New Zealand to improve its own welfare standards so that an Animal Welfare Amendment Bill would actually enable our industry, our live export industry in New Zealand, to be world leading. It’s particularly unfortunate that the Government has sought to ignore the advice and the suggestions put up by the industry, because we’re going to have to deal with an issue of leakage now that this industry is likely to be shut down by April next year. At the moment, animals spend about 18 days on a boat leaving New Zealand, and we would contend, on behalf of the industry, that there is a real opportunity here to improve the welfare standards on these ships. We will discuss the opportunities to do that in later submissions to the House after this afternoon, but I would like to ask the Minister whether or not, given this is an Animal Welfare Amendment Bill, he has actually considered the submissions given by the industry that would improve welfare standards on board some of those ships.

Right. I’ll deal with this straight away. Dr Webb, constantly calling out, as you did during that speech, is unhelpful to the presiding officer, because if I were to respond to it, and even if I did think there was something wrong with the speech, it would indicate to the House that I’m following instruction from the Government. That’s not helpful. What I will say to members after two speeches: we are on the title. It’s a very narrow debate and I want all members speaking to it to speak to the title, not to debate the content of the bill.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I want to ask the Minister whether the name of this bill is a bit of a misnomer, because the bill is called the “Animal Welfare Amendment Act”, but the question is: is this going to actually lead to unintended consequences in terms of animal welfare? I ask whether it should have another name, which is the “To End Live Export From New Zealand Act”, rather than the “Animal Welfare Amendment Act”?

I note a matter that industries attempted to bring to the Minister’s attention in respect of this issue around animal welfare is that there is going to be an increase in the number of bobby calves—quite a significant increase—who could otherwise be sent overseas to happy homes. Would the Minister accept that this bill should really be called something else—for example, should it be called the “Increase in the Number of Bobby Calves Slaughtered in New Zealand Act”, as opposed to the “Animal Welfare Amendment Act”?

It’s an important issue because there’s a number of developing challenges around the world in terms of food security, and the animals are needed to fill that increase in food security issues. This bill seems to be missing a huge opportunity to develop a gold standard in terms of exporting animals to the world in a safe and reliable way, and developing a gold standard in terms of how to do that to protect the welfare of animals that need to be transported around the world.

I note, for example, that in the Ukraine, it’s estimated at this stage—and this may increase—that they’re going to need 50,000 dairy cattle to replace cows that have been lost during the Russia-Ukraine crisis. I note that that war is continuing and the number of animals will, no doubt, increase and they’re going to need animals to replace their herd, and the question is where those animals are going to come from and why they can’t come from New Zealand. If we didn’t have this misnamed Animal Welfare Amendment Bill prohibiting live export from New Zealand, we could actually be offering a way to solve that problem for the Ukraine and provide dairy cattle of excellent quality—which New Zealand produces—to them. I note that we’re creating a problem in terms of supplying the world with good cattle and we’re creating a problem in terms of creating more bobby calves in New Zealand that we don’t have space on our land for, so my question here is that this bill has got the wrong name.

Just to add to that, with this food crisis, we’ve also got Indonesia, which is dealing with foot-and-mouth, so they’re going to at some point need to replace their herd as well. Again, where are they going to get the animals from? Again, this Animal Welfare Amendment Bill is going to mean that we can’t be part of their solution, because we can’t provide animals to Indonesia to help them rebuild their stock from what is a significant crisis that they’re going through.

So, Minister, I would ask you to consider whether you have misnamed this bill by calling it the “Animal Welfare Amendment Act”, when, in fact, it’s creating problems in terms of animal welfare both in New Zealand and potentially overseas, noting that these countries will need to get their animals from elsewhere. So we’re not solving the problem; we’re just stopping a solution.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Following on from that wisdom passed on to the Minister by Joseph Mooney, I would like to also ask the Minister why he didn’t consider calling it the “Food Security Reduction Bill” for all the reasons that Joseph Mooney outlined. One of my suggestions was going to be why did we not call this bill the “Maritime Disasters Prevention Bill”? Because, actually, this has been a massive overreaction to a maritime disaster, and we all know that that’s what caused this.

There are some boats out there around the globe that are not fit for purpose. As we sat through the Primary Production Committee and we looked at the animal welfare on some of those boats, there wouldn’t be a person in this House that would want to accept some of the welfare standards that we saw in a small proportion of those cases. However, most of our presentations and submissions in select committee showed us what the gold standard can achieve and what we can have if we really set our mind to it, as a food producing nation, and that involves our responsibility to food security and other countries. So I really think it’s an overreaction.

I would also ask the Minister to perhaps comment on the “Ministry for Primary Industries’ Flip-flop Act”, in that the original advice was not to ban this; it was to move to gold standards, as most of us see would be a logical solution. Why, all of a sudden, did things turn around partway through? Submitters totally wasted their time coming into select committee—to fall on the deaf ears of this Government. Thank you, Mr Chair.

Thank you, Mr Chair, and I’m sorry I wasn’t here for the very first speech—and I’m just taking some notes—which I think was from Mr Cameron. So I’ll try as best I can to address some of the issues that I’ve heard since I’ve been in the committee here.

The issue of the value of the industry and how much has been exported, and some discussion on that—I’ve not got into final figures on it. Of course it is significant. I accept that for those people who are involved in the sector—the people who sell animals, they get cash on farm and it’s quite handy. So I’m not undervaluing or dismissing that. So, yes, this will have an impact on those who might have been expecting—but the two years that we gave as indications of where this would end up, we think is a fair indication.

I’ve just been given a note to stick to the title, which is a fair point. On the name, can I say this is the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill, because all those animals that won’t be sent away will have better animal welfare here in New Zealand. And the point of bobby calves, some of which may be part of—I think it’s about four and a half million bobby calves a year, which we’re going to have to address over time. I accept that as an issue, but we are monitoring it, and some say this is a gold standard process, but the Ministry for Primary Industries have done a lot of work to try and improve and safeguard the animal welfare of those animals that have been exported, and will be until the end date.

But a recent report I have here is for, I think, a 14-day voyage. For over 10 of those—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13—days it was over 28 degrees. This is for animals that have come from a temperate climate, go through the tropics, and then go to another location. Heat stress has been acknowledged, but actually I’m told that for the vets it’s not as big an issue as lameness on the boats that we’re using.

The reality is that few of these vessels have been built for purpose—very few. Most of them are on their second rotation, are old boats, and are unreliable. Indeed, we had a ship sink in the Red Sea, where 15,000 sheep drowned. There’s growing concern about the trade of live export across the globe, and this is about animal welfare, acknowledging that there is an impact on some. But actually, we trade billions and billions of dollars into the world market for high-value product that comes from high-value production systems. That’s the only place that we can be.

The issue of food security has been raised. We can feed about 40 million people. And, yes, there are some food security issues across the globe, particularly because of the outrageous behaviour of the Russians in Ukraine; I can’t say that strongly enough. Yes—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I’m going to interrupt the Minister and say what I’ve said to the committee: we’re on a very narrow debate on the title. I mean, it’s the Minister’s bill, but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t extend to these matters.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: I take your guidance, Mr Chair. Can I come back to the one on the name, then. It is around animal welfare, because without high animal welfare standards we will not be able to meet the expectations of the consumers. And there is not much we can do, in the feeding of 40 million people, to contribute to the wider issues of food security; we have to work with other nations on that issue. The name of the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill stands because it is about the welfare of these animals.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Thank you. So as the Minister noted, the bill is about the welfare of animals. Fish are defined as an animal under the Animal Welfare Act. So there’s a Supplementary Order Paper in my name to expand the bill to include the ban of the live export of eels. I acknowledge the work that the Minister has done and the huge work by organisations like Save Animals from Exploitation, and by Mojo Mathers and Gareth Hughes on this topic of live export of sheep and beef. But eels, as the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has highlighted, are under significant threat and on a pathway to extinction. Extinction is a fundamental animal welfare issue. So what consideration did the Minister give, given that the bulk of the export of eels are live eels and New Zealand has no ability to control how those eels are treated or killed at their final destination? So there are two issues: the fact that eels are exported is contributing to fishing pressure and to their decline, which could lead to extinction—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Yeah, I’m going to remind this member that this debate is about clause 1, the title, not Part 1 or 2, so the member can carry on.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE: So just two questions to the Minister: in terms of bringing in the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill, what consideration did he give to other species, such as eels, and will he give any consideration to that in future amendments to the Act?

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. It’s a pleasure to take a call on this. Looking at this title—I mean, the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill; I think it’s quite clear that that is not an appropriate title for the bill, because, effectively, it is simply an export ban on livestock. That is what we really should be considering here. If the Minister wants to have an appropriate ideological approach, which obviously is their approach, then the appropriate mechanism would just be to call it an export ban or a “Jacinda said I had to” bill, for example. Because the reality is that when we think of animal welfare in New Zealand, we have very high animal welfare standards across the board. Every now and again, there will be the odd exception to that and everyone in the industry will condemn any of those sorts of breaches. But standards are very high here. If we are wanting to address animal welfare standards in general, then perhaps an animal welfare amendment bill would be appropriate. But this title is inappropriate for the nature of the specificity of what this bill is trying to capture in terms of simply banning live exports.

What we really need to be addressing, if the Minister has concerns, is around the standards on the vessels. Because, broadly, animal welfare in itself is quite good on those vessels as well. There are some areas that it could be improved, and that’s what we will talk to further through this debate as we get to some of the excellent Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that our animal welfare spokesperson, Nicola Grigg, has put forward; looking at highlighting some of those animal welfare aspects that would be appropriate under an animal welfare amendment bill rather than just a carte blanche ban on, effectively, freight by sea, which is what this bill is looking to do. Of course, that comes with risks—looking to have a blanket ban—because, actually, when you consider a territory like the Chatham Islands, a wonderful part of New Zealand, they rely exclusively on sea freight for getting their livestock back to mainland New Zealand for processing. So if we are putting a blanket ban on, or the intent is to have no movement of livestock via vessels, then that is a real issue for them as well.

The Animal Welfare Amendment Bill, if it is to be called that, should be much broader, looking at animal welfare considerations across the farming industry and the areas where we might make some improvements. But clearly this isn’t an appropriate title for this bill. We have a range of SOPs, as I said, that we’ll be talking to throughout this debate, highlighting some of the issues that would be more appropriate under a bill of this name, or else potentially looking at renaming the bill. I wonder if the Minister would accept that actually that is a more appropriate position for us to take; that if we are wanting to amend the animal welfare standards, such as this, then he should be accepting those amendments, agreeing to what we’re putting forward, and helping to enhance the animal welfare standards on the vessels, rather than simply banning what is an important trade for a number of farmers around New Zealand and provides a significant economic contribution to their businesses and therefore into their regions and the economy as a whole.

So the impact here is really significant. One of the aspects that we touch on through those SOPs is around tightening up those animal welfare aspects, making sure that the vessels are fit for purpose—because I think that’s one of the fundamental issues here, is that a number of the vessels that are being used in this trade are not up to the standard that we would like to see. The Minister touched on it himself in terms of some of the temperature issues that can be present for parts of the journey as they move from New Zealand up to those export markets.

Absolutely, we need to ensure that animal welfare is maintained. Ultimately, though, when you look at the statistics—and that is an important aspect; you look at the science, you look at the reports—animal welfare in general on the vessels is actually to a very high standard. We see very low numbers of deaths. They’re often coming off the vessels in better condition than they boarded at New Zealand. So from that perspective, animal welfare is well maintained. Of course, we can always do a bit better, and that comes to the Minister’s comments, as well, around how we are viewed globally by our markets. I would say, well, his comment was that there’s some concern, potentially, or he alluded to the concern that our customers might have from the continuation of this trade. I don’t know that I share that; I certainly haven’t been hearing that strongly. I would say the bigger concern is what happens as a result of the ban of livestock under the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. The ban of those exports actually will lead to a much higher number of livestock going to slaughter, potentially at younger ages, and that could have a bigger impact on our markets. So there’s a lot to be discussed under this. We have some good SOPs and I hope the Minister will support them.

I move, That the question be now put.