Mathers Mojo: Animal Welfare Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMathers Mojo: Animal Welfare Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 05 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3156. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MOJO MATHERS (Green): I would like to start by thanking previous speakers particularly Trevor Mallard and the Minister Nathan Guy for their generous affirmation of my work on this bill. At the second reading I spoke of our hope that the Government would still be prepared to support a ban on animal testing of cosmetics despite having rejected it during the Committee of the whole House stage. I am thrilled that my work has been justified. I applaud the Government for finally agreeing to a ban on these cruel tests and I thank all parties in the House for supporting this amendment.We can be proud of the fact that New Zealand is now the first country in Australasia to ban cosmetic animal testing showing leadership on an important animal welfare issue of our time. The announcement of a ban on cosmetic animal testing has met with worldwide acclaim and affirmation and has spurred renewed efforts to get these cruel tests banned in other countries. Doing our part to support a global ban on cosmetic animal testing was a major motivation for getting this change incorporated into the bill and I look forward to the day when no animal anywhere in the world is subject in these cruel tests to chemicals being dripped into their eyes or rubbed into their raw skin.I also welcome a small but important change in the bill that will require animal ethics committees to consider alternatives to animal testing when considering applications to test on animals. Alternatives to animal testing is an area that is making rapid progress at the moment but sadly it is one that New Zealand is lagging behind in. Animal testing often involves extremely high levels of pain and suffering. One of the most traumatic things that I had to do last year in the discussions on the Pyschoactive Substances Bill was actually to watch a video of what was involved in toxicology testing and it absolutely broke my heart. We should be doing everything that we can to reduce the number of animals suffering in these cruel tests and we have a moral and ethical obligation to do so.If we are to be confident that unnecessary animal tests are not being carried out it is essential that animal ethics committees are kept up to date with the latest developments in non-animal tests. For example just recently over in Australia a major company decided to use the liver chip model to test the potential cure for hepatitis B instead of using the much more painful and cruel animal test. I want to encourage the Ministry for Primary Industries to investigate ways of ensuring that this information about the latest developments in alternatives to animal testing is shared between the different animal ethics committees in order to guide their decision making. I have spoken to former and current members of animal ethics committees and they have told me that they would welcome this information because they do not actually have it.This is particularly important in light of the fact that we know that different animal ethics committees are making different decisions about controversial tests. At least one animal ethics committee has approved three applications for the controversial and outdated LD50 test whereas another says it would never have approved these because they do not meet the “Three Rs” of animal research. This inconsistency is concerning because it undermines the ministry’s claims that we can trust the decisions of animal ethics committees. In my view they have a long way to go yet.Another welcome change in the bill is the partial removal of the loophole that allows for an indefinite period of time the development of regulations that breach the purpose of the Act. This is long overdue. These loopholes are the ones that have previously allowed cruel factory farming practices such as factory cages and sow crates to remain legal. I had an amendment that removed that loophole and the Primary Production Committee heard good submissions from the public in support of my amendment. The Green Party fully agreed with Trevor Mallard that the current transitional provisions in the bill are too generous and that 7 years is sufficient time for farmers to make the change away from cruel practices such as farrowing crates. The fact is that there are successful pig farmers such as Havoc farm that do not rely on farrowing crates and it gives lie to the argument that they are needed.Many people in the House will remember the footage shown on Campbell Live last year that showed very different conditions on different pig farms. The first programme focused on exposing the awful conditions on a pig factory farm in the Waikato. That footage was horrific showing pigs that were absolutely depressed cramped in confined conditions unable to turn round and unable to express natural behaviour and that did not have anything like a normal existence. Those conditions were typical of many intensive pig farms and they amounted to legalised animal cruelty. Sadly this bill will do little to address these conditions. The second programme showed a completely different vision for how farming can be done in New Zealand. It showed Havoc farm a free-range farm in South Canterbury. It said that the mothers there are able to roam freely with the piglets and that there is access to warm shelters litter to snuggle down in and an ability to explore and interact. That is the way that farming should be done if we are going to farm for meat and these are the only kinds of conditions that the Green Party considers to be acceptable.Despite some of the really positive aspects of this bill it is our overall view that this bill still represents a missed opportunity to get it right for the millions of animals suffering on factory farms. My concern is that this bill will not only continue to sanction these kinds of cruel conditions of factory farming but that it may entrench themeven further and that is because it now elevates practicality and economic impact in the bill as explicit factors that can be considered when developing regulations. There was already the ability to take these factors into account and historically these factors—practicalityand economic impact—were precisely the arguments used to justify codes of welfare that enabled animals to be kept in factory cages and in sow crates that were in clear breach of the provisions in the Act. In our view this move sends the wrong message about which factors are important in developing codes of welfare in regulations.I also want to say that another main area of concern that has just come to light is the area of live exports. As everybody has mentioned previously there is an effective prohibition via an order under the Customs and Excise Act on live exports for slaughter and many submitters wanted an outright ban in this bill. The advice and the assurance that we had from Ministry for Primary Industries officers was that the intention is for the current prohibition to be maintained via regulation under the Act once the bill is passed. I know that many of us have felt very concerned about the recent comments by the Prime Minister when he was visiting Saudi Arabia that this was one of the areas that was being looked at. It would be absolutely shameful if we allowed our current policy to be weakened when the regulations are developed just for the sake of a trade deal. That would be horrific. Nothing could be more damaging to our international reputation than if we were to resume live exports of animals for slaughter because we know that causes significant suffering and many farmers do not want it and the public do not want it.Although we are pleased that some changes will become enforceable much will depend on which standards get lifted into the regulations. We also remain concerned about the resourcing of animal welfare monitoring and enforcement. Currently less than 1 percent of complaints result in prosecution and we still want to see significantly increased funding for monitoring and enforcement including proactive enforcement. Thank you.