Whaitiri Meka: Animal Welfare Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWhaitiri Meka: Animal Welfare Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 26 November 2014. Volume:702;Page:903. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā tātou katoa e te Whare nei. It is my honour to get up and take a call on the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. Clearly Labour supports the second reading of this important bill. Animal welfare is important for its own sake and for preserving the good image of New Zealand as an ethical food producer. The bill attempts to improve and strengthen the animal welfare system in New Zealand. Some will welcome the changes that have been incorporated in this second reading. Some may say this does not go far enough. But 68 percent of New Zealand households have at least one pet. I have a pet a 2½-year-old long-haired German Shepherd. Some people will say that my welfare and care of her is not the best given that I probably see her only one day out of seven so I do want to acknowledge my dad who walks her twice a day and feeds her while we are away doing other things. But in all seriousness each year 50 percent of our export earnings come from animals and animal products so our international reputation and marketing brand is absolutely critical. My senior colleague Damien O’Connor touched rather eloquently on the importance of making sure that our brand is protected particularly when we grow our market internationally.I too want to acknowledge the members of the Primary Production Committee who are no longer here. Their names have been mentioned. I myself joined the committee perhaps one month before this particular bill was introduced. I know from both pet owners and also exporters that the whole challenge in front of us is very vast to ensure that for animals be they pets or be they for export there is no doubt as to the way we treat them in terms of testing which has been raised by previous speakers. This is something that I take seriously and I know this House takes seriously.As to my own history of animal welfare in the commercial space I am the product of a shearing family and have been a rousie in a lot of the sheds up on the East Coast. A lot of the runs were very very lengthy—like 21 days. Those were the days when you started at 5 a.m. and worked until 5 p.m. They were 9½ hour days back in those days. There was fatigue with a lot of our shearers. I remember as a very young person after day 10 day 12 the images that I saw of our shearers nicking sheep—[Interruption] They were actually quite big nicks. Blood was not unusual and probably the longer you worked in the shearing shed the more likely you were to have sheep bleeding—and it raised a concern in me as a very young person. I did not know it was called animal welfare but that experience of seeing so many sheep bleeding in their pens really affected me. Of course we have all got stories and I am talking from a commercial point of view. For a lot of our people up on the East Coast that was our livelihood in terms of the shearing sheds. But the point around looking after our animals is that it was important because obviously they cannot talk for themselves. In a market where the wool and animal welfare is important I too want to ensure that we have a very good system. This bill has gone to the select committee and a number of the submissions made—and I agree with the Minister—have come back with a balanced view to ensure that we are protecting our reputation as a marketer of animals and animal products.I do want to take us down and look at the earlier contributions from our Labour colleagues. Of course now that you are in the seat Mr Assistant Speaker I was looking at your reference and that was around animal testing in terms of psychiatric drugs. I too want to add my weight. I acknowledge what the Minister has said around ensuring that we are not just using animals for testing when it comes to products. But I do want to support that we need to ensure that we keep a very close and watchful eye on that place so that animals are not subjected to the testing of psychiatric drugs and also cosmetics as has been mentioned earlier and that we explore—and I do acknowledge what the Minister said—all other non-living alternatives before we subject animals to any of that kind of testing. I want to put my support in to ensure that we make sure that the testing is robust before we allow animals to be subjected to testing to ensure that we protect animals in that sense. I want to acknowledge the work that you did Mr Assistant Speaker in terms of raising that through your Facebook page which got over 4000 hits in terms of animal testing. I want to acknowledge you for that and also the select committee for taking that on board in terms of the amendments that have been made.The other contribution from this side of the House raised by Mr O’Connor was around the lack of funding to monitor the changes in this bill in terms of the role of the Ministry for Primary Industries. I know there was an issue in the first reading of this bill around the ability of the ministry to do its job of monitoring and upholding the regulations that this bill is hoping to present. To the Minister who has introduced this bill for the second time I say that I am hoping that adequate funding is going towards the ministry to ensure that the monitoring and the upkeep under this bill will be maintained.Labour obviously wants to continue to encourage and work with all our New Zealand farm and producing groups to ensure that they take leadership on issues of animal welfare and that they are at the forefront of instituting appropriate animal welfare standards. We also continue to encourage labelling like my colleague Damien has already mentioned of animal products that create a commercial incentive to improve animal welfare standards. We will continue to introduce new codes in areas and for animals where this is appropriate. Further Labour supports the notion of a universal declaration on animal welfare. The declaration aims to achieve global consideration of the welfare of sentient animals and the recognition of animal welfare as an issue of importance as part of the social development of nations worldwide. We have a concern about the ability for regulations to allow mistreatment to continue past the commencement of this bill. We welcome the select committee’s change to close the loophole that would have allowed near perpetual extensions to one that allows a maximum of one extension of 5 years after the original 10-year period. There still could be more caution around these regulations however.Labour again supports this reading. We think on balance it has been well crafted. We look forward to the Committee stage and it being discussed in the House. I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora tātou.