Grigg NicolaNICOLA GRIGG (National—Selwyn): Sorry Mr Chair. I'm not particularly organised today. Look—Hon David Bennett: Better organised than the All Blacks.NICOLA GRIGG: I beg your pardon David Bennett; be quiet! Look thank you for this opportunity and I'm very much looking forward to Minister Damien O'Connor actually taking the chair himself because we've got a number of questions for him so hopefully in his absence the Minister that has stepped in will be able to—Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order. The member is not permitted to mention the absence of another member.CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Sorry did the member—I was otherwise focused; not focused rather. I think the member knows that she shouldn't do that.NICOLA GRIGG: Thank you Mr Chair. The title of this bill the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill—very lofty lofty words and lofty goal but I wonder if having sat on the Primary Production Committee throughout the duration of the consideration of this bill the Government was presented with an enormous amount of evidence that would prolong and improve the welfare provisions for live animals on shipments leaving New Zealand. A number of proposals were put to the Government seeking not to reinstate—Dr Duncan Webb: It's the title—title.Mark Cameron: Do you want to take a call?CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Carry on.NICOLA GRIGG: Thank you. It's nice to actually address the Chair. The title of this bill as I mentioned is the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill hence I'm focusing my comments this morning on the welfare of animals to the member for Christchurch Central who I don't think would actually understand what live exports entail let alone animal welfare. As I was referring the amount of submissions that were directed towards the Government during the Primary Production Committee hearings around this bill offered up multiple opportunities for the Government to take on science-based evidence-based fact-based experiential opportunities to improve the welfare standards for animals on ships or aeroplanes—particularly around ships—or any form of export leaving this country. Unfortunately as we discovered on the select committee it was a predetermined outcome and the Government was not prepared to listen to opportunities to improve the welfare of animals in this amendment bill. That's very unfortunate because the Government is now shutting down an industry that it claims is worth $261 million. Yet data just released from Infometrics shows it's closer to $420 million per annum in the short term. Regarding the welfare of the animals on the shipments we maintain on this side—having considered the evidence very deeply and negotiated and discussed with those businesses that are in the industry that are operating in this industry—there is an opportunity for New Zealand to improve its own welfare standards so that an Animal Welfare Amendment Bill would actually enable our industry our live export industry in New Zealand to be world leading. It's particularly unfortunate that the Government has sought to ignore the advice and the suggestions put up by the industry because we're going to have to deal with an issue of leakage now that this industry is likely to be shut down by April next year. At the moment animals spend about 18 days on a boat leaving New Zealand and we would contend on behalf of the industry that there is a real opportunity here to improve the welfare standards on these ships. We will discuss the opportunities to do that in later submissions to the House after this afternoon but I would like to ask the Minister whether or not given this is an Animal Welfare Amendment Bill he has actually considered the submissions given by the industry that would improve welfare standards on board some of those ships.CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Right. I'll deal with this straight away. Dr Webb constantly calling out as you did during that speech is unhelpful to the presiding officer because if I were to respond to it and even if I did think there was something wrong with the speech it would indicate to the House that I'm following instruction from the Government. That's not helpful. What I will say to members after two speeches: we are on the title. It's a very narrow debate and I want all members speaking to it to speak to the title not to debate the content of the bill.