Animal Welfare Amendment Bill

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 third time.

I’d like to reiterate, firstly, at the start of this third reading, my thanks to the Primary Production Committee for their examination of this bill during the select committee stage, and all submitters for their time and contribution to the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. I move that the bill be now read a third time. It amends the Animal Welfare Act 1999 to ban the export of livestock by sea and shows our Government’s commitment to upholding New Zealand’s reputation for high standards in animal welfare.

It’s vital that we stay ahead of the curve in a world where animal welfare is under more and more scrutiny. Both National and ACT have expressed different views, in which they believe that a focus should be made on regulatory improvement. However, we already have a world-leading regulatory system for the export of livestock and no improvement would have been enough to protect the welfare of these animals and to protect New Zealand’s reputation. There’s plenty of evidence, as seen at the select committee, to prove that.

The Government started a review of the livestock export trade in 2019 in response to concerns that the trade could be a risk to our reputation. The objective of the review was to provide New Zealanders an opportunity to reflect on how we can improve the welfare of livestock being exported. The review consulted on several options, including both regulatory improvement and a complete ban on the trade. The Cabinet paper and decisions around the future of livestock exports was delayed due to the Government’s response to COVID-19. During this time, we were faced with the tragic sinking of Gulf Livestock 1 in September 2020. This was the seventh livestock ship to have been sunk since 2009, globally. Beyond the devastating loss of life—and I’d like to acknowledge the families of all those people who lost their lives—I want to acknowledge the fact that the sinking highlighted the concerns and the risks the trade posed to animal welfare.

Rather than initiate the decision to ban the trade, the sinking highlighted the concerns and the risks the trade poses to animal welfare. Since the Gulf Livestock 1 sank, an eighth livestock vessel, the Al Badri 1, has also sunk, this time off the coast of Sudan. This sinking resulted in the death of over 15,000 sheep. The regular occurrence of such tragedies has the potential to inflict lasting damage to New Zealand’s reputation in trade, no matter how high we set animal welfare standards for the voyages and everyone’s best efforts. The regulatory impact statement from the Ministry for Primary Industries acknowledges that risks associated with this trade are real and that there are limitations to our control over animals’ welfare once they are loaded on the boat and leave this country.

On 14 April 2021, I announced the Government’s decision to ban the export of cattle, deer, goats, and sheep by ship, with a transition period of up to two years. In announcing the proposed ban of livestock exports by sea, Cabinet considered several factors when making their decision, including animal welfare performance, trade, reputational impacts, and economic opportunities and risks. Decisions like this involve a number of technical aspects as well as values-based judgments. At the heart of our decision is upholding New Zealand’s reputation for high standards of animal welfare.

I continue to acknowledge the economic benefit some get from the trade, but support for it is not universal. There are different opinions on its long-term value among farmers, how it affects New Zealand’s commitment to animal welfare, and our image in the eyes of international consumers. I acknowledge that those involved in the trade have made improvements over recent years, but the long voyage times and the journey through the tropics to the Northern Hemisphere, which is often the case for these markets, will always impose animal welfare challenges. Despite the best efforts of industry and the Ministry for Primary Industries, as well as any regulatory measures that we could put in place, as long as the trade continues, the risk to animal welfare and our reputation will remain. We’ve also seen an increase in consumer focus on perceptions of animal welfare in a number of markets, such as the United States, the EU, and the UK. With these market-led insights in mind, recurrent negative animal welfare incidents and reports could inflict lasting damage on New Zealand’s reputation.

I acknowledge that demand for livestock exports by sea has increased over recent years; however, they still only amount to approximately 0.2 percent of our primary sector export revenues since 2015. The Government has set a two-year transition period for the trade, which will end on 30 April 2023. This allows stakeholders and our trading partners time to adopt alternative options and to give those farmers and others involved in the trade enough time to change their business models. We recognise the importance that our relationships with our international partners have and have discussed the decision to ban livestock exports by sea with them. They are aware of why we’ve come to this decision, and I’m informed that most of the other affected parties—exporters, farmers, trading partners, and importers—are aware of the ban and understand the intent of the transition period.

During the transition period, we are continuing with improvements being made to the trade. Following the loss of Gulf Livestock 1 and the independent Heron review, a series of recommendations were implemented immediately, and longer-term improvements have been made and will continue to be implemented as part of the livestock exports continuous improvement work programme.

New Zealand needs to stay at the forefront to maintain its reputation as an exporter with high standards of animal welfare. Our commitment to these high standards has already shown its value when animal welfare discussions have been brought up in successfully concluded free-trade agreement negotiations with both the United Kingdom and with the European Union. 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, ethical producer of high-quality products.

I’d just like, in conclusion, to say that this is a significant step forward for New Zealand. We are seeing around the globe other countries considering the same ban. We are at the bottom of the Pacific, where travel times are longer than for most, from pretty much every other country, perhaps other than Chile—again, where a bill has been talked about to ban exports. We are keeping ahead of the curve. The reputation that we have for the finest quality food and fibre nutrition into the world markets, generated by our forebears, must be maintained by us into the future. And, in a world where consumers and supermarkets and everyone are looking at animal welfare standards and animal protein, we have to ensure that we produce the best, for the best, with the best systems, and the best values.

New Zealand can indeed aspire to be, and deliver on being, the best country for the world, supported by the best farmers in the world, with the best systems in the world. I therefore, on that note, commend the bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. First up, I would like to acknowledge the loss of life that happened with the sinking of Gulf Livestock 1. It’s often something that’s forgotten in this whole debate. Always, often when we speak about this, I think about those families that have lost family members. Now, while at the front end of this, I wouldn’t disagree with a lot of the words that the Minister used when he made the speech preceding mine around the highest standards of animal welfare and the opportunities we have to show that to other countries in the world. However, when we had the select committee during this process, we actually saw some pretty good gold-standard opportunities to do this in this very industry. That, I think, is what is really disappointing. We saw a range, and we actually saw some quite horrific options, which we also believe should never have seen the opportunity to be able to export animals. But what I will say is that the industry came along and they supported in good faith the select committee process. We do have a very good Primary Production Committee under the chairmanship of Jo Luxton, and I have to say that the committee worked well together, but National is very disappointed that nothing that the submitters said during this process was able to change any of the dynamics of the bill as it went forward.

While the Minister says that it’s only 0.2 percent of our exports, and it sounds like a very little matter for New Zealand, this matter is a very big matter for those people who are currently in the live export trade business. It’s not a little matter to them, and it feels a little bit like it’s been diminished because it’s only a small part of our wonderful opportunity to export and show the world what we do. So I’d like to say we were very disappointed on this side of the House with the result of the select committee—not so much the process, because as I say, it’s a very good committee to work in.

I think one of the things that the Minister’s missing in this—well, there’s a few things that the Minister is missing in this, actually, but one of them was the quote from him saying that “it’s putting our international reputation in the hands of a small number of people who are trading livestock, and in my view was not worth the risk, which is why we are proceeding with this legislation.” Now, time and time again, I have asked the Minister what evidence he has brought to bear—and he did mention a couple of conversations that he had throughout the trade deals recently—but I’ve asked what evidence the Minister based this decision on, because what has been shown in the regulatory impact statement was that up to the point of looking at this decision and the sinking of the Gulf Livestock 1, there was very little evidence and there wasn’t a whole lot of data from the Ministry for Primary Industries to show the variation in this business, to show exactly how good the gold-standard people are, or to show quite how bad the others were. It took a tragedy to bring a lot of that to life.

I believe that the Ministry for Primary Industries have done a lot of work on that since, and that’s where it came down to the recommendation of a couple of options: whether it be a ban on the livestock export or whether it be continuing livestock export but with stronger regulatory and non-regulatory interventions—a consolidation of some of the options that were put up originally. We do notice that the Ministry for Primary Industries initially went one way and said, “Actually, we think that better regulation would be the option that we would be able to take on with this.” But it just seems that they did a turn on the way through. Obviously, Cabinet made a decision that they wanted the ban to happen. Unfortunately, anything that was said about the other option, with stronger regulation, from that point on wasn’t taken into account.

So the Minister hasn’t really given any evidence as to why this couldn’t be improved with a stronger regulatory system. The industry is up for it. They’ve asked for it. I think the biggest disappointment in all of this is particularly around the timing of it, because we’ve got a challenge in our livestock industries that we need to solve, and that is around bobby calves. Bobby calves is one of those—you know, to have milk or to have animals, we need animals to calve, and we have surplus animals and we don’t need them all. Unfortunately, people do not like to see four-day-old calves going to bobby. So a lot of these calves were actually being grown, put on the ships, and actually exported for a better life. That came into the debate quite a lot as we went through the select committee process as well, because there seemed to be a lot of suspicion about some of the places that we were exporting these animals to. But we also got some very good presentations at great lengths from the other end of the supply chain to show that these animals were being well looked after. I have to scratch my head with anyone having the suggestion that they may not be looked after, because these animals were actually worth good money. It might be 0.2 percent of what we trade, but actually, these animals were worth good money and I can’t imagine why anybody at the other end of the supply chain would pay such good money for an animal that they had no intention of looking after.

So I just want to mention a couple of quotes here from people during the select committee process. One of them was Mark Willis, the chairman of Livestock Export New Zealand, who said his organisation had created the so-called gold standard, a leading welfare assurance programme that he wanted to see implemented. It’s a high-level risk mitigation document. We saw a lot of evidence about putting an extra five days’ worth of food supplies on boats in case there was a hold-up. And let’s face it, most of us saw the conditions that Gulf Livestock 1 sank in, and it should never have been in that situation. They’re putting extra food on these boats to make sure that if they do get into a situation where they couldn’t cross a certain area due to rough seas, that they had enough feed for the animals. Mr Willis said that rather than banning exports, he called on the Government to create the appropriate regulatory framework to ensure the standard was adhered to. No one’s arguing with that, because it’s extremely important. What he said at the time, and from what we’ve seen in the regulatory impact statement, the lack of regulation rather than the export trade has actually been the issue.

Another submitter, David Lindsay of Gladvale Farms, said the ban would be pretty significant as the export market has proved to be a very good, important outlet for our unrequired calves, which was actually the issue that I just brought up a moment ago. Not only that, but profits made from exporting animals have been reinvested back into the business. And according to Lindsay, Gladvale’s turnover from the export trade is more than a million dollars a year. So for some businesses, that is very significant. But I also remember a submission from a person from Northland who talked about the effects of jobs in their local communities. That a lot of employment is actually not just the shipowners but the employment of the people in the local communities was expressed during the time that we went through this select committee process.

So we at National see this bill is a kneejerk reaction to a maritime disaster. It was actually a maritime disaster that caused this, not the industry’s inability to hold up and carry out this trade in a fashion which supports our animal welfare. A survey has been done—and I’m probably going to say this word wrong—but the Voconiq survey was done amongst a wide range of New Zealanders, and over 60 percent of the community members preferred to increase the animal welfare standard for live export instead of prohibition.

So on this side of the House, National are always looking about how we can make improvements, and taxing and banning things is not the way to get improvements with either our industries or our country. I think we’re better than that. I think that we can actually sit down and work out processes to make things better without feeling like we have to turn around and ban things because a few people say they don’t like them. You know, there were a lot of form submitters, but the ones who came in the room gave us a very good example around how they could do gold standard. We do not support this piece of legislation. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. Otirā, e nga mema katoa e te Whare nei, tēnā koutou katoa. I’m pleased to talk on the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill in its third and final reading. Can I, too, add my condolences to those that lost their lives tragically with the sinking of Gulf Livestock 1. As a result, the Heron and Tony Parr reports looked into our live exports and the Government has made a decision, weighing up the options, to ban live export.

I just want to raise a couple of issues as the Minister responsible for animal welfare. My own independent advisory group, the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee, also asked for live exports to be banned, and they are charged with—both scientists and veterinarians on that working committee—giving independent animal welfare advice to the Government of the day. So they asked for it. But, more importantly, in acknowledging the former speaker as a member of the Primary Production Committee, of which I am not a member, I do want to acknowledge all members on the Primary Production Committee, particularly led by Jo Luxton, our chair, in hearing the various views. And they were mixed views, according to the select committee report that has come back to the House. There were definitely those that wanted it to remain, and there was reference around the gold standard.

There were also those submitters that said we should move a lot earlier than the two-year transition period that we’re giving, that this bill would enable. And as the Minister responsible for agriculture and trade, who has been at the forefront of these new free-trade agreements that we have formed, animal welfare is an enormous consideration for those countries that we trade with. So it is a reputational risk that we’re dealing with here and we are putting our primary industries to the forefront because we acknowledge that we are some of the best farmers in the world.

But, more importantly, is the role of our animals here. I want to talk about, to members in this House—and it was a maritime issue, but we can’t lose sight that putting livestock in ships in Aotearoa New Zealand to generally go to the northern hemisphere, of days in pens and whatnot, cannot be good for the animal; it cannot be good. I want to say, despite some of the changes that the exporters could make on ships, by reducing numbers, by putting veterinarians in—I’m well aware of that—ultimately, they are in a stall and they are sentient animals. For members here: look in the Animal Welfare Act. They do actually have feelings. Just imagine putting animals on a 10, 20, 30-hour trip by sea—it cannot be good for their welfare. And so it is very clear that putting animals in a ship and shipping them for long distances is not good for the animal.

But more importantly, what this bill is doing is addressing and protecting our well-regarded reputation as some of the best farmers internationally. Having returned back from both India and also from Singapore—we are well regarded, but we cannot get ahead of ourselves and we’ve got to stay ahead of the expectations that we are not only good producers of food, safe producers of food, but we look after our natural environment, we look after our people, and, more importantly, we look after our animals.

So, with that small contribution, I commend the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill to the House.

💬 Jo Luxton: Mr Speaker.

Tim van de Molen: Sorry, Mr Speaker.

Tim van de Molen.

Tim van de Molen: Thank you, Mr Speaker.

The lucky Tim van de Molen.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, this bill is a bit of an overreaction and we’ve heard some of the reasons for it; obviously coming originally from the tragedy of the sinking of the Gulf Livestock 1, which was a horrific accident and no one wants to see a repeat of that. But ultimately, where we’ve got to with this piece of legislation is far above and beyond what we needed to see. Ultimately, a number of changes could have been made to look at improving the specific animal welfare concerns. I would note that, obviously in that instance—the sinking of that vessel—there was loss of all the livestock on board and, of course, the human loss of life as well, which was terrible. But actually, in most of these situations, the animal welfare standards are good. The loss of animal life on vessels is minimal—very low; about 0.1 percent—and often animal condition improves over the course of the journey. So on that basis it’s a little bit hard to understand exactly what the challenge is that we’re trying to fix.

Of course, I’m very proud to be a part of the food and fibre sector in New Zealand, and we have a fantastic history of continuing to innovate, to evolve, to adapt, to improve our way of operating. I think if we look at how we farm now, it’s certainly a lot better than 10, 20, 50 years ago, because those practices have continued to improve and I’m confident that will be the case going forward as well. On that basis, when we look at the opportunity for improvement, that’s something that we continually test ourselves against: how could we do this better? What might be different if we were to adapt our practices? And part of that, of course, is led by the market expectations, and that’s as well it should be, because if our customers in the many export markets that we have around the world are saying that they do or don’t want a particular practice to occur, then our opportunity is to respond to that, to either capture additional sales into that market or to gain additional revenue by adhering to better practices than other competitors perhaps may do.

These are just some of the natural mechanisms of how markets operate. We don’t actually need the Government to come in with their heavy hand every time and tell us how best to do it. That just seems to be what we’re seeing time and time again in this House, and particularly over the last week or so with some of the bills that I’ve been speaking on: the DIRA bill last week, the Deposit Takers Bill yesterday, the Fisheries Amendment Bill are all examples, as well as this bill now, where the Government is imposing additional impositions in terms of cost, in terms of control that is not necessarily required to actually achieve improved outcomes. They just don’t have confidence that businesses or the market can actually evolve and adapt. I guess that’s a difference that we have on this side of the House, where we do trust those players to do the right thing, to continually look for the opportunity to improve their business practice and to capture additional value off the back of that.

Now, we actually saw that through the regulatory impact statement for this Animal Welfare Amendment Bill, suggesting that—from the Ministry for Primary Industries—one of the potential options was to just focus on enhancing those animal welfare standards. And that’s certainly something that we have said we are quite open to. We are very much aware that there are continual areas where things can be improved, and so that would be an avenue that we could do better on. The contrast here is that actually if we stop this altogether—as is being proposed here, as will come into effect now—we’re going to end up with an issue where we have a lot of additional stock in New Zealand, and what happens to those? So the current bobby calf market is the issue that, in my mind, is a bigger one in the global context when you look at the consumer’s expectations around sustainability, around animal welfare, their perception of those things, and also wanting to have a good food experience when they’re making their purchasing decisions. There could rightly be some concerns around what has been a traditional part of our dairy sector for many years but is getting increasing pressure to evolve as well.

This bill exacerbates that issue by stopping the export opportunity. It means that there will be more animals sent on the bobby trucks instead, and that seems counter-productive in terms of the New Zealand brand in the global context. And that is ultimately what we are looking at here as well, is how do we enhance that brand? We are very much an export-oriented nation. We export some 95-odd percent of what we produce, from a food and fibre perspective, here in New Zealand. We need to make sure that we are doing everything we can to capture the most value for those products in the markets that we export to, and, indeed, to create additional market opportunities where we can as well.

Now, it’s a little bit like what we’re seeing in the pork industry too, where we already import 60-odd percent of our pork consumed in New Zealand, and here we are with the Government looking to create even harsher restrictions on the pork sector, which will lead to even more imported pork from countries that don’t have the same animal welfare standards as us. And that, again, is just a simply perverse outcome and just shows that we aren’t seeing a Government going to that next step of thinking around what are the unintended or even expected consequences of making some of these changes. It’s not necessarily rocket science; some of these are pretty clear outcomes that we would expect if a change—such as has been put forward here, or in the pork industry—is experienced, then of course you’re going to see some of those aspects coming through.

Sadly, there’s a number of farmers in my Waikato electorate that have experienced significant economic gain from being able to partake in the export of live animals, and often it’s some of those younger farmers, sharemilkers, or farm owners. It’s a little bit of an opportunity to capture some additional revenue when things might be a bit tough, by looking at the export trade. Now, depending on breed—it’s not for every farmer, of course, but there are opportunities there, and we’ve seen estimates of up to half a billion dollars’ worth of contribution to our economy. Now, every dollar we can get at the moment is going to help us. Times are tough for a lot of businesses, and we continue to see these cost impositions; the cost of living crisis, obviously, but on-farm you look at things like fuel prices, fertiliser prices, energy prices, the cost of labour if you can find labour, all of these areas are really putting pressure on the bottom line of farmers. Thankfully, we’ve had a very good pay-out announced by Fonterra last week. The dairy sector has been doing well, but that is a pay-out level that is needed at the moment to sustain businesses with the massive costs that they are experiencing. So taking away the opportunity for another half a billion dollars’ worth of revenue for our dairy sector is a disappointing outcome, and it’s one that we don’t support, unfortunately.

Also, I’m really disappointed with the way the process was managed in terms of the time for submitters and the, I guess, value placed on their thoughts and processes as well. We heard a wide range of different views in support, and in opposition, to this bill. Yet we saw Government, again, had an ideological view—didn’t even listen to the Ministry for Primary Industries’ view in the regulatory impact statement, or any of the submitters, and said, “This is just what we’re doing and we’re getting on with it.” On that basis, it just again reiterates the arrogance of a Government that refuses to listen to everyday New Zealanders and to really understand the issues that matter, and to create better outcomes as a result.

So look, on that basis, we don’t support the bill. We would have loved to have seen some practical changes made, to continually evolve, looking for that constant improvement, as we do in most areas of business, and certainly in the food and fibre space we’ve continually strived for excellence. This would have been an opportunity to take that to the next level, to really demonstrate that we are still connecting with our markets around the world, but actually, at the same time, we are very aware of changing perceptions, changing requirements, and constantly looking to make our sector even better than it already is. We are at the cutting edge. We are world leaders in terms of animal welfare, in terms of low emissions, in terms of any number of metrics in our amazing food and fibre sector. This is a missed opportunity, and unfortunately it’s taking revenue out of our economy at a time when we need to be growing our economy, increasing our productivity. When you look at some of the productivity stats, we’re well below the OECD average now for productivity. We used to be right at the top of that. So we’re in a continual trend downwards and we’re not seeing enough support, certainly over the course of this Government, looking at supporting business to get on and make things happen.

So look, we don’t support this bill. It’s unfortunately an overreaction to what was a terrible tragedy, and, on that basis, we would have much rather seen changes. This is where we are now, unfortunately, from a Government that doesn’t listen to the food and fibre sector and New Zealand will be worse off as a result.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m pleased to take a call on this piece of legislation as the chair of the Primary Production Committee who oversaw the submissions to this bill. Can I just acknowledge my fellow select committee members; we work very well together as a select committee. But this is one piece of legislation where, although we worked well together, we did not necessarily agree on the outcome of it. It is true, as the previous speaker, Tim van de Molen, has said, we heard a wide-ranging view of opinions from submitters—some in support, some against. But there is no doubt that some of the things that we saw and heard were absolutely horrific. And whilst many of those involved in the live export business do their best to ensure that the animals are kept in hygienic and good standards, that is not true for all. So there is no denying that some of the things we saw when animals, particularly—whilst there may not have been many deaths, there is certainly a lot of suffering that goes on. Especially as animals cross that equator and the heat, the noise, the lack of fresh air—some of what we heard was pretty, pretty awful.

It is also true, obviously, this afternoon we heard from the Minister who talked about the fact that other countries are now starting to have these conversations and consider whether this is legislation that they should think about bringing in. And so I say to the House today, this is actually also about us as a country with the world’s best farmers here in New Zealand showing leadership. So we’re not fast followers; we are leaders. I think that’s very, very important, particularly when it comes to our trade opportunities. We have consumers around the world who are becoming more and more focused and interested in where their food comes from, how it is grown, how it is kept, the labour that goes in behind rearing food, etc.—growing food. So I have no hesitation in absolutely commending this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party to speak in support of the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. Like other speakers, I want to begin by noting the tragic sinking of the Gulf Livestock 1 in September 2020 and acknowledging the lives that were lost in that event.

I want to also acknowledge our past and present animal welfare spokespeople who have long campaigned on these issues, such as Mojo Mathers, Gareth Hughes, who campaigned last term to end live exports by sea, and Chlöe Swarbrick, who is our current spokesperson on the issue. I hope to do them justice in this speech.

This bill is about putting animal welfare in the spotlight and acknowledging that profit cannot be the only consideration that we take when it comes to how we regulate any industry. We’ve known for years that there are serious issues with the welfare of the animals that are transported on live exports, as well as the welfare of the workers who are part of that industry. That has been made visible by activists, by the use of hidden cameras as they’ve exposed these awful situations.

It’s worth noting that in 2020, we live exported over 2 million day-old chickens and over 100,000 cows. In 2008, the then Government ended live exports for slaughter on the basis that we couldn’t control what happened in terms of animal welfare at the point of slaughter, when animals went overseas, and then we somehow weirdly retained live exports for breeding. So it has been settled for more than a decade that we can’t control what happens to animal welfare when it comes to slaughter in other jurisdictions. That logic extends to how we cannot control animal welfare for breeding in other jurisdictions, which is why this bill is so important.

It’s also worth taking into account that it is basically impossible to actually monitor whether those animals are actually going to be slaughtered or bred after being exported to other jurisdictions. So it is not logically a tenuous distinction, but it is also impossible to enforce.

But this is more than just what happens to those animals when they’re overseas. It’s about the fact that the live export process via sea is traumatic and also dangerous. I also want to note that this bill, in fact, captures only a portion of live exports. Live exports by sea represent only about 0.2 percent of New Zealand’s primary sector export revenue since 2015.

The phase-out period of two years is problematic, something that we have noted in the past, that activists have also noted in the past, and said is way too long. Hundreds of thousands of animals have been and will be exported and therefore suffer in that time. So when this House has acknowledged that live export by sea is an issue, and then we create a long phasing-in period of this policy, we are accepting that people and animals will suffer as a result during this period.

I also want to acknowledge that this bill will only be banning the live exports of cattle, deer, sheep, and goats by sea. It won’t include things like longfin eels, which my colleague Eugenie Sage put a Supplementary Order Paper in to try and include into this legislation, and was unfortunately voted down. It also does not include exports by air.

It is clear that our work continues in this area, and as activists have supported putting this issue on the spotlight into legislation, I also note that they will be also pushing to expand the remit of the considerations we take when it comes to animal welfare and the live export part of our industry. Again, it is critical that the way in which we relate to food production isn’t one just driven by profit. We have to take into account our relationship to the environment in which food is grown and the welfare of the animals which, ultimately, will be exported for consumption. So with that, we’re happy to support this bill and will continue working to strengthen our animal welfare legislation. Kia ora.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to speak to the third reading of the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. Well, here we go again rural New Zealand: ideological meanderings of a Minister at the behest of a Government that has failed to define the problem. This bill is predicated on animal welfare, and yet, the reality is, that was at the back of the tragic sinking of the Gulf Livestock 1. How do we reconcile this in rural New Zealand? It’s bereft of common sense. This earns, for rural communities, somewhere in the vicinity of—in 2021 to 2022—$261 million. Now, just to conceptualise that—I don’t know what the good people in the House may or may not earn—that’s an average of $49,000 to $116,000 per farm, of the up to 2,900 farms that used it. I wager anyone, this is half a billion dollars out of rural communities, and Barbara Kuriger brought it up before local communities. This employs thousands of people.

I met an individual—to the members on the other side of the House—who’d spent a million dollars on a truck just for this trade. Gone. How do you reconcile that when you’re sitting there, when the average farm has lost over a hundred grand? Because I can’t. And I can’t sell it to them. Two hundred and sixty one million dollars—potentially, $475 million north.

Fuel has gone up in rural New Zealand 30 to 40 percent. I’m an owner-operator of a dairy farm, I know I’m paying significantly more for that. And yet, here we go, an ideological piece of legislation. Food’s gone up, but let’s talk about urea—100 percent. She shakes her hands but she’s certainly not a farmer—100 percent in urea. Reconcile that when you’re trying to operate a business with ever more legislation confronting the primary sector. This blurs the lines between the tragic sinking of a ship and animal welfare.

In transit, it was canvassed—these animals were putting on half a condition score. And I know the members over there don’t know what that means; it’s 25 kilos per 50 in transit. In 16 to 18 days—that’s significant. Most New Zealand farms struggle to do that in the best growing months of the year. And yet here we go. Fifteen percent to 20 percent of the shipping capacity was minimised to give these livestock more area, as suggested by the Ministry for Primary Industries—the Minister’s own officials weren’t listened to. Mike Heron wasn’t listened to. Why are we not adopting a gold standard? Common sense prevails. This is half a billion bucks gone. We’re in a cost of living crisis. Every day, that side of the House evangelises all the good things the rural community is doing, but it’s really good at taking a pot shot. This is another one—turning off an industry that this rural community, that I’m part of, uses every year.

As a capsule, if I can just tie off, to reconcile how ideological this is, 150,000-odd—135,000 to 150,000—extra bobby calves, four days old, gone. How do we reconcile that when most of these animals were actually going overseas for breeding stock? So the gentleman—it was on my left—is absolutely wrong. Most of these animals are being sold for breeding animals. They don’t have a sunset or horizon in two years; they’re potentially going to China for 10. Straight away, again, we speak to the ideology that is in this piece of legislation. ACT will absolutely be voting against this bill.

It is my pleasure to rise and take a call on this bill. I want to thank the Minister for his leadership in this space, particularly because what we know from the evidence coming in from overseas that the markets we export to—the markets our farmers and food and fibre sector producers are reliant on—want to see that we are maintaining the highest standards in the world. So that is why this bill is important, because what those markets that our farmers are reliant on have said to us is: “We don’t want to import your food if you cannot, hand on heart, produce evidence showing that you are leading the way in animal welfare.”, and our export markets are saying that this isn’t up to standard any more.

We’ve heard from the Opposition that there’s this gold standard, and yet the submitters who submitted to us couldn’t even agree on what a gold standard looks like. They pointed out that a lot of the boats that are used for exporting overseas are retrofitted. They’re not fit for purpose, they’re not suitable, and they do cause harm to the animals. Even if we didn’t pull out and try and put the pressure on to increase standards, they couldn’t assure us that the other countries wouldn’t come in and undercut us anyway.

So we need to be leaders in this space, set the bar high, and say that we are not prepared to put our animals at risk any more. Our farmers will continue to be supported and they will continue to be world leaders, and I back them and our export markets. That’s why I commend this bill to the House.

This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. today.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 12.55 p.m. (Wednesday)