Choudhary Ashraf: Animal Welfare Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Choudhary Ashraf: Animal Welfare Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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Dr ASHRAF CHOUDHARY (Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to speak after the chairman of the Primary Production Committee on the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. I assure Mr Ardern that if he were a Minister there would not be many angry speeches in this House against him. He is a good chairman; he is a good man who should be the Minister of Agriculture. 
This bill is an interim arrangement. I call it an interim arrangement because even Simon Bridges who introduced this bill accepted in his speech that there is a need to do more. So clearly this bill is an interim arrangement because just increasing penalties fines and jail time will not solve all the problems. In this country we cannot accept cruelty to animals. I acknowledge the work done by the select committee along with the chairman who also mentioned the work that the committee has done and also the work of the officials. I must also acknowledge that we have made some very good amendments to the bill and the committee did a good job. 
This bill comes after some very unfortunate incidents in relation to animal cruelty such as kittens being fed to pit bulls or dogs being shot. There have been very cruel incidents and this bill has arisen from those situations. I am delighted that Simon Bridges took the initiative with this bill which was passed on to the Minister of Agriculture who picked it up and brought it to the House. I am glad that the recent Budget has increased funding for the SPCA and for issues to do with animal cruelty. 
As we know in 2008 there were nearly 14000 complaints received by the SPCA against animal cruelty and only 110 cases resulted in some kind of charge being laid. Out of those cases there were only 58 convictions. That shows how hard it is to prove animal cruelty whether ill-treatment or the new offence of reckless ill-treatment of animals which is now a new clause in this bill. 
I think it is very important for us to realise that although we have done a good job in terms of this bill and the whole Parliament of 122 members has approved this bill there are important issues for us as an agricultural nation. We are very highly dependent on the export of animal products whether they are dairy products meat wool or whatever. We are highly dependent on the welfare of our animals and particularly on the perception out in our market places of the welfare of our animals. People want to know that the meat wool and milk from New Zealand is coming from animals that are well treated and well looked after. That is an important issue that we have to be very careful of in the future particularly in relation to the legal areas. 
As we know there are ever-increasing difficulties in exporting our products to the EU and Asian countries and we want to ensure that more and more of our products are going to those markets. But people are watching the way that we treat our animals—particularly farm animals as the member from the Green Party said. We have to be very careful about the perception out there in the market place in relation to our farm animals’ welfare. We have heard for example about pigs in sow crates. We have heard about cubicle farming and about some of the issues there. We have heard about 1080 drops and that is an ongoing controversial issue. Personally I totally agree that we need to use 1080 because there is no other option at the moment. The science has not come up with anything new that is comparable with 1080 drops so we have to use it but there are people out there within the country and overseas who are opposed to using 1080 drops. 
There are issues like that and also issues in relation to the treatment of young animals like lambs and calves in the snowy areas for example. I think that we are all very mindful of those issues as we go forward with regard to how the market place will see the way that we treat those animals. I think it is important that we as a nation look after animals very well particularly as the Minister of Agriculture has accepted now— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member. The level of noise is so great that I am having difficulty hearing the member. I ask members to please quieten down. If discussions need to take place please go out to the lobbies. 
Dr ASHRAF CHOUDHARY 
: Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. I appreciate your intervention in this case. As I was saying it is very important for us to be mindful of our future exports to the markets that are becoming very differentiating in terms of where animal products come from. As we very proudly say when we travel overseas and meet other parliamentarians and officials we take a lot of pride in our country’s clean green image. That is very good and we are very proud of that. But at the same time the stories about animal mistreatment particularly on farms reach out to the market places and people want to know exactly what is happening. 
This bill is in my view an interim bill and we will have to do more. I am quite sure that in a few years’ time this issue will come up again in relation to the treatment of farm animals. I think that all the farmers in this Parliament realise that we have to be very mindful of this issue particularly as to how we treat our pigs cows and sheep on farms as the farms become more and more intensive. This is especially so for dairy farming. We have heard about the issues in relation to water utilisation in dairy farming in Canterbury. Cubicle farming was a very hot issue a while ago although at the moment we are not hearing very much about where that is at but we are getting into more intensive farming. I suppose that to grow our GDP as a country we will have to get more and more exports of dairy products particularly for which I believe there is a huge market out in Asia. There is a growing market in Asia in countries like China and India and other Asian countries are coming up. Those countries are very keen to import our products particularly dairy products and wool. They are also interested in importing our forestry products and other products but our main exports to them are animal products. It is important that we are not careless in the way that we treat our animals and it is better if the unfortunate stories like the ones we heard earlier do not go out into the media and the market place. 
In conclusion I once again say that this is a good bill. I acknowledge Simon Bridges who is sitting at the back of the House. His good work started this bill. I know that the current Minister of Agriculture was the chairman of the Primary Production Committee for 6 years and as far as I know he never raised this issue. Obviously this bill is a credit to the new young member for Tauranga who has done a good job of bringing it to the House. I am delighted that the Government has taken over this member’s bill and has taken the next step and I appreciate the extra money that the Minister has made available in this area in the Budget. With those words I commend this bill to the House.