Ardern Shane: Animal Welfare Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Ardern Shane: Animal Welfare Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:663;Page:11283] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of National to proudly support the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. I fear that this bill has arrived only just in time because listening to the contribution from the Hon Damien O’Connor in support of the bill it is clear that he is dancing on the head of a pin in trying to find something wrong with it. He is very annoyed about the fact that the National Government has come up with another $8.2 million to put towards animal welfare. I suspect that some cruelty to animals may be going on across the House that this bill may protect members from. I suspect that someone may need to draw on this bill to help Trevor Mallard in the future. 
The Primary Production Committee gave due consideration to this bill and identified some issues with it. I thank the committee for its diligent work in that regard. It worked through the process in a very sensible and timely way as the Minister of Agriculture has said. We heard submissions from a wide-ranging group of people who had concerns in this area. In particular the committee heard from the SPCA which has not always been a friend of the Government I guess we could say but has always at heart been caring towards animals. I refer to the comments of Bob Kerridge the national president of the SPCA. He said that the Government has made it clear right from the word “go” and right from the time the National Government was elected that something needed to be done to strengthen the law on the protection of animals particularly with regard to some of the high-profile heinous cases that we have seen recently. Mr Kerridge said he thought that the extra funding was a wonderful addition and that this bill would help substantially in terms of protecting animals. 
The committee raised the issue of clarity of ownership with regard to forfeiture which would have in my view created some confusion. I could foresee a circumstance involving absentee owners of farms; syndicate owners of farms like perhaps the Hon Damien O’Connor—I am not sure whether he still has an interest in the family farm—or others such as me. We are here in Wellington involved in the work that we are elected to do. Animals could potentially be suffering on properties that we may or may not be involved with and we could end up being victims of poor management. All of this issue was pretty hypothetical because it might or might not happen but we felt that the law needed to be clarified in that area. A change was made to clause 7 which substitutes section 169 of the Animal Welfare Act. The wording of that amendment was changed from “having custody of animals” to “owning or exercising authority in respect of animals” with regard to someone who was being pursued by the law in relation to animal welfare matters. That was a sensible change. 
The select committee received 17 submissions from a wide range of people. Federated Farmers made an interesting observation that as far as they were concerned the penalties were about right. They suggested that unless proper enforcement was carried out—they had anxiety about that—then the bill would have no effect. To that end the Government has come out with more Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry inspectors and as I said earlier another $8.2 million to support that work. 
All in all the bill—which started off as a member’s bill was adopted by the Government and has been to the Primary Production Committee—will potentially bring about some substantial and well overdue changes to the way that animal welfare is treated in this country.