Animal Welfare Amendment Bill
Speech Notes for the House
Jim Anderton MP

18 February 2010

In New Zealand we’ve always had a close connection both on a social and economic basis with animals.

Our economic success is based on animal-derived products.

But we are also proud of our ethical approach to the welfare of our animals.

We care about what happens to them, and we get upset when they are mistreated, whether on farms or in homes.

So I welcome this Bill today because it toughens up our ability to protect our animals and makes offenders pay for mistreatment.

But I’m not naive about the issues. Those whose incomes depend on animals can’t afford to be overly sentimental. They and we grow animals to provide food for New Zealanders and the rest of the world.

Starting out in the workforce in the fifties and sixties, I spent enough time in the freezing works of New Zealand to see a few things that would make us cringe today. It made me cringe even then.

But anyone working with animals or simply owning an animal can and should commit to acting humanely. And most people do.

This Bill doesn’t target the overwhelming majority of farmers, the producers and pet owners who work within the animal welfare guidelines. It targets the small minority who wilfully, recklessly or because of psychological impairment, mistreat animals.
It’s not hard to think of recent examples where animals are kept in inhumane conditions:

The sight of starving and neglected animals on our TV screen focuses everyone’s minds.

New Zealand’s niche in the world is that we are pure, clean and environmentally friendly.

In our markets consumers are becoming more and more demanding.

They are asking searching questions about issues like environmental responsibility. And they’re asking about animal health and welfare and the quality standards of our production processes.

The future for New Zealand’s primary exports will be in having the best answer to those questions we can possibly have.

There is no future in trying to compete on price alone against emerging low cost producers. We have to compete by guaranteeing the quality and value of our food production as a whole.

If we don’t meet the expectations of our customers - then we face potentially very damaging risks to our export base.

This Bill will make the Animal Welfare Act work better.

Increasing the penalty from three to five years shows that we take cruelty to animals seriously.

Introducing a new offence of ‘reckless ill-treatment’ of animals, alongside the existing ‘wilful ill-treatment’ will help us capture those who might otherwise not have reached the threshold for ‘wilful ill-treatment.’

But let’s be realistic; there’s no point in increasing the penalty if you don’t have people on the streets and in the fields to investigate the crime!

This government has already cut front-line staff in areas like biosecurity.

When the Hadda Beetle was found in Auckland recently - it wasn’t found by a biosecurity staffer.....It was found by a man walking his dog in an Auckland park!

So how does this government intend to police animal welfare?

MAF have exactly 5 full time staff to do animal investigations - plus 7 contractors.
The SPCA have about 100 staff who investigate animal welfare - on whom the government is heavily dependent to monitor breaches of the Animal Welfare Act - without paying anything towards their costs.

In 2008 I gave as Minister of Agriculture (through MAF) a $300,000 one-off grant – but I recognize it was no-where near enough.

When I was minister we set up with the Fast Forward Fund, which was a partnership between the private sector and government to fund research and development.

We had over $700 million in the bank, ready to fund research projects into areas like this.

For example - how do you measure animal welfare? It’s not always easy. Measuring how an animal ‘feels’ about its environment is awkward, at the very least.
In 2006, the chairman of the UK Farm Animal Welfare Council, Professor Christopher Wathes, came to New Zealand and asked - ‘how do we know whether animal welfare standards are being observed?’

When I was Minister I used to get a huge volume of letters into my office about animal welfare issues. It was clear to me then - and it still is today - that we have to be leaders, not only in animal welfare, but in measuring the standards of animal welfare.

We have to be leaders in the right techniques, as well as in the substantive results, of our measuring.

The Fast Forward Fund could have helped to deepen our research into animal welfare - and therefore improve the market position of our animal-based industries.
How is the National government going to find the right tools to measure animal welfare now?

It got rid of Fast Forward and replaced it with the Primary Growth Partnership which to date has funded precisely NO research projects.

And anyway, it only has $25 million in the kitty this year to do so.

I support this Bill because it’s ethically the right thing to do; but I question how this government intends to investigate the inevitable increase in complaints.

How is it going to equip vets, MAF staff or SPCA investigators to know when an animal is being mistreated?

Without that support, I fear this Bill will end up more as window dressing than providing the substance that a high quality animal welfare system in New Zealand will require.

ENDS

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