Mathers Mojo: Animal Welfare Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMathers Mojo: Animal Welfare Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 26 November 2014. Volume:702;Page:906. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MOJO MATHERS (Green):I rise to speak to the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. This bill is very much a mixed bag with the good the bad and the ugly all mixed up. Mostly though it represents a missed opportunity. It represents a missed opportunity to get it right for the millions of animals experiencing the greatest suffering in New Zealand in factory farming and unnecessary animal testing. Animals in New Zealand work incredibly hard for us. The least we can do is ensure that they are treated humanely and with respect. We need animal welfare law to both recognise and stop the systematic cruelty and suffering of both intensive factory farming and animal testing. Quite frankly when it comes to intensive factory farming our animal welfare law is a farce.Over the last year we have seen two situations that illustrate just how inadequate our animal welfare law is. The first is undercover footage by Farmwatch shown on television that exposed the terrible conditions and abuse that goes on inside our pig factory farms. That footage was horrific showing depressed pigs confined in cramped conditions unable to turn round and deprived of anything resembling a normal existence. We cannot deny the realities of what factory farmed pigs and other animals are being subjected to in New Zealand. But what is really shocking is that most of that appalling footage and the conditions that were shown are legal. Factory farming is legal. Keeping millions of intelligent animals in cramped conditions where they cannot express natural forms of behaviour is legal and this bill does very little to improve their plight.Equally concerning is the recent proposal by Craddock Farms to build a mega-factory hen farm south of Auckland which would confine over 300000 hens in cramped cages. If that consent is granted Craddock Farms will spend millions of dollars on the development of our country’s biggest caged-hen farm.We agree with the SPCA when it says that the proposed colony cage farm is a backward step for our country which flies in the face of international animal welfare trends. It is clear to anyone with an ounce of compassion that colony cages do not provide hens with the opportunity to display normal behaviour as required by the Animal Welfare Act. They are battery cages with lipstick on them.Even the former National MP and farmer Shane Ardern who was the former chair of the Primary Production Committee has publicly agreed that factory hen farming is cruel and that the teensy-weensy tiny little bit of extra space that the hens will get in these colony cages is unacceptable. Colony cages are cruel and mega-factory farms such as the proposed Craddock hen farm are nothing more than concentration camps for hens.Sadly not only will this bill continue to sanction these cruel farming conditions it will ensure that they continue to remain legal by elevating in the bill practicality and economic impacts as factors that can be considered when developing regulations. There is already the ability to take these factors into account and these economic impacts and practicality have already been used to justify codes of welfare that allow animals to be kept in cruel cages.The explicit elevation of these factors out of the many factors that can be considered is extremely concerning. In our view it sends the wrong message about which factors are important when developing codes of welfare or regulations and it makes it more likely that factory farming systems such as intensive pig farming and colony cages will continue to remain legal on technical grounds despite the clear evidence that such systems are cruel and cause prolonged suffering for millions of animals. Animals deserve better.We were also disappointed that the Government members of the select committee decided at the last minute to vote down my amendment to reduce the number of animals used in testing and to vote down the ban on animal testing of cosmetics. So I am very pleased to hear tonight that the Government is still keeping an open mind on that and will be considering it at the Committee stage. I also welcome the support from the Labour Party for a ban on animal testing of cosmetics.Unlike what the previous National speaker Ian McKelvie said cosmetic testing on animals does not involve shampooing of horses’ fur. It involves dripping the substances into the eyes of rabbits with their eyes prised open it involves rubbing the substances on to raw skin and they are highly painful cruel tests so please get rid of any fluffy woolly notions that it is not so.The National Government and John Key in particular took great pride in excluding animal testing from the Psychoactive Substances Act. Great—they wanted to see that. But in our view it would be a double standard to not have a ban on the animal testing of cosmetics in this bill and then not requiring alternatives to animal testing to be used where such suitable alternatives exist. Animals are subjected to extremely high levels of pain and suffering in these tests and we should be doing everything we can to reduce them.Polls show that nearly 90 percent of people want to see animal testing of cosmetics ruled out in this country which brings us in line with other countries such as Israel India and all 28 countries of the European Union that have recently done the same. I am hoping that the Government will listen to the thousands of people who are speaking out for animals and want to see such a ban. That includes New Zealand manufacturers of cosmetics who want to see this ban as well because that is the ban that supports their reputation internationally so they have expressed their support for such a ban. It makes sense on both a pragmatic level and a moral level. We have had extensive legal advice on the proposed wording of the amendment that brings in a ban on cosmetic testing and we are confident that with new wording what we now have will address all the technical issues that have been raised by officials at the select committee.On a more positive note I want to acknowledge the most significant constructive change that was adopted by the select committee which was to close the loophole that allowed the development of regulations that breached the purpose of the Animal Welfare Act for an indefinite length of time. I had an amendment that removed that loophole and there were many submissions that were received in support of that amendment. After intense deliberation it is good to see that that loophole has mostly been removed and there is now provision instead for transitional arrangements to be in place for a maximum of 15 years which is 10 years plus the 5-year extension to allow farmers time to phase out a practice that has been found to be in breach of the Act. That will mainly apply at the moment to farrowing crates on intensive farms.If in future other practices such as colony cages are found to be in breach of the Act then the industry will have at most 15 years to phase them out. This is a long overdue change and I am proud to have played a part in achieving that but 15 years is really far too long and I hope the industry will not drag the chain on this.So overall this is a very mixed bag. We are voting against the bill at this stage but express our disappointment around the failure to adopt any changes on animal testing at all. We will review that after the Committee of the whole House. Thank you.