Browning Steffan: Animal Welfare Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrowning Steffan: Animal Welfare Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 31 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2751. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): Kia ora. I would like to speak to the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill and some of the Supplementary Order Papers. I would also acknowledge the Government’s changes in terms of the issues around the use of blunt force and shark finning as great examples of change but I would also note that those changes came with a lot of public pressure. The Government bowed to public pressure. These are what we see as issues that have risen to public attention but meanwhile huge cruelty carries on and the Government is doing little on some other areas where it could. So I look to the Minister for Primary Industries and hope that he and his ministry will drive harder on issues of animal welfare during this very term—during this very year would be a really good start.I realise that in New Zealand we have a major cultural weakness in fact around farmed animals and what we can do and what is acceptable and what is not acceptable but clearly there is a shift. Even this bill shows some of the shift and the issues around animals as sentient beings and so forth.As my colleague said the monitoring and enforcement will be where this bill and other changes that have happened in recent times are really measured. The word “practical” comes up here and most in the House apart from I think the Green Party have talked about the practicality or balance—Hon Members: Ha ha!STEFFAN BROWNING: The people on the Government side who say “balanced” and “practical” and laugh do not mind the cruelty going on in cages and farrowing crates and other things that are happening in nearly every form of farming. What is balanced about accepting cruelty? There is nothing balanced about it.The Minister for Primary Industries talked about the cheapness of eggs as a protein source but totally forgot that vegetable protein can be produced a hang of a lot more cheaply and with far fewer environmental effects in terms of a lot of our animal production. In saying that I am what I call a selective omnivore. I will eat some meat if it is produced organically or it is wild or something like that and has not been brought up in a cage. There is no excuse for carrying on with caged farming.I have a lot of sympathy for the pork industry. We have got to look at the pork industry in context because the context is an import health standard that allows almost 50 percent of the pork consumed in New Zealand to be imported and that we do not have any control over how those pigs are produced. Those disadvantaged pig farmers in New Zealand are competing against pork produced in ways that we are saying we need to phase out. So Minister I ask you to look at issues around the import health standard as well. I know that they have been traversed right through in a range of courts but why was that? It was because the Biosecurity Act is not strong enough. All these bills and Acts need to be looked at in the context of the others. We must have some changes so that we get rid of those farrowing crates sooner but also help our producers so that they do not have to compete with cheap cruelly produced meat imported from overseas.In terms of hens the last time the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee did any changes I think it basically effectively said that hens could still live in space that is the size of an A4 sheet of paper. They might be in a slightly bigger cage a few of them but effectively each has that much space. There is no need for that and the sooner we change that the sooner people will look at and take up the opportunity of genuine free-range systems. We must move to that. The context is also how the regulations are enforced and how the Minister and his ministry get in there and ensure that enforcement and monitoring.I would like to speak a little bit too on the alternatives. My colleague Mojo Mathers talked of what happened in terms of the psychoactive drugs part—another context. That context there showed that there are real alternatives to these cruel practices. But if we say “practical” and “balanced” too often you would say “Oh it’s not practical. Economically there’s a disjunction and we can’t afford to go down that path.” If it was people being involved in the testing we would be doing that as quick as lightning. We would have no problem with bringing in the alternatives. There are tissue cultures and there are a whole range of technologies that are very advanced that can take the place of all these sorts of testing. There will be more changes that will need to come and there will be amendments in the future beyond those that are in front of us today.I am also grateful to see the Government doing something around the cosmetics area and doing it as a leader in the direction of change that we need. I really do acknowledge and am grateful for that change in Supplementary Order Paper 69 but with the exemptions to the measure there is a real risk that you could drive almost anything through it because of the number of different substances that might be included in the exceptions. It will be over to the Minister and the ministry to make sure that it is not rorted in some way that we have real depth to this and that we are leaders in the world and show the way forward around animal welfare. It was said that we are first equal in the world. That might be in terms of the system we have but the application of the system I would suggest needs a little bit more scrutiny.So thank you. We will obviously be supporting this bill and the bulk of the Supplementary Order Papers in front of us. Thank you.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.