Animal Welfare (Regulations for Management of Pigs) Amendment Bill

Members, we now come to clauses 1 to 3. Before I take the first call, can I just point out to members that my observation during the morning is that there is a tendency to use the questioning time in the committee of the whole House to make five-minute speeches with very little attempt to interrogate the Minister. I’m looking for some very targeted questions, obviously in context. Please, try and keep your questions targeted at the work that we’ve got in front of us. I will clearly be making this point relevant as things progress. The five minutes is not a target.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Now, I do note that clause 1 is, by convention and Standing Orders, a broad debate where we do discuss the title of this bill, and so it is appropriate that we talk specifically around the title of this bill and what is the most appropriate title for this shocker of a bill from this shocker of a Government.

A couple of months ago, the Minister trumpeted his great announcement that this Government was going to improve the animal welfare for pigs. Isn’t that wonderful—isn’t that wonderful? The title of this bill as set down in the House is the Animal Welfare (Regulations for Management of Pigs) Amendment Bill. Doesn’t that sound straightforward?

But I have an amendment on the Table today, saying clearly what is on the tin. It is a clear description of this bill, and that is that this should be called the “Animal Welfare (Regulations for Delaying Animal Welfare Improvements for Pigs) Amendment Bill”, because that is what this bill does. That’s what it should say. The bill should clearly state what this bill actually achieves, and that is a 10-year delay to improvements in animal welfare.

Now, the Associate Minister of Agriculture has made one small change through an Amendment Paper, which is to bring the improvements for mating stalls for pigs through to one year instead of 10, and we on this side of the House in the Labour Party do support that. But the small improvements for pigs inside farrowing crates and the small improvements for grower pigs in their confined spaces are not going to take effect for 10 years—10 whole years.

Now, to bring this debate back to the very beginning, two years ago, when the Minister became the Minister, the work had been done by the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee. The work had been done by the Ministry for Primary Industries. The Labour Government had overseen the consultation work required to get some agreement and to get some improvements.

Now, the Minister, instead of doing that work, putting that into legislation perhaps a year ago, so that we could have looked at it and spent six months looking at it at the Primary Production Committee and come up with some compromises and come up with some improvements and perhaps had a transitional time frame that was reasonable—instead of doing that, the Minister introduced this bill right at the eleventh hour and has basically tried to say, “What a wonderful thing I’ve done here. What an amazing thing I’ve done.” Well, the public are speaking back and saying that this is not a wonderful thing. It is not a wonderful thing to see very minor improvements to animal welfare standards for pigs, and in 10 years’ time.

One of the changes I have proposed is for this bill to take effect in five years. I believe that a five-year time frame is an appropriate time frame that does give the industry time to do the changes and the investment, but it doesn’t confine animal welfare regulations for pigs to be delayed by such a long time frame. But I do believe that we need to be accurate about what this bill actually says when we describe it and so there are a number of title changes that I have put forward.

One of the other ones is the “Animal Welfare (Regulations for Harming Pigs) Amendment Bill”, because I believe and the Labour Party believes that what this bill does is allow pigs to continue to be harmed under animal welfare laws in New Zealand. The status quo will stay intact for the next 10 years for pigs confined to farrowing crates and for grower pigs in very small, confined spaces, they will also be harmed for a further 10 years.

It is not good enough, and it’s not surprising from a Government that has decided that animal welfare is not a priority. It’s a Government that has chosen to bring back live exports. It’s a Government that has decided to not do anything about dogs that are contained. It is a Government that has decided to side with industry instead of properly consulting with all stakeholders, such as the SPCA, to ensure that this can be lasting, enduring legislation. It harms pigs, it delays animal welfare for pigs, and we should change the title to actually reflect what the bill achieves.

Before I take a call on this, can I just say that my instruction at the beginning was quite clear. That was a five-minute speech very loosely related to the title.

Firstly, I just want to correct something there—

Rt Hon Adrian Rurawhe: Point of order. When the rules for debate in the committee of the whole House were changed, it is in a manner correct that it was changed to be able to have question and answer sessions. It’s my understanding that it did not rule out at all the ability for a member to stand and debate the part or clause. This is a House of debate. Members should have the opportunity, I believe, under those rules, to actually debate those clauses.

I wonder if the best way forward would be for the presiding officer to think about it, amongst all the others, I would suggest, especially the Speaker. I don’t want to recall the Speaker on a matter as such, but I do believe that my colleague Rachel Boyack was completely in order with her contribution to this debate.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): I appreciate the member’s experience in this position and in his previous position, but I did attempt at the beginning of this debate to make it clear that the committee of the whole House is about the bill and that speeches are reserved for readings one, two, and three. In the committee of the whole House, we’re interrogating the bill and making suggestions, and improving it where we can. Thank you for your contribution.

Arena Williams: Point of order, Madam Chair. This is a fresh point of order. It relates to Speakers’ ruling 127/3. You’ll note that in the report of the Standing Orders Committee in December 2003, it formalised the practice that, when debating the preliminary clauses at the end of a committee stage, the three ordinary preliminary clauses, particularly the title clause, would allow for a summarising of the political issues that have been discussed in the committee stage and the broader policy issues to do with the bill. It means, effectively, that that is the only clause where the committee stage allows for that more wide-ranging debate. I just want you to clarify: are you making a ruling that circumvents the ruling of Chairperson Tisch in 2015 and Chairperson Robertson in 2004, and Chairperson Hartley in 2004?

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): No.

Hon ANDREW HOGGARD: Thank you, Madam Chair. Just firstly, I can’t let that comment around dogs go unanswered. This Government actually acted on that. The previous Government had spent three years dithering around what to do around chained dogs. It did absolutely nothing; we did something.

In terms of the title and commencement, I know everyone wants to have some fun, but I won’t be changing the title or the commencement date, although the “Piglet Lives Matter Bill” did appeal to me at one time, so did “Bringing Home the Bacon”, but we’ll just stick with what’s on the title.

I had not intended to speak on the title and commencement clauses until just very recently. I’m pretty astonished that my colleague the former Speaker of this House had to stand up, and that actually matters. It’s an extraordinary thing.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): And this is relevant to the title?

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Yes, indeed. It’s an extraordinary thing for a former Speaker to stand up and take a point of order, and it needs to be taken notice of. To that end, then, I intend, after all, to offer a suggestion for the title and commencement. I would not have done this otherwise, but I do feel the need to do so now. I’m sure my other colleagues, in the Green Party, have suggestions to offer as well.

My suggestion is quite straightforward, and it is about what this bill is about. The bill is not about animal welfare. In fact, it extends the time in which pigs can be kept in really confined quarters. It pushes out the time for improvements by 10 years, and this was done without consultation with the SPCA, done without consultation with New Zealand consumers, done without any reason given whatsoever, except that it happened to suit pork farmers. In fact, it was all about saving their bacon. In that context, I intend to stand up and bring to the committee’s attention an excellent tabled amendment presented by my colleague Rachel Boyack, who has worked extraordinarily hard on this bill and, unlike the Minister, has actually done a lot of consultation—broadly, not just with the industry.

My colleague Rachel has put together a tabled amendment, and it suggests that, instead of calling this the Animal Welfare (Regulations for Management of Pigs) Amendment Bill, we replace “(Regulations for Management of Pigs)” with “(Regulations for Harming Pigs)”. That’s one of the amendments she has suggested. Another one she has suggested, and this is the one I really like, is replacing “(Regulations for Management of Pigs)” with “(Save My Bacon)”, because that is what this bill does. It is extraordinary that the Associate Minister of Agriculture could sit there and pretend this was about animal welfare. It is not about animal welfare. There is so much that could have been done in this space to improve the welfare of animals. Instead, what it has done is push out the time frame for when we were going to bring in regulations to ensure that pigs were treated better.

If the Minister was worried about the fact that that would raise prices for New Zealand pork farmers, perhaps he could have considered putting in regulations that insisted that the pork that is imported comes from countries that have similar standards. That would have been worth debating, would have been worth considering, would have had a whole lot of things to; instead, he’s just acted quite unilaterally and acted in a way that only preserves these cruel regulations for longer in an effort to save the bacon of the pork industry. That is the amendment, and I think it would be a much better title for this bill, because at least it would be honest.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I also have some suggestions for the title of the bill.

One of the things that we got very clear feedback on in the committee was the extent to which people who were deeply concerned about the welfare of pigs felt that the determinations made by the Associate Minister of Agriculture in this bill actually backtracked on the trajectory that our nation was on around prohibiting sow stalls, around the decision of the High Court to recognise farrowing crates as unlawful, and an expectation that we, in New Zealand, were on a step away from the caging of pigs. On Tuesday morning, along with Rachel Boyack, I attended the protest, or the gathering of Helping You Help Animals (HUHA), the SPCA, and Save Animals from Exploitation, and one of the signs that HUHA produced was a clever play on “farrowing crate”: “Harrowing Fate”. [Holds up sign]

Todd Stephenson: Point of order, Madam Chairperson. Slogans aren’t allowed to be displayed in the Chamber as part of a visual.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): It’s political insignia, maybe.

STEVE ABEL: “Political insignia”?

Todd Stephenson: No, there is actually a Standing Order about political slogans, and a Speaker’s ruling.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: Speaking to that point of order—thank you, Madam Chair. I believe that the Speaker’s ruling that has been made by the Speaker on this very issue covers attire, but it does not cover signage. I think there is a very clear Speakers’ ruling and also Standing Orders regarding the display of things, and the criteria is that it must not obscure, for one, the person who is sitting behind, but it is not necessarily in terms of the content and wording.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Thank you for that explanation. It is being used as a visual aid for his speech, and so I will let the member continue.

STEVE ABEL: Thank you, Madam Chair.

Todd Stephenson: Speaking to the point of order, I would refer you to Standing Order 113, and then the Speakers’ rulings related to it. It’s quite clear that slogans cannot be visible from the floor of the House.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): No, I actually did have a ruling, which was that it was being used as a visual aid for his contribution at this point.

STEVE ABEL: I appreciate that, Madam Chair. That makes sense to me. This is not something that I’ve produced; it was something that I had got from an advocacy organisation, and it is entirely relevant to my contribution.

That articulation of just what a bad experience this is—I wonder if I have forfeited all my time on those points of order, Madam Chair, or whether there’s an opportunity for me to gain that time back?

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Yes, of course.

STEVE ABEL: Thank you. My contribution is around the extent to which the current title of the bill fails to capture the fact that this locks pigs into 10 more years of the status quo of that harrowing fate of being in a farrowing crate for five weeks at a time, and so I propose as one of my amendments that we should change the title of the bill from the Animal Welfare (Regulations for Management of Pigs) Amendment Bill to the “Animal Welfare (Regulations for Misery of Pigs) Amendment Bill”.

Furthermore, in the context of the extent to which the Minister’s decisions have been made based on considerations of the preferences of the pork industry, I believe that that is an abrogation of the Minister’s first duty, which is the welfare of animals. My second amendment, which is already tabled, is that the title of the bill should be changed to “Animal Welfare (Regulations for the Mismanagement of Pigs) Amendment Bill” because I believe that that is a more accurate expression of what this bill has the effect of doing.

Furthermore, the current title of the Animal Welfare (Regulations for Management of Pigs) Amendment Bill could more correctly be defined as the “Pork Industry Welfare Amendment Bill” because its priority seems to be the welfare of the pork industry itself. Whilst no one disagrees that that should be a legitimate consideration in how we effect the improvement of animal welfare, the focus on the industry’s preferences is disproportionate, and allowing the pork industry to determine the welfare of pigs is casting pearls to swine, you could say.

Miles Anderson: Oh, boom, boom!

STEVE ABEL: Boom, boom! I feel that the extent to which we have felt that there has not been full representation of the lack of engagement with the public and the animal welfare industry on this means that it could also be called the “Hogwash Bill”, as was the title in the Listener.

Finally, I think that what we really want to be seeing is a pork-farming system that’s free from cages, and. until such time as we see that, this legislation should be called the “Animal Welfare (Regulations for Misery of Pigs) Amendment Bill”. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Look, I won’t take too long, other than to actually challenge the title, because I think it is a legitimate question that the committee of the whole House should ask: whether it should be the “Pork Industry Transitional Arrangements Bill”? Because that is, in fact, what we are talking about here.

Animal welfare is, obviously, a focus of industry debate. We talked about whether it’s animal welfare or animal health, and, in fact, there will be many in the House, and across the board, that will be thinking that this is about animal health—saving a few piglets—not necessarily the welfare of the either the piglets or of the sow.

But if I can come back to the focus that—it’s not a long call but it is one around asking whether the Associate Minister of Agriculture had considered, and I guess he’s been challenged on a couple of other possible titles, whether it was, indeed, or should have been called the “Pork Industry Transitional Arrangements Bill” because that is, in fact, what we are doing here.

The question of whether it should be five years or whether it should be 10 years is one that, I think, will still be debated beyond the passage of this piece of legislation. It is occurring under urgency, and there hasn’t been, probably, the level of scrutiny that there might have been—should we have taken longer? Maybe the Minister wants to take a call and answer that question: should this have been or was it considered to be the “pork industry transitional arrangements” legislation?

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Steve Abel’s two tabled amendments to clause 1 are out of order as not being objective descriptions of the bill.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to Amendment Paper 471 amending clause 1 to delete “Regulations for” be agreed to.

Rachel Boyack’s three tabled amendments to clause 1 are out of order as not being objective descriptions of the bill.

Scott Willis’ two tabled amendments to clause 1 are out of order as not being objective descriptions of the bill.

Steve Abel’s amendments to clause 2 set out on Amendment Paper 463 are out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to Amendment Paper 471 amending clause 2 to change the commencement to 1 July 2026 be agreed to.

Mr Speaker, the committee has considered the Animal Welfare (Regulations for Management of Pigs) Amendment Bill and reports it with amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I raise a point of order regarding Speakers’ ruling 127/3. This committee stage included a debate between the former Speaker of the House and the Chairperson regarding the effect of the rulings, in 2004 and 2015, of three different Speakers about the preliminary clauses in the wide-ranging debate at the end of a session. It’s my view that this committee stage was curtailed because members were not given the latitude to summarise and make concluding remarks about the issues they raised in the consideration of this bill. We now have the confusing situation where a Chairperson has said “I have ruled”, and then, later, in response to a point of order, made the point that none of those previous Speakers’ rulings were overruled. Mr Speaker, can you clarify whether the Speakers’ rulings in 2004 or the 2015 ruling by Speaker Lindsay Tisch are overruled or not?

Just to clarify: the report has been received, and so, according to Standing Orders and the advice I’ve received, there is an opportunity after question time, I believe, after the House resumes; that is the appropriate time for this point of order, as I understood, because we’ve already voted on the report and the report has been adopted.

This bill is set down for third reading after question time. The House is suspended until 2 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 1.04 p.m. to 2 p.m.