Twyford Phil: Animal Welfare Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Animal Welfare Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:13066. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—TeAtatū): I want to start by saying what is good about this Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. It regulates to create enforceable standards where before the old codes were not directly enforceable. It sets up a tiered enforcement scheme with infringement notices and a range of penalties. It creates compliance orders so that animal welfare inspectors can stop a person from doing something that contravenes the Act. And it enables mandatory standards for the export of live animals to be set in regulations.But in other ways this bill is a disappointment. It fails to fix one of the big defects in the current Animal Welfare Act and that is the provision that allows indefinite exemptions for breaches of the animal welfare obligations. In the Animal Welfare Act codes are intended to set out standards of care and welfare. However many of the codes contain standards that violate the Act’s own welfare obligations. Even more bizarre the exemption clauses in the Act allow these breaches to continue for indefinite periods of time. In my view exemption clauses have been invoked too readily particularly in relation to factory farming practices.It has been 14 years—14 years—since the Act was passed and I think it is fair to say that there has been incremental improvement but too little improvement in the minimum standards for animal welfare under the 15 welfare codes now in existence. Under these codes many farm animals suffer practices that violate the welfare obligations in the Act. That is clear. Layer hens continue to be kept in battery cages confining a hen for the duration of its life in a cage with a floor smaller than an A4 sheet of paper a sloping mesh floor and a height of only 35 centimetres to 40 centimetres. It is flagrant breach of the Act’s welfare obligations but the Government does not intend to phase out battery cages until 2022.The code of welfare for broiler chickens disregards the welfare obligations in the Act. It allows stocking densities of 19 birds per square metre—19 birds per square metre. There is no ability for birds to express their natural behaviours; the lighting and ventilation standards I argue are inadequate; the code fails to address the selective breeding of so-called non-survivor birds that are unable to support their own weight; and nor does it address the feeding of chemicals to promote rapid growth.Although the code of welfare for pigs will see the use of sow crates phased out over the next year it will still be lawful to continue using farrowing crates. I want to talk briefly about farrowing crates because I think they are perhaps the most egregious example of a breach of the Act’s own welfare obligations that is currently allowed to continue indefinitely. Farrowing crates are used to house sows when they are about to give birth. They are about 2 metres long and 70 centimetres wide. They are designed to stop the sow from crushing the piglets by rolling on top of them. But the crate is so small that the sow can only stand up or lie down. Sows are kept in these cages for up to 12 weeks per year. The Government acknowledges that the use of farrowing crates does not meet the animal welfare obligations in the Act. That is clear. That is a fact. They do not allow the sows to express their normal behaviour. And with the aid of the exemption clause the Government perpetuates this inhumane practice arguing that there are no better commercially available alternatives. This is a triumph of commercial expediency over ethics.In fact the commercial argument itself does not even hold up. Thirty-five percent of sows already give birth in alternative systems. Some are outdoor and some are indoorbut all require more space. The pig industry admits that alternative systems can be as good as or even better than the farrowing crates when it comes to productivity. The international literature shows clearly that there is no difference in piglet mortality rates between for example Sweden where farrowing crates are banned and Denmark where they are used. The critical difference here is that free-range methods require more space more land. Farrowing crates by their very nature are more intensive. They require less space and therefore they are cheaper. It comes down to money and that is what is going on here. The Government through the inadequacies of the Animal Welfare Act is colluding with factory farming to perpetuate inhumane and cruel practices because they are cheaper than a decent humane alternative. If we look at the bill before the House section 183A(5) inserted by clause 56 allows these indefinite exemptions to continue—to continue ad infinitum. Pigs could be kept in farrowing crates for decades to come.This bill as other speakers have argued offers a chance to end or reduce the suffering of millions—millions—of factory-farmed animals in New Zealand. And I believe that as New Zealanders are ready to make a choice and say that animals should not be used to test party drugs New Zealanders are also ready to raise the standards of animal welfare. This House and the Government deserve credit for finding the courage to ban sow crates. Now they need to follow through and ban farrowing crates.There is growing revulsion at the cruelty of keeping hens in battery cages and I believe that that should be banned much sooner than 2022. I intend to bring a Supplementary Order Paper to the House that would close the loophole of section 183A(5) and ensure that any practice that did not meet the welfare obligations contained in the Animal Welfare Act would have to be phased out within 5 years. Animal-based agriculture contributes more than $21 billion to the economy every year. Factory-farmed animals contribute only 2.3 percent of that figure but some of the inhumane practices of factory farming are a stain on the reputation of our farming sector and potentially a threat to this important industry. For the sake of brand New Zealand we should be making ethical and humane farming practices just as much a feature of our reputation as food safety high quality and sustainability. But this argument above all is about what is right. To subject sentient creatures to such misery and cruelty on an industrial scale simply in order to allow some producers to undercut their competitors on price is in my view unethical. It is time to remove this contradiction from our law that identifies a practice as a breach of the law and then in the same breath gives it an indefinite exemption. It is not right it is not the Kiwi way and it is time to change it.