O'Connor Damien: Animal Welfare Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Connor Damien: Animal Welfare Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 26 November 2014. Volume:702;Page:900. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman):It is always an honour to speak on any legislation. This is indeed—although this is probably not recognised—one of the most significant and important pieces of legislation this House has debated in the last couple of weeks at least! I jest but the issue is that primary industries and the rural sector still generate the largest portion of wealth created in this country. The use of animals or the management of them or the care of them—all of those things—are at the heart of our economy our reputation and our ability to survive into the future. We have as the Minister for Primary Industries has stated a good international reputation for animal welfare and it must continue.The reality is that through social media we now have an ability to spread good news or bad throughout the world in a very short period of time. One can say although not always agreeing with them that those people who are involved with animal welfare are perhaps some of the most passionate—sometimes misguided but well-meaning and passionate. If they want to spread a message you can guarantee it goes far and wide very very quickly.I have to acknowledge Shane Ardern who is not in the House today. He has moved on to greener pastures—he will be hoping so with a bit of rain up there in the King Country. He played a significant part in the Primary Production Committee for many many years and he guided this bill through. He had some firm views as a dairy farmer that we must not push too far into what you might call the domestic arena of animal welfare. He needed to have that because my colleague Trevor Mallard sat on the committee in place of myself for this piece of legislation.I will acknowledge the changes the Minister has outlined. They are all sensible changes and for the most part politics did not play a significant part in the passage of the legislation. Mojo Mathers on behalf of the Green Party contributed as well and there have been as I said Supplementary Order Papers put up.If we get this wrong we will pay dearly with our reputation in the international market place. As I said increasing levels of scrutiny and communication mean we cannot afford to get anything wrong. However I do point to an underlying and growing concern—and it is one driven I guess by animal rights groups rather than animal welfare groups—and that is that they start demanding some rights or protections for animals that in fact we do not see for humans. Personally I am someone who would like to ensure firstly that humans have the protection necessary to have fair lives to have lives free of abuse and of harm and of hurt. So this bill tries to find the balance between what realistic management is and what is inevitable in any animal management regime.Of course the bill does not specify the details that many people wanted to submit on and that many people will still be concerned about. Those will be dealt with through regulations that will be developed as a result of the legislation. I am sure that MPs will be lobbied as the Ministry for Primary Industries moves forward to develop the regulations from this piece of legislation.One thing that is connected to this but that the Government has failed to include and it ignores it is country-of-origin labelling. In doing all these great things for animal welfare for food safety and for the reputation of New Zealand it is unbelievable that the National Government is refusing to endorse mandatory country-of-origin labelling—as do our trans-Tasman partners—that would identify the products managed and produced in our country and that could be sold with a reputation that is held in high regard internationally. New Zealand consumers would also know whether the meat they were eating was from New Zealand animals or indeed from Australia which is occurring all too often in the supermarkets today.As I talk to farmers I say: “We will always need regulations we will always need to have high standards and there will be a cost to your farming operation.” But in return for that I say to them that we should then uphold promote and ensure that their good efforts are rewarded through better market place returns. Yet the National Government refuses to acknowledge the one move that would assist New Zealand farmers and producers who have worked hard and who will be working harder arguably to meet these standards in this new piece of legislation and who will do so hopefully in the knowledge that it maintains and builds further our reputation for the highest levels of animal welfare in the world. So the consumers of our animal products would then know because of the label that the food they were eating had been produced in the soundest safest and most ethical ways.The bill also enables mandatory standards for live animal exports to be set in regulations. Again another issue of some controversy over the years is that there have not always been good standards in live exports from our country or indeed from Australia more so. They have struggled with that. We are seeing more and more dairy animals in particular being exported directly from New Zealand to China in particular. There is some debate about that—I guess in the same way that we sold off our kiwifruit root stock and plant material and suffered because of that because everyone in the world then grew the same thing.Then indeed the kiwi cow which the New Zealand dairy industry has developed so well as an efficient producer of milk is now being exported—or its genetics—and through live exports are now going directly to China. I am sure those people will very astutely and very carefully maximise the value of our exports. That is OK and we are getting rewards for that but we have to be mindful firstly of the dangers in the live export trade of not looking after them properly and thereby putting our reputation at stake and then secondly and perhaps more important of course of building the capability of a country that ultimately will be competing with us in terms of dairy production in its own market and indeed perhaps elsewhere around the world. New Zealand does not have a very good record I have to say in wise long-term management in such situations but this bill will do one thing to try to safeguard that live export trade and that is to ensure that it is done in a very ethical safe way for them.If I can go back to a few other issues in the bill I will just say that in principle Labour of course will always battle for high standards of animal welfare both on the farm and in the towns. I see my colleague Mr Mallard has come here just to ensure that I keep focused on the town issues. I have to say that one of the dangers as I referred to briefly before is that if we go for a zero-hurt or zero-harm approach then we may indeed see some pretty sad outcomes in terms of animal welfare—and the issue of animals used in rodeos is one that has been topical. Sometimes we will have dogs. I have worked with and have owned some very very loyal working dogs who run and run and keep running and work to the point of going beyond pain I am sure. I hope that we do not have people running around to check that they are running no more than 10½ kilometres in any 5-hour period etc. because we are getting to that point of perhaps extreme protection in some areas of our legislation. It certainly was not the intent of the Primary Production Committee of Mr Ardern and certainly of myself that we should move to implement regulations that are bordering on ridiculous.We do have as I say the realities of an animal welfare regime overseeing an animal production regime that is built around the breeding the raising and ultimately the slaughter of animals for human consumption. We are not going to get away from that. So at points in that whole management regime although this bill attempts to minimise any negatives there will be some through any reality just as there are in human behaviour as well. I said to my colleague that if we guarantee that there can be no harm to humans I guess there will be none of us going out on the rugby pitch to play a game of rugby which often produces some hurt and some harm. So the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill is I think a sound approach towards finding a balance between sensible commercial management and protecting not the rights but the welfare of animals as they move through that system.