Kedgley Sue: Animal Welfare Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Kedgley Sue: Animal Welfare Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 Well for 11 long years this Parliament has ignored the petitions and pleas of hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders to put an end to the worst forms of animal abuse—the sow crate and the battery hen cage. Parliament has kept a stony silence about these issues which so many hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders care so passionately about. So it is something of a red-letter day that we are here having a very serious debate about animal welfare and considering the first piece of legislation about animal welfare that the House has considered and indeed is about to pass in 11 years. I congratulate Simon Bridges on initiating the legislation and I congratulate the Minister of Agriculture on adding to the original bill the new category of reckless ill-treatment of animals and on increasing the Budget provision for animal welfare. 
The Green Party is supporting this bill largely because of the new category of reckless ill-treatment which we hope will make it easier for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the SPCA to take prosecutions. Really the main reason we had seen so few prosecutions for animal cruelty over the years was simply that it was so difficult to prosecute animal cruelty under the existing legislation. One had to prove wilful intent to commit cruelty towards animals in order to succeed. So if a farmer starved his cows to death it was often difficult to prove there was intent to cause cruelty and intent to starve the cows to death. 
The other reason was simply that there was such a lack of resources and staff to undertake prosecutions. Until now there have been only five full-time Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry inspectors overseeing the welfare of over 100 million animals in New Zealand. It is little wonder then that between 2007 and 2009 these five inspectors took only 44 successful prosecutions for animal cruelty out of the more than 14000 complaints lodged with the ministry. Only 3 percent of the cases that the ministry investigated resulted in a conviction and only 0.3 percent of the cases that the SPCA took resulted in a conviction. 
The SPCA told us during our consideration of the bill that it was so cash-strapped and so short of resources that it was not able to undertake many prosecutions. Most of its inspectors after all are volunteers and 60 percent of them are part-time so it is extraordinary that successive Governments have abdicated their duty to enforce the Animal Welfare Act and that that work has been carried out by a charity the SPCA. The society has had to have cake stalls and so forth to try to fund its prosecutions. It is extraordinary that the SPCA is the only enforcement agency in New Zealand that still has to fund-raise and try to raise money in order to do the work of the Government in terms of taking out prosecutions under the Act. We hope that this new category will make it easier for the SPCA and we also hope that some of the new funding will go to the SPCA for the fantastic work it does. Having 10 inspectors instead of five at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry will also make a difference. 
We are not optimistic however that simply increasing the length of sentences will reduce animal cruelty in New Zealand. There have after all been only 11 cases of people who were jailed for animal cruelty in the entire history of New Zealand. A decade ago we introduced 3-year sentences for animal cruelty but no person has ever received a 3-year sentence. I do not think that just an increase in sentences by itself will make any difference but we hope that the new category and the new resources will make a difference. 
When the Minister introduced this bill he said that as a result of the bill we would see improved animal welfare in this country and that is great. But he ought to have added “for some animals” because this provision is particularly for companion animals for individual animals. The truth is that this bill applies to only individual cases of animal cruelty and completely turns a blind eye—completely ignores—all cases of institutional cruelty to animals in the farming sector. Any farming business that has a code of animal welfare in place is exempted from this legislation. So if someone carries out something that could be argued to be animal cruelty it will not be deemed to be animal cruelty if there is a code in place; this bill will not apply. 
The 90 million hens that spend their lives in cages will not be touched or affected in any way by this bill. They will continue to live their lives inside cages where they will be unable to move around or spread their wings. They will not even be able to turn round and they will not be able to express almost any forms of natural behaviour. The thousands and thousands of sows that are locked in cages for months on end where they are not able to turn round will not be affected by this bill either. 
It is interesting that Simon Bridges commented on the intelligence of many animals. In fact sows and pigs are generally thought to be even more intelligent than dogs. They are thought to be highly intelligent. There is some research showing that they have been able to use joysticks and play computer games. Nevertheless these highly intelligent animals will remain locked in their cages experiencing what can be deemed only to be animal cruelty and they will be untouched by this bill. 
This Parliament will pretend that keeping a pig in a cage is not animal cruelty so that owners will not be prosecuted under this bill. But it is interesting that if someone kept a dog in a cage for say a week or maybe weeks that person could be prosecuted. That person could be prosecuted under the existing legislation but certainly under this bill that person could be prosecuted. The owner of a dog that was kept in a cage for a long period of time could end up arguably in jail under this bill. However if the owner of a highly intelligent sow kept the sow in a cage for months on end that person would not be affected by this bill; he or she would not be prosecuted and would continue to be rewarded by our society and by this Parliament. 
Effectively what we have in New Zealand now is a double standard when it comes to animal cruelty. We have one standard for individual animals particularly for companion animals and a completely different standard for farm animals. In fact Federated Farmers came to our select committee and said that this bill should not apply to any farm animal any production animal. It said that we should continue to turn a blind eye and that farmers should be able to continue to carry out any form of animal cruelty to treat their animals in any way no matter how cruel because they are production animals. We should have one standard for production animals for farm animals and one for other animals. [ 
Interruption 
] Yes my colleague is reminding me that it is a bit like George Orwell’s  
Animal Farm 
. The animals on our farms will get the Orwellian cruel treatment— 
Sandra Goudie 
: Oh rubbish! The member’s stretching it. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: —if they are permitted to. That is fair enough; the member is pointing out that most farmers do not treat their animals cruelly. Most farmers treat their animals extremely well. However we cannot say the same for so-called chicken farms hen farms and intensive pig farms in New Zealand. Yet Federated Farmers argued that no farmer should be prosecuted because farm animals are production animals. They were arguing a double standard. 
The Minister said that his Government takes animal welfare seriously. He says that this bill shows that animal cruelty will not be tolerated in New Zealand. It is abhorrent to society; it will not be tolerated. All I can say to the Minister is that those are fantastic words. Can this Parliament and the Minister now turn their attention to the institutionalised cruelty of animals in New Zealand? 
Hon David Carter 
: Already done it. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: Already done? 
Hon David Carter 
: It’s already under way. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: It is already under way? Well we have been waiting for 11 years to do something about sows about the pig code and about hens. The Minister is assuring us that they will be liberated from their cruelty; I am delighted to hear that. If that is the case I say to the Minister that he has my heartiest congratulations.