Cameron MarkMARK CAMERON (ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker for the opportunity to speak to the third reading of the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. Well here we go again rural New Zealand: ideological meanderings of a Minister at the behest of a Government that has failed to define the problem. This bill is predicated on animal welfare and yet the reality is that was at the back of the tragic sinking of the Gulf Livestock 1. How do we reconcile this in rural New Zealand? It's bereft of common sense. This earns for rural communities somewhere in the vicinity of—in 2021 to 2022—$261 million. Now just to conceptualise that—I don't know what the good people in the House may or may not earn—that's an average of $49000 to $116000 per farm of the up to 2900 farms that used it. I wager anyone this is half a billion dollars out of rural communities and Barbara Kuriger brought it up before local communities. This employs thousands of people.I met an individual—to the members on the other side of the House—who'd spent a million dollars on a truck just for this trade. Gone. How do you reconcile that when you're sitting there when the average farm has lost over a hundred grand? Because I can't. And I can't sell it to them. Two hundred and sixty one million dollars—potentially $475 million north.Fuel has gone up in rural New Zealand 30 to 40 percent. I'm an owner-operator of a dairy farm I know I'm paying significantly more for that. And yet here we go an ideological piece of legislation. Food's gone up but let's talk about urea—100 percent. She shakes her hands but she's certainly not a farmer—100 percent in urea. Reconcile that when you're trying to operate a business with ever more legislation confronting the primary sector. This blurs the lines between the tragic sinking of a ship and animal welfare.In transit it was canvassed—these animals were putting on half a condition score. And I know the members over there don't know what that means; it's 25 kilos per 50 in transit. In 16 to 18 days—that's significant. Most New Zealand farms struggle to do that in the best growing months of the year. And yet here we go. Fifteen percent to 20 percent of the shipping capacity was minimised to give these livestock more area as suggested by the Ministry for Primary Industries—the Minister's own officials weren't listened to. Mike Heron wasn't listened to. Why are we not adopting a gold standard? Common sense prevails. This is half a billion bucks gone. We're in a cost of living crisis. Every day that side of the House evangelises all the good things the rural community is doing but it's really good at taking a pot shot. This is another one—turning off an industry that this rural community that I'm part of uses every year.As a capsule if I can just tie off to reconcile how ideological this is 150000-odd—135000 to 150000—extra bobby calves four days old gone. How do we reconcile that when most of these animals were actually going overseas for breeding stock? So the gentleman—it was on my left—is absolutely wrong. Most of these animals are being sold for breeding animals. They don't have a sunset or horizon in two years; they're potentially going to China for 10. Straight away again we speak to the ideology that is in this piece of legislation. ACT will absolutely be voting against this bill.