Mackey Moana: Animal Welfare Amendment Bill — Procedure In Committee 
Mackey Moana: Animal Welfare Amendment Bill — Procedure In Committee 
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MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 We may have to add a late amendment to the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill to allow animal names such as Mozzarella to fall under the category of animal cruelty. I do not know how any self-respecting animal could walk around with that name. 
I am happy to take a call in the Committee stage of this bill. Like members who have spoken before me I congratulate Simon Bridges on bringing this legislation to the House. It is a little sad that like a third-former who has had his lunch money stolen the Hon David Carter came down to the Chamber took the bill off him and is now touting it as his own. But I am pleased to see Simon Bridges taking a call on this bill. My colleague Stuart Nash referred to the comment Mr Bridges made about this being Parliament at its best. I agree that it is always nice when we all agree on legislation. But maybe he was not here to hear the speeches made by Colin King and Sandra Goudie. They decided to use their time to attack the Opposition. It is nice to see Sandra Goudie onside; I believe that she agreed to support the bill once she was reassured that mangroves are not animals. Once that was explained to her she was fine. But it was disappointing because we all agree that this is good legislation and we are all pleased to see it before the Committee. 
We have all been frustrated by the fact that higher penalties are in the Act but they have not been used by the courts; the courts have gone with very low penalties. I agree with Mr Bridges. I hope the courts take notice that Parliament is speaking with one voice on this issue. We want to see tougher penalties for animal cruelty we acknowledge the link between animal cruelty and other forms of violence in our society and we want to see the penalties significantly increased for offences under the Animal Welfare Act. 
I notice that the “Minister for iPads” Maurice Williamson is in the chair and I hope he is prepared to take a call and answer some of the questions that have been raised around the resourcing of this Act. It does not matter how tough the penalties we put in place are if they are not adequately resourced. This has been a big issue in the past and it is good that there is another $8 million in the Budget for the policing of animal welfare legislation. But members on this side of the Chamber would quite like to see the $40 million that went to private schools also go towards other initiatives such as the policing of animal welfare. It is good that the Minister was able to find more money in a tight Budget but the Government made some choices in the Budget that would not have been Labour’s priority. More money could have come to this important area. 
When we look over history we see that 20 years ago one-third of animal abuse prosecutions were taken by the police—one-third. Today the SPCA has to take 90 percent of the prosecutions. As members have said they have to look for pro bono work. Often when the court awards them money to pay for costs it barely even begins to cover the costs of taking a prosecution. It is good that extra money has gone towards animal welfare but I hope that this area will be watched very carefully. We need to see the number of animal welfare complaints that go on to prosecutions increase dramatically from the 0.4 percent that they are at today. Only 0.4 percent of animal welfare complaints go on to prosecution. Governments of all stripes over the past 20 years have to take responsibility for that and that is why Labour is also supporting this legislation through the Committee of the whole House today. 
I have some questions for the Minister regarding in particular the distinction between wilful ill-treatment of animals and reckless ill-treatment of animals which are in new sections 28 and 28A in the bill. I acknowledge the comments that were made by Sue Kedgley that these sections will make it easier we hope to get the prosecutions because it no longer has to be proved that someone intended to do it. I sincerely hope that we do not see a huge differential between convictions that happen under those two separate categories. I hope we do not see that people who go in for wilful ill-treatment of animals get treated significantly worse and have significantly harsher penalties than those under reckless ill-treatment of animals. The prosecution may be taken under reckless ill-treatment only because one cannot prove that it was a wilful act; it may well have been a wilful act. If the SPCA the police or whoever is taking the case is not able to absolutely prove it was wilful then obviously the offender will go in for reckless ill-treatment but that does not mean that it was not significantly worse. It does not mean that the act was not wilful. 
Although there will always be that difference I hope we do not see a dramatic widening or a huge chasm between those two where people who get prosecuted under reckless ill-treatment of animals get off really lightly and people who end up getting charged under wilful ill-treatment are worse off. That is the situation we have now. It is very difficult to get any kind of prosecution for people when it cannot be proved that the act was wilful.