Animal Welfare Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister of Agriculture: On behalf of the Minister of Agriculture, the Hon Damien O’Connor, I present a legislative statement on the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I move, That the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Primary Production Committee to consider the bill.

The bill amends the Animal Welfare Act 1999 to ban the export of livestock by sea and shows the Government’s commitment to upholding New Zealand’s reputation for high standards of animal welfare. It’s vital we stay ahead of the curve in a world where animal welfare is under more and more scrutiny. The Government started a review of the livestock export trade in 2019. Following the independent Heron report, which was carried out after the tragic loss of the Gulf Livestock 1 in September 2020, on 29 March 2021, the Government decided to ban the export of cattle, deer, goats, and sheep by ship with a transition period of up to two years.

The Government, like some in the farming sector, believes the livestock trade opens New Zealand and its farmers to long-term reputational damage no matter how high we set animal welfare standards for the voyages and everyone’s best efforts. We acknowledge the economic benefits some farmers get from the trade, but support for it is not universal. There are different opinions on its long-term value amongst farmers, how it affects New Zealand’s commitment to animal welfare, and our image in the eyes of international consumers. Those involved in the trade have made improvements over recent years, but the voyage times to the Northern Hemisphere markets will always impose animal welfare challenges.

In submission to the live export review, it is important to note that the independent National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (NAWAC), which advises Ministers on animal welfare issues, said that the practice should stop. The tragic sinking of the Gulf Livestock 1 highlighted the possible risk of the trade. Because of New Zealand’s strong reputation for farming, livestock exports by sea have increased in recent years, but they amount to approximately 0.2 percent of our primary exports revenue since 2015. The Government has set a two-year transition period for the trade, which will end on 30 April 2023, to allow our trading partners time to adopt alternative options and to give those farmers involved enough time to change their business models. It’s hard to estimate the total number of farmers who use the trade as that can be dependent on conditions and on-farm decisions from year to year. We recognise the importance of our relationships with international partners and are committed to working with them to boost trade through other means, such as scientific work into dairy cow genetics and germplasm use.

Implementing the ban through primary legislation will enable people in the industry to give their views through the select committee process and Parliament to vote on the final proposal. I am informed that most affected parties—exporters, farmers, trading partners, and importers—are aware of the ban and understand the intent of the transition period. These actions do not set a precedent for other animal exports. Primarily, animals such as chickens are exported by plane and the travel times are much shorter. The journey time via ship for New Zealand livestock is far longer than by air, raising animal welfare concerns.

During the transition period, improvements are being made to the trade. Following the loss of the Gulf Livestock 1 and the independent Heron review, a series of recommendations were implemented, including reducing stock density to no more than 90 percent of previous limits, increasing minimum fodder requirements, introducing a more comprehensive stockperson declaration to verify competency, increased voyage reporting and improved quality of reporting from exporters, and requiring additional information on animal welfare and on the voyage. Longer-term improvements will be implemented as part of the livestock exports continuous improvements work programme. I encourage all interested parties to involve themselves in the select committee processes.

On behalf of Minister O’Connor, making this change to the Animal Welfare Act 1999 will prohibit the live export of cattle, deer, goats, and sheep by ship from 30 April 2023, reinforcing and building on New Zealand’s reputation as a safe producer of high-quality products. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Listening to the speech that Minister Whaitiri has just made, she said that this would be very small when it comes to the agriculture sector. But it is a big cost for those people who take part in the live export industry.

Also, I picked up on the fact that the Minister said it was really hard to estimate the number of farmers who do it. Now, before I go on to that, I just wanted to make mention of the people who died on the boat, because often we see that everyone talks about this being an animal welfare tragedy, and of course many cattle died on that boat and it was a tragedy that that boat obviously wasn’t up to spec and went somewhere that it shouldn’t go. As a result of that, over 40 people actually lost their lives on that boat too, and it’s something that’s very seldom ever mentioned. It sort of reminds me that, you know, we have a car accident, but we don’t ban every car. You know, there’s tragedies from time to time, but it doesn’t mean to say we stop doing it because it happens to one boat. Even reading in here, the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) didn’t actually count this in their animal welfare figure or their animal death stats because it was actually a transport and a boat-sinking episode, not an animal welfare episode.

Look, it does appear that there was something absolutely not right about the Gulf Livestock 1 ship that sank and the decisions that some people made with that ship. I’ve got a press release here that came out of Australia: “It has been 12 months since the live export ship sank off the Japanese coast, but a number of details about the tragedy remain a mystery. … It’s understood there was an inquiry and it’s been concluded, but for whatever reason the outcome has not been made publicly available and that’s pretty disappointing.” So the Australian Government is actually still trying to get their hands on the information around that inquiry, because it didn’t happen in their waters.

Look, I’ve been visiting people who partake in live exports, and their ships and their practices look nothing like what we have seen and the conditions that we’ve seen on that boat. So I question whether we need to take this giant step to do this, and so do my colleagues in National.

The Ministry for Primary Industries, in September 2020, announced an independent review and launched into the animal welfare assurances for safe transport of livestock by sea. It made a number of recommendations, including ongoing review of rules, guidance, and regulations, and you can see that in Part 4 of the review—and we don’t have time to go into the whole review tonight. But we in National believe that this bill is a knee-jerk reaction to the tragedy of one ship sinking.

Export mortality rates are, typically, about 0.1 percent and it does contribute about $261 million to the economy, and I know that there are a range of views around this practice. But when it’s done well, it’s actually really—for someone who is exporting animals or any product to the value that some of these animals are, you don’t want your product to turn up at the other end not in a good shape, because you wouldn’t be in the business for very long anyway, and many of these people take a huge pride in what they do. If the industry is to be phased out, it should be due to changing market demand, not to a Government edict based on one event.

So in 2020, the mortality rate of livestock was 0.12 percent, and in 2019, the mortality rate for livestock was 0.08 percent, and, as I’ve said before, MPI didn’t count that. That was a transport misadventure, and they didn’t count that in the stats.

So the regulatory impact statement says that there are two approaches that the Government could have taken to this to respond to this tragedy. The first would be to “allow trade to continue, but with stronger regulations through maintaining strong animal welfare standards and enhancing New Zealand’s long-term trade relationships.”, and this is the approach that National agrees with. The second was to “ban the export of livestock”, and this is what this bill is about tonight, which is why National is opposing this.

There is currently no ban on other types of livestock, and it’s only the ones that are mentioned in this bill. All animals undergo a pre-departure check, and I visited some people who are in the livestock export trade recently. They always keep extra days of feed on hand for these animals just in case they come across a storm like the one that this boat should never have gone into. So I say, again, that nobody’s going to want to export animals that don’t turn up in good shape.

But the Minister of Agriculture, Damien O’Connor, said that the Government’s decision was about animal welfare and protecting and positioning New Zealand’s reputation. What happened on this ship was not a New Zealand situation, and we can actually put regulations in and we can take control over what happens within our own country. So even if it could be proven that the incident did not involve New Zealand animals, the Minister thinks that the public may conclude that our animals could face a similar outcome. But why?

We don’t have too many people going on cruise ships at the moment. I’ve done a few cruises in my life, and, actually, a year before that captain caught the attention of his girlfriend over in Italy, and that boat tipped over, I was on the sister ship of that ship a year before, and it was fine. So we react to one thing, which isn’t always necessary. We don’t have to ban everything because of one incident.

Look, I’m dealing with another bill at the moment, which is the decommissioning one on the gas. You have one incident, and everybody else is bad and everything seems to need to be banned under the edict of this Government.

So for the policy to be given effect by this bill—and this is from the regulatory impact statement—is there analysis available on the size of the potential costs and benefits, and the answer is yes; and (b) the potential for any group of persons to suffer a substantial, unavoidable loss of income or wealth, and the statement says that the analysis noted “rural communities where livestock exports are a source of income would suffer economic losses. This would likely have flow on effects to wider primary industry businesses related to the trade e.g., vet services, transport companies, stock handlers etc.” Exporters and related businesses would suffer grave economic losses that would likely result in their businesses ceasing to operate.

Now, animal exports have done and can be done safely, and there were a number of conditions that the Ministry for Primary Industries put in when they went through, like having focused maritime inspection of livestock carrier ships entering New Zealand to transport livestock by Maritime New Zealand as a safeguard; restricting stock density on vessels to 90 percent of the current limits; increasing requirements for voyage recording, including daily vet reports during voyages; and increasing minimum fodder, as I said before. So who would really want their livestock to turn up overseas in less than a good state, because it’s not going to be an export business for very long?

I just want people to know that, hopefully, during the select committee process, we will be able to have time to hear all the arguments and look at what the general live animal export official assurance programme in this country by the Ministry for Primary Industries actually does. I just want people to know tonight that the Ministry for Primary Industries have put some extra conditions on exporting livestock. It was actually the Government that decided to make the move to ban this approach, and that is why National is opposing this. But we will work constructively at the select committee, and in the last bill we talked about tonight, we managed to make some changes at select committee. So here’s hoping.

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise and take a call on this Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. The previous speaker did talk about the fact that this is something that has been happening for some time, and she is quite correct in that. But it doesn’t make it right. Just because it’s something that we’ve always done doesn’t make it right.

It’s not as simple as the cows—let’s say we’re talking about cows, cattle—being walked off the paddock and on to a ship for a lovely cruise. They do spend quite some time having to be fed certain foods and getting ready to be able to adapt to the ship. And yes, the travel on the ship. But yes, the member was right—you know, there are procedures in place, there are checks and balances in place. But we in New Zealand here, we pride ourselves, we pride ourselves on our clean, green image. We pride ourselves on the way that we farm our animals. They’re pasture fed, they’re this, they’re that, and the other thing, and we do look after them. I just don’t see how this fits into that picture.

You know, the member previously did talk about the people who lost their lives. And, actually, I think that’s a really important thing that we do acknowledge here tonight. She was right that that hasn’t been talked about enough. It’s been mostly about the animals and their welfare. So I do also wish to acknowledge those that lost their lives on that particular ship.

But we’ve deliberately put in place a transition period where this won’t come into effect until 2023, to allow those that are going to be impacted—and there is definitely an impact, a cost for some farmers, exporters, importers, etc. But that’s why this two-year period has been put in place: as a transition, so people can adapt their business models and look to do other things, whether it be different types of farming or something else that doesn’t include sending animals off for live export. So I commend this bill to the House.

Hang on, Mr Speaker—it’s costing me a lot of money, this one. [Removes face mask] Ha! I’ve got it. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I was a bit intrigued listening to the Minister—hang on, I can’t hear. I was a bit intrigued listening to the Minister, because I’d set out with a view as to what I was going to say, and I was really quite interested in some of the things the Minister said in her introduction to this bill. As Barbara Kuriger has said, we’re opposed to the bill for a number of reasons, and I’m going to outline some of those as I go along.

I think we’ve got to remember—and the previous speaker, Jo Luxton, talked about it—that just because we’ve always done it doesn’t mean we should always do it. I quite agree with that, but, of course, we wouldn’t be in the position we’re in in New Zealand today if it hadn’t been for the live import of stock into New Zealand via the very same method that we’re now banning the export of them for.

One of the funny things about this place, of course, is that you get to speak third or fourth or fifth on a bill. Almost everything that needs to be said has been said. So I’m going to take a slightly different tack on this issue, because I think there’s some issues that haven’t been considered in the course of us getting to a point of banning the issue. I think it’s quite clear, for me, that it was always the intention of this Government to ban the live shipment of livestock, as they call it. In fact, there’s four different types of livestock involved in this: cattle, sheep, goats, and deer, I think it is. So those are banned from, effectively, live shipment. I take it it doesn’t mean they can’t be shipped by plane if necessary, because there are numerous other livestock types that are shipped by plane, the most notable, of course, being horses to Australia to try and win the Melbourne Cup, which is not far away. Of course, in the last couple of weeks, we won some pretty big races in Australia, including a $12 million race last Saturday.

So the export of livestock and import of livestock into New Zealand has always been a very important part of New Zealand’s way and how we go about things. Sometimes the good intentions of legislation have unforeseen negative impacts on society and the animals concerned, and that’s almost certainly the case with this bill, because if you think about our place in agriculture in the world—and the Minister did appease me to some extent by talking about genomic export and stuff like that, which is all very well for big, highly technological, competent industries, but many parts of the world that farm livestock in this form are not in that position. Therefore, the acquisition of a real cow, for example, is much more important to them or much more useful to them than, in fact, other types of technology and science.

So I think that one of the real issues of this bill is the fact that we were able to benefit other food-producing nations by exporting a better class of livestock to them and enabling them to either milk them or breed—whatever they want to do with them—in a manner they couldn’t have otherwise done. I know the argument that the Minister put up, and I think so did Barbara Kuriger to some extent: that there are farmers who are opposed to this bill, and opposed to it for the reason, basically, that they see those animals going to another country and competing with our exports of milk or of any other product, for that matter. But when you think about it, we in New Zealand are capable of producing enough food to feed about 40 million people. There are bigger cities than that in China by far, and, of course, they’ve got to then feed themselves, those countries. So I think that’s one aspect of this bill that I think will undoubtedly lessen the world’s ability to produce food.

The other issue I want to raise with respect to the live shipments of breeding cattle is that the dairy industry inevitably will always have surplus heifers. Those heifers have, over the last few years and in increasing numbers, been exported, creating advantage to other countries in the world and creating advantage to those people involved in the business in New Zealand, whether they’re vets, transport companies, feedlots—whatever they are. Those cattle or those heifers born in that dairy industry are now going to end up as four-day-old bobbies. I don’t think that’s a great livestock or animal welfare benefit to the country or to the world, actually. So it has a negative effect, and the reason that that’s going to happen is because they have no value to the New Zealand beef herd, because, effectively, people aren’t going to take on something that’s half as efficient to deal with an issue that otherwise could have—so it’s no good us thinking that they’re going to end up in the beef herd, because they won’t. So there’s always some negative impacts, I think, that come about as a result of good intention.

Now, the other thing that’s been raised tonight is the issue of, I guess, acclimatising those cattle, and how we can’t get them acclimatised to going on ships and things like that. But a considerable effort is put into acclimatising those cattle that are then shipped across the world on a ship. So when us humans go on a cruise, we don’t go and spend a couple or three weeks in a hotel on our way just to get acclimatised to being locked in a hotel while we’re locked on the cruise ship. But they do. So the heifers do actually exactly get that treatment in New Zealand, so they’re slowly educated into getting on those ships.

So I think the issue that raises for me is that if we’d wanted to, we could have put measures in place to very effectively and efficiently export livestock to other parts of the world for breeding purposes. The other thing we could have done—and I know that people think this is too hard, but we most certainly could have had a significant influence on the treatment of those animals when they got to their destination. In fact, it would have done probably a great service to some of those countries to have been involved in the acclimatisation of those heifers and the assimilation of them into their new environment, because it would have got them treated better, it would have got a better result for the people who took those animals at the other end, and I think it would have made quite a bit of difference too. So we could have, if we wished to, in my view, turned this industry into a showcase and enabled a whole lot of benefits to food production around the world that we now will not be able to achieve.

So there’s some interesting issues for us to discuss at select committee, and I look forward to that discussion, because I think the Minister, in her opening remarks, raised a few interesting issues that could be teased out further. But I guess the thing about this bill is that whilst Barbara Kuriger was optimistic that we might create change at the select committee, in fact, the bill says very clearly that it’s going to prohibit the export of cattle, because it effectively bans completely people making applications to export animals. So it’s not going to happen. So in respect of the discussion we have in the select committee, unless that clause is removed from the bill, nothing’s going to change. So that’s a pretty clear signal that the Government has no intention of either listening to submissions or changing any part of the bill for the better in the long term.

So on balance, I think it’s a shame we’ve gone down this path. I think we could have done better with it. I think we could have done better for world food production, I think we could have done better for animal welfare, and I think we could have done better for our farming community in New Zealand. Finally, I think that all these issues, all these matters that make up things like live export of animals, export of anything we choose to do as a country—because at the end of the day, we are very good as a trading nation. We are very good as a farming nation. We’re the best there is, actually, and I think we should maintain that. The crux of this bill is that the Government are of the opinion that we can’t maintain that unless we pass a bill banning the shipment of livestock. I don’t accept that. So I think the National Party—we don’t agree with it, and we’ll look forward to whatever discussion does take place at select committee. I’m not optimistic we’ll change it, though. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to begin by touching on a point Mr McKelvie raised when he said that we have relied on the importation of livestock to kick-start, I guess, our agricultural sector way back when, and he’s not wrong. But history also shows us quite clearly that thousands of people and animals died on those ships to New Zealand. I would like to think, I hope, that we have come a long way in terms of our knowledge of animal rights, animal welfare, and animal safety. He also talked about New Zealand’s way and our place in agriculture in the world. Well, the point behind this bill is that we are in a time where we’re facing increased scrutiny of animal welfare, including from the countries that we export to. The continued export of livestock may be a risk to New Zealand’s brand. So the time has come to have this discussion and to reconsider whether this is something that fits within our brand as a country. It’s about our reputation, including as seen by our exporters.

I’ve also seen, since the sinking of Gulf Livestock 1, stories from farmers who previously exported livestock on ships overseas and they acknowledged that it was quite distressing not being able to know, once their livestock left their farm, whether or not their livestock were on those ships or not. They found that incredibly distressing and that led them to looking further into the exporting of livestock.

Since 2015, we’ve exported close to 200,000 cattle, which have been shipped to countries including Mexico, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. The majority, though, 94 percent, go to China. All farmers care about their animals and to not know where the animals have ended up, they’ve acknowledged, is actually something that they find quite distressing. While there are rules about the welfare and conditions of livestock on export ships, including the space per animal, the amount of water required, there are still livestock that die. So excluding those who died on Gulf Livestock 1, 70 cattle died between 2019 and 2020, and after arrival there were 39 deaths recorded. That is why I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s my privilege to take a call on this bill, and acknowledging that I’m replacing Chlöe Swarbrick, who is our usual spokesperson, but Chlöe, along with many of our Auckland MPs, is doing her bit to keep Auckland safe—in particular, her electorate of Auckland Central.

This bill amends the Animal Welfare Act 1999 to ban live export of cattle, deer, sheep, and goats by sea. The ban was announced earlier in 2021 by the Government, and the ban is intended to come into effect on 30 April 2023, a transition period of approximately two years after its announcement. This is being done to allow time for those affected to plan.

Many of the people that we interact with think the two years is too late and would have preferred to actually just get on with it. But I did note that previous spokesperson for animal welfare Mojo Mathers actually has brought this up about 10 years ago. So I wanted to read a quote from Mojo from around about 2013, which places the position of the Greens: “In New Zealand animals work very hard for us. They form the backbone of our economy, with animal products forming 45 percent of New Zealand exports last year. As well as food, fibre, entertainment, and income, animals provide us with companionship, affection, and security. We should, as an absolute minimum, ensure decent lives for them. And quite apart from doing the right thing for animals, our reputation as an ethical food producer relies upon this.”

The Green Party envisions a world in which animals are recognised and treated as sentient beings with intrinsic worth; that domestic animals, including farmed animals and other animals in captivity, have a high quality of life; and that people act compassionately in their interactions with animals.

I want to acknowledge the previous speaker who—and I’ve seen some of these news articles of farmers who have been concerned about live exports, concerned about where their stock have ended up, and the condition of their stock as well. I hope in the select committee process that we will get to hear from those people as well.

But I also—because I get that some people are all about the economics and all that kind of thing as well, but there is a way to actually move the genetic material without actually having to transport animals. I get we’ve done what we’ve always done, if we always do what we’ve always done, we should always do what we’ve always done. But actually, there could be better ways to do that. So I hope in the select committee process that those voices that actually show that there could be a different way to do this also make themselves available to make submissions as well. There are also questions like if you’re exporting genetic material or live exports anyway, that you’re actually giving over your competitive edge; you are giving animals to people you might be competing with anyway. So hopefully that gets picked up by the select committee as well.

Live export subjects animals to cruel and inhumane conditions with few safeguards for their welfare. Once overseas, animals are outside our jurisdiction, and New Zealand cannot guarantee their safety and humane treatment. Several high-profile and tragic incidents over the years at sea and at destination have highlighted the validity of these concerns. The practice is also a significant ongoing risk to New Zealand’s international reputation, and like everyone around the House, I acknowledge those lives—human lives—that have been lost in the transport of live exports as well, and noting that in the last Parliament, our spokesperson Gareth Hughes, who’s now on the board of Save Animals from Exploitation, brought this up a number of times in the media, recognising the sometimes appalling conditions that workers have on some of those ships as well, but also the impacts on animals. So we would have liked to have this banned years ago, and also to not have the transition period, but we are where we are right now.

Back in 2008, because of appalling conditions, New Zealand decided we would not allow live exports for slaughter, and yet we continue to do live exports in general. So this bill is catching up, and we welcome that. We know the reports that the voyage is very harrowing for the animals; the high stocking densities, heat stress, unnatural diet, and rough seas can make the voyage acutely distressing for animals, with some dying during the voyage. The movement of the ship, especially when large waves slam into the side of the vessel, is highly stressful and may result in injuries. Some animals are shipped while pregnant, and some of these give birth on board the ships. Animals spend weeks on board ships; long distance transport is stressful for animals. Animals transported by sea, for example to China, could endure a voyage of around 17 days.

As we’ve talked about as well, it can also be quite fatal. So, like on 2 September in 2020, the Gulf Livestock 1 capsized and sank off the coast of Japan on the way to China with a shipment of New Zealand cows. All 5,867 of those cows died on board, but there are many other examples of just how risky live exports by sea are, especially when unplanned delays happen. In 2003, Saudi Arabia rejected a shipment of over 57,000 New Zealand and Australian sheep on board the MBIE Cormo Express on alleged disease grounds. After two months at sea, and with the ship unable to port, around 6,000 sheep died on board. Live export can be fatal for humans; we’ve heard that. Gulf Livestock 1 tragically resulted in the loss of not only animal, but human lives.

Most ships are not designed for export. Recent analysis undertaken by The Guardian revealed that live export ships are at greater risk of sinking or grounding than standard cargo vessels. Arriving alive doesn’t mean animals don’t suffer, and it’s important that they are not suffering in pain as well. The journey also doesn’t end once they are there; we don’t know what’s going to happen to them once they get off the boat, and so that’s important to actually keep that in scope as well.

I also wanted to give a shout-out to all the activists that have been campaigning for this for quite some time—in particular, in 2019, when animal welfare campaigners came to Parliament to hand over a petition signed by more than 30,000 people to end live exports. I think it’s really wonderful to see all of this and to see that this mahi has created this change, and I would like to acknowledge all of those activists, and I hope that they will continue to keep up the struggle for this kaupapa.

Just in my closing moments, I was wondering what I could offer to this conversation—probably two conversations. I’ve probably got time for one conversation. I was talking to a friend of mine who is a Sami, and they’re the indigenous peoples—and they are pastoralists; they have a very close relationship with reindeer. They go across Norway, Finland, and into Russia. I talked to her because I was interested in terms of their way that they look after their animals and their relationship with their animals as well. Because even though we’ve had agriculture here in the way that we see it in the last couple of hundred years max—100 to 200 years—the Sami people have been looking after reindeer for 10,000 years.

When I asked her about this, she said this to me: “The environment is very sensitive, so we have to learn to listen, which means people tend to be quiet. We have a special connection with reindeer; without them we could not have survived here for 10,000 years, because on the tundra nothing is grown. Reindeer give us everything: clothing, food, eating the stomach gives us much-needed minerals—we use every part. My grandmother made even her own soap with reindeer bones. We do not own them, instead we say that they are owned by the wind. We do not farm them because they are free-grazing animals who are meant to wander. We migrate with them. It is a colonial way to see animals as lesser. Animals are equal to people; they are our first priority. When they suffer, we suffer.” Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party tonight in opposition to the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. But I also rise in opposition on behalf of my colleague Mark Cameron, who, sadly, can’t be with us tonight because he’s stuck up in Northland under the alert level 3 restrictions. And I do wish that he could be here tonight to give this speech on behalf of ACT, because I know that he would give it great gusto.

Mark is probably the best person placed in Parliament to talk on this bill, because he is the authentic voice of rural New Zealand—you know, whether it’s just having his gumboots in his office as a constant reminder of the livelihoods of farmers or the messages that our caucus receive when Mark is not here in Parliament, milking his cows in the Far North. And I know even during these COVID restriction times, Mark has been diligently looking after his animals on his own farm, like farmers up and down New Zealand have been doing during the COVID restrictions, and I take my hat off to them working. While others can do remote work, these people are using their hands and feet to make sure that we have livelihoods in New Zealand.

But, of course, farmers up and down in New Zealand care about animal welfare, because it is their livelihoods. You know, it is what makes our country work. And it’s also that unless farmers are looking after their animals, they don’t have good produce for the next year. It is in every farmer’s best interest to give good conditions to their animals. So animal welfare is extremely important. But why are we bringing this bill to Parliament? And I think we need to acknowledge every time that we bring a new law to this place: what is the problem that we’re actually trying to solve? What is the proposed solution? What are the benefits and the costs? A very basic question, and ACT has analysed all of these and, I’m sorry to say, but it doesn’t stack up as a good law to be made.

So for context, in mid-2019 Cabinet asked the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) to lead a review into the export of livestock because they were concerned about the reputation of New Zealand as a responsible exporter of animals. And I note that MPI recommended that either we had a full ban on live exportation or an increased regulatory system to manage any risks. Now, livestock export is controlled under the Animal Welfare Act, and that’s what this bill seeks to change. In New Zealand we currently have regulations about animal exportation. There are conditions for animal welfare on the voyage and for animal welfare at the destination. But we have to be clear: we can do better for the conditions of animals. We can do better to improve animal welfare. But this bill seeks to do the heavy-handed approach, which is the ban. There would be a full cessation of trade from 30 April 2023.

But if we look at MPI’s analysis of what the impacts of that actually would be, the economic loss to farmers and the economy would be significant. I’ll read a few points, if I may, from the MPI analysis, and it says, “Live animal exports provide a boost to New Zealand’s economy and rural communities. Any move to prohibit the export of livestock would cause an economic loss to these groups and make recovery from COVID-19 more difficult in the rural communities where livestock exports provide an additional source of income. For some individual businesses, that impact is likely to be significant.” It also goes on to say, “The direct value of New Zealand’s livestock exports was $261.5 million for the year ending December 2020.” It also says that “MPI’s view is that reputational impacts are real but difficult to quantify. These risks should be taken seriously, but can be managed through enhancing the regulatory framework.”

The problem is even worse than that, though, because if we truly do care about animal welfare standards, we do have to acknowledge the part that New Zealand plays in ensuring that we are upholding better standards around the world. If it’s not us that are providing livestock to other countries for their breeding programmes, somebody else will very quickly fill that void. Trade will simply go offshore. The problem won’t go away. But actually, being in that space allows for better animal welfare conditions than what the alternative would be. People do need food. People do need animals to breed. And if we can be part of that, we can uphold better animal welfare standards, but also ensure that our farmers have ongoing livelihoods that won’t be affected. I don’t want to see countries with poorer welfare standards filling the void that New Zealand currently plays in that market.

We also just have to acknowledge that COVID has been a very, very tough time for all people, but it has been hard for farmers too, who have been constantly working through this time and not getting a huge amount of credit from the Government, to be fair. It just feels like there are regulations and red tape constantly being placed upon our rural communities. But our farmers have pulled us through and this is a time when we should have their back. COVID is not a time when we should be placing more restrictions on their ability to pull themselves through this time. We don’t want to create more pain and hurt farmers any more.

In summary, there’s just a few points that I’d like to make. We can do more for animal welfare, we do need to be clear, but there was an alternative that could have been reached. And when there is an alternative, why should we go with the heavy-handed approach that will hurt farmers? If I put it plainly, in the words of my colleague Mark Cameron: “Far out! What a fiasco.” So, in summary, ACT stands in opposition to this bill. Thank you.

I rise to speak on the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill, and I look back to the early to mid-1990s, when I was a rural reporter for the Hawke’s Bay Herald-Tribune—I was actually the agricultural editor—and I used to go out and cover the live export trade that was actually booming in Hawke’s Bay at the time. They had massive feedlots out at Tikokino, and it was a pretty booming industry, but I can recall also then that there was a bit of controversy around it as well, because I used to get quite a few front pages. When I look back and I look to now, I think, really, the time has come when the banning of live ship exports of animals for breeding is coming to an end.

Unlike the negative side, the other side of the House, where they seem to think the poor farmers won’t survive over a two-year transition period out of live exports, I have far greater confidence—far greater confidence—in our farmers, and when I’m going to be sitting on the select committee, listening to submissions, I’m going to ask a lot of questions from farmers about, “Really, do you think this is something for the future, or do you think that we can do more with our livestock and grow our rural economy better and stronger with better reputation, without the need for live sheep exports?” Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I stand in opposition to this bill, the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill, in its first reading tonight. We’ve heard some pretty pathetic contributions from the Government side and the Greens tonight about why this bill is so necessary.

But let’s go back to the beginning and how this all started. It was back on 2 September last year, when the live export ship the Gulf Livestock 1, which had just left Napier on 14 August, was traveling north-west in the East China Sea when it was capsized in strong winds and heavy seas, whipped up by not one but two typhoons. So this was an extraordinary weather event that this ship was caught in and it was only less than two days from its destination. Now, the ship was carrying almost 6,000 head of cattle and 43 crew. That included 39 Filipinos, two Australians, and two New Zealanders. Only two survivors and a body were ever found by the Japanese coast guard, and, sadly, only one of the survivors actually lived.

Now, we’ve heard a lot about the 6,000 head of cattle and the loss of those beasts, and, actually we heard about the loss for weeks—it went on for weeks. The issue was kept alive—I heard the speaker from the Green Party talk about the activists. It was kept alive by activists and the Greens, who used that tragedy as an opportunity to keep the story alive and to promote their tree-hugging, leaf-eating lifestyles, and showed no respect for alternative views. And that is all we were asking for: a bit of respect for how other people choose to live their lives. But, no, they don’t want anything to do with eating meat, they don’t want anything to do with cows, and they certainly don’t want anything to do with supporting New Zealand’s primary sector in this country. But what we didn’t hear about was the loss of those poor souls that went down with the ship. I’d like to pay tribute tonight to Lochie Bellerby and Scott Harris, our two Kiwis.

Now, as a result of the sinking of the Gulf Livestock 1, there was a review undertaken, and that was done by QC Heron. It is interesting that out of that review came four recommendations—four. They focused on the maritime inspection of livestock carrier ships entering New Zealand. They suggested restricting stocking densities on vessels to 90 percent of former limits. And it increased the requirements for voyage reporting, including the daily veterinary reports on those voyages, and, as Barbara Kuriger mentioned, about the fodder requirements, the feed stores that were to be left in reserve in case these were delays during the voyage. So this Government carried on with the review and then that review went off to the regulatory impact statement for this bill.

There were two options that were open to the Government, and one of them was to improve the quality of those transitions on to the journey of the exporting and on the boats, or to ban live exports altogether. So what did this Government do? It took the lazy option and it banned a $261 million opportunity for this country. It said thanks to the 5,000 farmers who for the last 10 years had been supplying breeding stock for live export, and it just said, “Sorry. We’re going to give you two years.” And the farmers are supposed to feel grateful that there are two years to transition away. This Government has no idea about how to grow an industry, and it is constantly ratcheting things back and making it harder. The only thing this Government knows how to do is to kill the economy, and instead of working with the shipping companies, working with the farmers to make sure that we are the very best livestock exporters in the world, this lazy Government simply bans another income earner for New Zealand.

I call Kieran McAnulty—five minutes.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I wish to start my contribution tonight by acknowledging a constituent of mine, whom I won’t name, who lost a dearly loved family member in the tragedy that has been expressed tonight. I’m sure the condolences of this whole House go to them and the other family of the other member that was lost in that tragedy. But it is, I believe, disingenuous to suggest that it is solely because of that tragedy that this piece of legislation is being proposed tonight. This legislation is much more far-reaching and much more looking into the future.

There is a clear distinction on display tonight between the conservative side and the side that actually wishes to reform this nation to one that is prosperous for all New Zealanders. And they may scoff, which they do, but this is the Government that produced a plan to increase primary production exports by $40 billion in the next 10 years, and animal welfare plays a key part in that. They live in a dream world: they believe that staying where we are, and treading water, and not changing, and not reforming—

💬 Barbara Kuriger: Didn’t say that. Didn’t say we couldn’t change.

—and not trying to keep ahead of the curve, and not trying to get ahead of our competitors, will earn us more money in the future. It will not. This is a competitive market, and Barbara Kuriger should know that our value that we extract from our exports is purely dependent on our reputation on the international market, and animal welfare is a huge part of that. It is an increasing part of that. We cannot expect that our reputation as an exporter will remain just as prevalent when countries like Ireland and much of the EU and parts of South America and even the US, who has poor animal standards in part of it, are catching up with us.

And I say to that side, they do not represent all farmers. They may believe they do, but many farmers from my electorate have contacted me and said this is the right move. This is where we need to go. We need to keep New Zealand ahead of the curve and at the pinnacle of animal welfare and at the pinnacle of international primary exports. I say to them, continue as you are; we will continue to look at the future. We will continue to deliver for rural communities and for primary exporters by making decisions like this and keeping New Zealand at the forefront of primary exports.

I rise with pleasure to take a call on the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. We’re not scared of this “just transition” conversation in Taranaki, we’re quite used to it. In Taranaki, the conversation—we’re at the pointy end of much of it. It’s not just about a zero-carbon economy, but also a sustainable future, a thriving economy. So we’re used to this and we’re not scared of the conversation. So, you know, we’ve got a lofty goal, we’re ambitious for our primary industries. We want to be known as the most ethical producer of food on the planet, and we want to be known as being able to use cutting-edge science to replace old ways of doing things with something that is better, such as using dairy cow genetics and germplasm—I didn’t know what that was until today, but there you go, we don’t need to go any further into that one.

All I need to say is that we’re not scared of setting these lofty goals for our primary industries and then supporting our industry to shift using world class, cutting edge science. So the other thing about this bill is the opportunity to have a just transition, to give our farmers the time and the support to move. We want them to be able to honour the commitments that they already have overseas. We want them to be able to sustain and grow their relationships in foreign markets, and we want them to be able to shift their business model so that we can reach that goal, that lofty goal that they deserve us to be striving for and working to support them to do, and that is, like I say, to become the most ethical producers of food. I’m really looking forward to seeing this go through select committee and to be able to make sure that we can support our primary industries in the best way possible, as they deserve. I commend this bill to the House.

Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to stand and speak in opposition to this Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. As many of the speakers have already said, the catalyst for the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) review in September 2020 to look into animal welfare assurances for safe transport of livestock by sea was the terrible maritime tragedy that was the Gulf Livestock 1. I want to acknowledge the sinking of that vessel as a terrible maritime tragedy as it sailed into Typhoon Maysak, south of Japan, when the engine stopped and the vessel was hit broadside by a powerful wave. Over 40 people lost their lives and, of course, the 5,800-odd cows.

I particularly want to acknowledge the Bellerby family from Southland. Lochie Bellerby was a young man in his 20s from Te Ānau who lost his life in that. Lochie was described as an adventurous and hardworking young man. I had the privilege, at that time, of meeting with his father and his sister. I want to acknowledge what incredibly brave people they were and resilient as they tried to cut through that dreadful bureaucratic red tape to try and expand the searches for the much loved brother and son. So I acknowledge the terrible tragedy that that sinking of the Gulf Livestock 1 was.

It’s interesting, though, that MPI does not include the loss of those 5,876 as being killed through animal welfare mistreatment. It was a terrible maritime tragedy. It caused the catalyst, as I said, for this review, which the Government could have picked up on—the options that were made available, the options, as my colleague has talked about, to expand the regulations and expand some of the requirements for animal welfare. National would have willingly backed those improvements. New Zealand has incredibly high standards of animal welfare in transporting livestock. But we could see where there are areas where there could have been improvement.

But as my colleague Maureen Pugh said, this Government took the lazy option of banning. The banning is an option that this Government takes frequently. They banned coal mining so that we could import more coal from Indonesia. They’re banning the export of livestock, and it is just virtue signalling. They are not going to improve animal welfare. I’ve had discussions with farmers, and I’ve asked them what it means to bring this ban into place, and my colleague Ian McKelvie has already touched on it.

So when this virtue-signalling Government wants to talk to lots of overseas entities that we export to, how are they going to explain the massive increase in animal welfare when what this means is there will be a whole lot more four-day-old bobby calves killed? I don’t see that as improved animal welfare, and I’ll be interested to see how this Government spins it—because spinning is, of course, their pastime, and I’m sure they’ll try and make something of it. So instead of those animals being exported to other countries where they could be used for breeding stock and they could be used to feed more people in this world, we are going to ban it and have them killed as four-day bobby calves.

There were other things that could’ve been done, but they required the Government to take a look at a complex issue. This is a complex issue. It would’ve required some work to have a look at it. They could’ve focused on some of the things that were brought in in 2020, in October, and seen those as ways in which animal welfare could be improved on. They could’ve worked with Federated Farmers instead of surprising Federated Farmers with this outcome. Federated Farmers have pointed out that our trade in this sector operates to some of the highest animal welfare standards in the world.

So it could have been a shining example to the world of how well we treat our animals, but instead they took the easy option to ban, because banning is what they do best. They could’ve focused on greater inspections of livestock in ships entering New Zealand. They could have, as my colleague said, restricted stocking density by 90 percent, which would have matched the Australian regulations. They could have increased the reporting from vets, and they could have increased the minimum fodder requirements should something go wrong and the voyage have unplanned delays. But, again, instead of working with the primary sector on a complex issue to bring about workable solutions, they chose banning it—banning it, that will shut off around $261 million of revenue. At a time when we are going to have our greatest level of debt in this country ever, they are going about their way to ban and restrict our revenue. It defies belief that we can be entering such a period of extreme debt and at the same time be virtue signalling with bans that decrease our revenue. But I guess that’s because that’s the sort of fairy land that this Government works in.

I listened to a number of the speakers say, “Well, I’ve read about this and I’ve heard that this happens.” On our farm, we exported livestock, so I haven’t read about it; I’ve seen it. Then I went and spoke to farmers that are doing this live export and asked them what would be the impact. That’s how I heard that there would be more bobby calves killed. So instead of these lofty aspirations that we’ve heard from the other side, lofty aspirations about how wonderful this is going to be for our livestock welfare—I even heard from one member on the Government side say how this would be so much better, banning sheep. Does she even know that the basis of this tragedy was cows, not sheep? If she was the reporter for some Hawke’s Bay newspaper, I’d doubt very much if they got much accurate out of that reporter.

The issue here is that the Government has taken the lazy way out. They have not worked with the primary sector. They have not tried to save a source of revenue for this country. They have not tried to improve animal welfare by doing things that take a little bit more time and a little bit more work. They have brought in another ban. It is simply not good enough to say that this Government is doing wonderful things with the primary sector and has lofty aspirations for the primary sector. Well, if that’s the case, why the heck have 30,000 people come out for groundswell events to tell you to stop imposing unrealistic regulations on their primary sector? They must be mistaken—all 30,000 of them must be mistaken. They can’t have picked up on your lofty aspirations and your wonderful ideals and your virtue signalling over animal welfare, or that 30,000 group of farmers wouldn’t be out trying to get your attention and trying to engage in meaningful debate with you to try and find workable solutions. National opposes this bill.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. Thank you for allowing me to take a call on the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. Well, what can I say, really? It’s been a night of quips, a night of just the same old, same old lines being rolled out, like “knee-jerk reaction”, “virtue signalling”, “Government edicts made on one single event”. But we know, on this side of the House, that we’re doing the right thing by our animal welfare system. We’ve got farmers on this side of the House, we’ve got people who work in primary industry, we’ve got friends and whānau who are engaged, even, as inspectors on these ships. So we’re not here tonight to debate this, because we know that we are doing the right thing by our farmers, we’re doing the right thing by our animals.

For me, as I listen tonight—I heard from the Opposition that we can get better at animal welfare. I heard lines around “If we just do what we’ve always done, we’ll always get what we’ve always got.” We need to do the right thing—and I always heard a lot around money, around money. We create $33.7 billion in income through our animal system over a year, and so I think it’s OK for us to ban this. I haven’t heard anything from the Opposition tonight about anyone who’s going to repeal this bill if you get into Government, heard nothing about that, so I think, quietly, you’re going to make a fuss, you’re going to make a song and a dance to appease your small audience, but you aren’t talking about repealing this when you—if ever you—become Government again.

So for me, I’m glad this debate is over and we take it to select committee, where we’re going to have deeper discussions, we can engage our communities. Because this side of the House, we’re committed to our rural committees, we’re committed to our farmers, and I commend this bill to the House.

The question is, That the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill be considered by the Primary Production Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Primary Production Committee.