Animal Welfare Amendment Bill

I move, That the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the Primary Production Committee for its very prompt consideration of this bill. I am pleased to say that in the time available the select committee received 17 written submissions and heard six oral submissions, and that resulted in some very valuable improvements to the bill. I am also pleased that the committee agreed unanimously that the bill be passed with minor changes, as it reaffirms the importance that this House gives to animal welfare in New Zealand.

I note that the committee expressed concern over the perceived lack of Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry animal welfare inspectors and resources. That is something I raised with the previous Labour Government on a number of occasions. This Government shares those concerns, and that is why Budget 2010 boosted animal welfare funding activities by $8.2 million over the next 4 years. That is the largest increase in animal welfare funding in over a decade. I am also aware that some will consider that this extra funding is not enough, but it is a significant step, and I am confident it will go a long way towards addressing the concerns of the committee.

I would like to discuss the main changes recommended by the committee, all of which I support. The committee agreed that the maximum penalty for contravening a disqualification order should be raised to the same level as the new offence of reckless ill-treatment—that is, a maximum of 3 years in prison, or a fine of $75,000 for an individual or of $350,000 for a body corporate. People are disqualified from owning animals because they either have repeatedly offended against animals or have offended so seriously that the court has had little choice but to restrict their access to animals. Contravening a disqualification order is a serious offence because it is deliberate and places the animals in the offender’s care at high risk of being abused in the future. To provide an effective deterrent to potential offenders, it is appropriate that a serious penalty be put in place for this crime.

The committee also agreed that section 172 of the Animal Welfare Act should be changed so that the forfeiture clause applied only to animals owned by the offender. As the bill was originally worded, the court could order forfeiture to the Crown of all animals to which a charge related. That could have included animals that were not owned by the offender, and could have resulted in the owners of animals losing those animals even though they had no involvement in the offending. As the bill now stands, the court can order forfeiture of animals that form part of the charge only where they are owned by the offender. As a further safeguard, forfeiture is available to the court only where it is needed to protect the welfare of the animals concerned.

I would like to briefly recap the main provisions of the bill. The bill expands the thresholds for wilful ill-treatment of an animal, the most serious category of offending, to include serious injury or impairment of an animal. Previously, animals had to die, to be permanently disabled, or to be destroyed to end their suffering in order for wilful ill-treatment to have occurred. This prevented many cases of horrific cruelty being prosecuted at the appropriate level, and led to the wrong message being sent to offenders. The bill creates a new offence of reckless ill-treatment of an animal. This offence has the same criteria as wilful ill-treatment, but has a lower penalty, reflecting the lower burden of proof needed to prove that charge. Reckless ill-treatment sits between wilful ill-treatment at one end of the spectrum and the strict liability offence of ill-treatment at the other. Together they provide a graduated regime that will improve the ability of prosecutors to lay charges appropriate to the crime. The bill increases the penalties for wilful ill-treatment of an animal, as well as those for ill-treatment or other neglect-type offences, including failure to meet the physical health and behavioural needs of an animal. I have already discussed disqualification, but I would mention that the bill allows the court to impose a minimum disqualification period. Where the court sets no minimum period, a default period of 2 years applies before the disqualification can be lifted. Finally, the bill allows any or all animals owned by the offender to be forfeited where the court believes that this is required for their protection.

On concluding this reading, members may ask what difference this bill will make. I stand by the statement I made during the first reading of the bill that New Zealand society does not tolerate animal welfare crimes. Our Animal Welfare Act is renowned for being progressive and comprehensive, and we can be proud that we are judged favourably by the international community and, importantly, by our trading partners. This bill will help ensure that we maintain our well-deserved reputation. Once again, I commend this bill to the House.

I guess we should answer the question that my colleague the Hon Darren Hughes asked the Minister of Agriculture during the Minister’s speech about what the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill will do. By itself, this bill will not do much. Again, it encapsulates classic Tory policy, which is to think that by waving a big stick around we will get a change in behaviour. Yes, the stick has certainly been increased in size. Along with the Minister I acknowledge the good work that happened in the Primary Production Committee. There are some very good members on that committee, I have to say, and I think I may be one of them myself. [Interruption] Yes, that is right. The chair of that committee, Shane Ardern, has done a great job. He should, in fact, be the Minister. I have always believed that, but I guess having two Ministers of Agriculture would be a bit much, even for the National Government.

When this bill was introduced to the House, it was a reaction to a couple of high-profile, shocking incidents that horrified the country. The Government, in its usual way, reacted and said it would put up the penalties. It did not, at that point, commit at any stage to provide any further resourcing of the department—

💬 Hon David Carter: Read the Budget.

I will get on to that, I say to Mr Carter, in a moment. The Budget came out last week, and some more money was put into animal welfare policing and monitoring. I applaud the Minister for that, up to a point. Before he becomes too excited, I say I went to the Budget documents to find out where he had obtained that money from. The tight Bill English is giving money only to his rich mates, through tax cuts, not to any important area of this economy, so I wondered where the money had come from to increase the monitoring and policing of animal welfare. I think that the increased funding is necessary; in fact, it might be a result of the pressure that we brought on the Government. When the Government introduced this bill, we raised the issue of there being no funding and no resources. I think the Government bowed to that pressure. Anyway, the Minister received an increased allocation.

The money comes from—can I just quote the words “transferred from”. There is no new money at all for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry for animal welfare. The Government has simply shuffled money around. Do members know what I think is the reason why Bill English and John Key agreed to that? It is because John Key understands that if we shuffle money around, we can get a slice of it and make a whole lot of money. He has not quite worked it out that shuffling money within departments does not actually deliver any more resources.

In acknowledging the support for this bill—the bill in itself does not do anything; it makes an adjustment—I will make one small concession to the Minister. Under the definition of “reckless ill-treatment” and “wilful ill-treatment”, if the resources allocated through the Budget properly fund the people who follow up on these cases, the bill makes an adjustment to allow people to be prosecuted and not fall through the cracks, which was one of the problems that occurred. But let us be honest: we have a huge task ahead of us. Of the 14,000 complaints made in 2008, only 58 prosecutions resulted in convictions. Usually, fair-minded New Zealanders who are aware of our agricultural and rural economy complain only when there is a fairly legitimate case. Neglect is not wilful ill-treatment, I have to say. There was a big gap between the notification level and the cases that actually went through to prosecution.

I acknowledge there are now more resources, a small amount of additional resources, in this area, but they have all come from the area of climate change, from other animal welfare initiatives, from policy advice around animal welfare, and from the area of grant assessment and management. The resources have come from a lot of areas, and we have yet to hear what effect that might have on the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

The Labour Party will support this bill, because Labour members, along with a lot—

💬 Hon Simon Power: Ha, ha!

Mr Power is astounded at that. I am surprised. Mr Power comes from a rural electorate—if he ever puts his gumboots on and goes out there, of course.

💬 Hon Simon Power: I had them on on Saturday.

And they might have got dirty. Did they get dirty? No, not quite. It was a good look, I am sure, I say to Simon. The Labour Party, along with an increasing number of leaders—and I say we need more of those in agriculture—and, certainly, commentators say that animal welfare is a key part of our future, in terms of our economy. Sixty-five percent of our exports still come from the primary sector. Pastoral farming, the management of animals and the welfare of animals, is still a huge part of that, and we have to get it right, no ifs, no buts, no maybes.

I would like to promote a report. I do not always promote consultants in this House, or indeed anywhere around the country, but I say this is a very, very good report from KPMG. It is KPMG’s first attempt—

💬 Hon David Carter: Reads like a National Party manifesto.

No, it does not; it has far more vision than a National Party manifesto. I hope that the Minister has read the report, because most of the contents will be news to him. The report says something about the need for leadership. It mentions the need for rural infrastructure. It also says there is a need for proper animal welfare management in this country. If we drop the ball on that, then there is a risk that our high-value customers will simply drop the ball on our products. I would like to read from the report, because I think it is valuable: “Increasingly customers want to understand where their food has come from, and have certainty that it has been produced using best practice animal welfare standards.” This is a warning, and the Minister should be listening to this. “While New Zealand farmers may see short-term economic benefits from establishing animal welfare standards below global best practices in respect of the sow stalls, for example”—and I know that the Greens may raise that issue here—“these benefits are likely to be short-lived as the major supermarket chains increasingly adopt strategies to target sourcing towards products that meet the very highest standards.”

We have to be able to hold our heads up high and say that in terms of animal welfare standards we reach the very highest standards in the world, and that we uphold them and police them. This bill, of itself, is one step in that process. It does not guarantee anything. We have had a slight increase in the Budget for the people who go around and monitor these standards, and the SPCA, which is a voluntary organisation, must be acknowledged in this area. The society has received an additional amount of money, which no doubt will be put to very good use. To the farmers who are concerned that people from the SPCA may be unfairly knocking on their door or monitoring their animal management practices, I say the simple fact is that it is often the urban standards that determine the purchasing behaviour of our consumers. Those urban standards and assessments will, no doubt, be applied to farmers up and down this country. If farmers have stock that are in a tight situation, they should not put those animals by the road. In fact, those farmers should make sure that they do not get into a tight situation. Mr Ardern will know, and Mr David Carter might know—no, he would not know this; he is a Canterbury sheep and beef farmer—that dairy farmers, in particular, sometimes come under tight situations. They have to do their best to uphold the standards, look after their animals, and show and prove to the world—

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: He just sells another silver teapot.

That is right. Mr Carter will be in touch with reality at some stage in his short career, perhaps. I acknowledge that Mr Ardern, on the other hand, knows what agriculture is about; he should be the Minister of Agriculture.

But to come back to the bill, I say we acknowledge this bill, and we support it for the reality that it is one chunk in an improving situation that New Zealand can proudly show off to the world. We are upholding the highest standards of animal welfare. We uphold the highest standards of animal management, including welfare, in order to achieve good production, but we do it in a way that meets the ever-increasing expectations of people in the global market place and their desire for quality food. We support this bill.

I rise on behalf of National to proudly support the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. I fear that this bill has arrived only just in time, because listening to the contribution from the Hon Damien O’Connor in support of the bill, it is clear that he is dancing on the head of a pin in trying to find something wrong with it. He is very annoyed about the fact that the National Government has come up with another $8.2 million to put towards animal welfare. I suspect that some cruelty to animals may be going on across the House that this bill may protect members from. I suspect that someone may need to draw on this bill to help Trevor Mallard in the future.

The Primary Production Committee gave due consideration to this bill and identified some issues with it. I thank the committee for its diligent work in that regard. It worked through the process in a very sensible and timely way, as the Minister of Agriculture has said. We heard submissions from a wide-ranging group of people who had concerns in this area. In particular, the committee heard from the SPCA, which has not always been a friend of the Government, I guess we could say, but has always at heart been caring towards animals. I refer to the comments of Bob Kerridge, the national president of the SPCA. He said that the Government has made it clear, right from the word “go” and right from the time the National Government was elected, that something needed to be done to strengthen the law on the protection of animals, particularly with regard to some of the high-profile, heinous cases that we have seen recently. Mr Kerridge said he thought that the extra funding was a wonderful addition and that this bill would help substantially in terms of protecting animals.

The committee raised the issue of clarity of ownership with regard to forfeiture, which would have, in my view, created some confusion. I could foresee a circumstance involving absentee owners of farms; syndicate owners of farms like, perhaps, the Hon Damien O’Connor—I am not sure whether he still has an interest in the family farm—or others such as me. We are here in Wellington involved in the work that we are elected to do. Animals could potentially be suffering on properties that we may or may not be involved with, and we could end up being victims of poor management. All of this issue was pretty hypothetical, because it might or might not happen, but we felt that the law needed to be clarified in that area. A change was made to clause 7, which substitutes section 169 of the Animal Welfare Act. The wording of that amendment was changed from “having custody of animals” to “owning or exercising authority in respect of animals” with regard to someone who was being pursued by the law in relation to animal welfare matters. That was a sensible change.

The select committee received 17 submissions from a wide range of people. Federated Farmers made an interesting observation that as far as they were concerned, the penalties were about right. They suggested that unless proper enforcement was carried out—they had anxiety about that—then the bill would have no effect. To that end, the Government has come out with more Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry inspectors and, as I said earlier, another $8.2 million to support that work.

All in all, the bill—which started off as a member’s bill, was adopted by the Government, and has been to the Primary Production Committee—will potentially bring about some substantial and well overdue changes to the way that animal welfare is treated in this country.

I am very happy to stand and take a call on the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. It is nice to see the Hon David Carter finally take a call in this House on a bill, but it is a bit of a shame that he had to nick the bill from Simon Bridges in the first place. It is a bit of a shame that it took a National Party backbencher to come up with an idea, on which David Carter weighed in, saying “Here is my opportunity to actually get on my pins and make a speech in the House, so I am pulling rank. Thank you, Simon Bridges, but this legislation is now mine.” That is all right. It is good to do it before the reshuffle, I say to the Minister; that is always a good time to do it. Shane Ardern is snapping at the Minister’s heels. Mr Ardern is a real farmer and a real man, who knows what he is talking about with regard to animal welfare. So I say to the Minister that his pulling rank is a very shrewd move. Poor, poor Simon Bridges is not here; he is probably up in his office, weeping as he hears his legislation being taken through the House by the Hon David Carter.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: You cannot refer to someone who is not here.

Labour will be supporting this legislation.

I want to support the comments made by my colleague Damien O’Connor, who highlighted the fact that although raising the penalties is a good idea, if we do not have the resources needed to police those penalties, then the penalties are meaningless. That message has to come through on this legislation, because unless the people who commit these crimes really fear that they will be apprehended and that the penalties may come to pass, then the penalties are completely meaningless. I urge the Government to put proper resourcing into this area, because, as we know, 20 years ago one-third of animal abuse prosecutions were done by the police, with the Ministry of Agriculture and the SPCA doing some, as well. But now the SPCA does up to 90 percent of the animal welfare work. That is a significant shift, which shows us how far the resources have gone away from the police doing this work and taking it more seriously—or having the resources to be able to take it more seriously—to charitable organisations like the SPCA having to pick up the flak.

There was a particularly terrible case in my patch in Gisborne, where the SPCA really highlighted the difficulties involved in raising money to carry out prosecutions. The SPCA had picked up six dogs over 2 weeks that were absolutely skeletal. Their condition was so extreme that they had eaten their own faeces, which comprised just pine needles. That is the reality of animal cruelty in this country. Those dogs were 6 months old, but they were no bigger than 9-week-old pups; that shows how incredibly emaciated they were. One pup was so emaciated that the Gisborne Herald reported that sunlight could be seen coming through her hind legs. That shows the seriousness of the situation. Carol Martin, the Gisborne branch manager of the SPCA, who is fantastic, said it was very important to get an ongoing prosecution fund going for the SPCA, because if such animal abuse is not prosecuted, then the animals are simply returned to their owners and the abuse continues. If this law is not properly resourced, and if the SPCA is not able to carry out those prosecutions, then it does not matter how high the penalties are.

I think we also need to take into account the fact that only 0.4 percent of animal cruelty complaints result in a conviction. That is very telling, because there is no disincentive for people when they know that less than half of one percent of all animal cruelty complaints result in a conviction. When one looks at the case in Gisborne, one finds that the manager of the SPCA said her organisation had taken successful prosecutions in the past, but the award of costs was absolutely pathetic and did not cover the real cost of taking a prosecution for cruelty to animals.

This is where we come to the real problem with regard to prosecuting animal cruelty in this country. People have to look for solicitors to put their hands up to do pro bono work in order to take these prosecutions, or they go to the police and hope that the police have the resources to be able to take a prosecution. But I think this is probably Carol Martin’s most important comment: “When you head for the courts you have already lost. If we don’t educate these people it’s going to be an ongoing event”. That is the flip side of this issue, as it is with any law and order issue. We have the prosecutions and the penalties, but if we do not do the work at the other side to educate people and to intervene, then we will not get anywhere on the issue.

When we look at the headlines relating to animal welfare in New Zealand, we see an escalation in complaints over the past few years, in particular. I do not know whether it is just an escalation in the reporting of cases, or whether it is an actual escalation in animal abuse. Who knows? But the fact is that those complaints are particularly difficult to read about, often because they do not involve just hardened adult criminals but also involve children. A number of the animal welfare complaints that we have had in the last few years do involve children.

When I was at university studying for my science degree—I am running a bit of a risk of sounding like Aaron Gilmore here—I also did criminology alongside it. I know that the ACT Party and David Garrett do not like criminology, probably because it is evidence based, but the fact is that criminology shows very, very clearly an enormous connection between animal cruelty and human violence. This is the other reason that we need to take animal cruelty incredibly seriously, because the people who are committing it now are the future violent criminals in our country. If we can get to them when they are committing these offences—hopefully, before they commit these offences; when they show a propensity for committing these offences—then we can avoid much greater violence down the track. Many studies in psychology, sociology, and criminology, particularly in the last 25 to 30 years, have demonstrated that violent offenders frequently have childhood and adolescent histories of serious and repeated animal cruelty of the kind that we are now, unfortunately, seeing in our country—in New Zealand.

The FBI has recognised the connection between animal cruelty and violent offending since the 1970s, when it did an analysis of serial killers. It showed that nearly all of them had killed or tortured animals when they were younger. Other research has shown patterns of animal cruelty amongst the perpetrators of domestic violence, child abuse, and elder abuse. In fact, the connection goes so far that the American Psychiatric Association considers cruelty against animals to be one of the diagnostic criteria of conduct disorder. The link is well documented.

We have a real opportunity here not just to pass higher sentences for something else but to use this legislation to look at how we can intervene. I know that the National Government does not like early intervention. I know that it likes to pass completely ineffective legislation like the “three strikes” legislation, which will do nothing to keep New Zealand communities safer, but here is an opportunity to look at early intervention. I want to quote The Humane Society of the United States, which is the largest animal advocacy organisation in the world: “Researchers, as well as the FBI and other law enforcement agencies nationwide, have linked animal cruelty to domestic violence, child abuse, serial killings, and to the recent rash of killings by school-age children”. In a study of 57 families where there were incidents of child abuse, 88 percent of the offenders had also abused animals. The ACT Party and the National Party are so keen on “three strikes” that they may be interested in the First Strike campaign by The Humane Society of the United States against animal cruelty, which is designed to raise awareness of the connection between animal cruelty and other violent crime. The society helps communities to identify some of the origins of violence, to predict its patterns, and to prevent its escalation, and it also works in a productive way, which is what we should be doing in this country, with animal protection agencies and shelter workers.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.