Simmonds PennyPENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Madam Speaker thank you for the opportunity to stand and speak in opposition to this Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. As many of the speakers have already said the catalyst for the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) review in September 2020 to look into animal welfare assurances for safe transport of livestock by sea was the terrible maritime tragedy that was the Gulf Livestock 1. I want to acknowledge the sinking of that vessel as a terrible maritime tragedy as it sailed into Typhoon Maysak south of Japan when the engine stopped and the vessel was hit broadside by a powerful wave. Over 40 people lost their lives and of course the 5800-odd cows.I particularly want to acknowledge the Bellerby family from Southland. Lochie Bellerby was a young man in his 20s from Te Ānau who lost his life in that. Lochie was described as an adventurous and hardworking young man. I had the privilege at that time of meeting with his father and his sister. I want to acknowledge what incredibly brave people they were and resilient as they tried to cut through that dreadful bureaucratic red tape to try and expand the searches for the much loved brother and son. So I acknowledge the terrible tragedy that that sinking of the Gulf Livestock 1 was.It's interesting though that MPI does not include the loss of those 5876 as being killed through animal welfare mistreatment. It was a terrible maritime tragedy. It caused the catalyst as I said for this review which the Government could have picked up on—the options that were made available the options as my colleague has talked about to expand the regulations and expand some of the requirements for animal welfare. National would have willingly backed those improvements. New Zealand has incredibly high standards of animal welfare in transporting livestock. But we could see where there are areas where there could have been improvement.But as my colleague Maureen Pugh said this Government took the lazy option of banning. The banning is an option that this Government takes frequently. They banned coal mining so that we could import more coal from Indonesia. They're banning the export of livestock and it is just virtue signalling. They are not going to improve animal welfare. I've had discussions with farmers and I've asked them what it means to bring this ban into place and my colleague Ian McKelvie has already touched on it.So when this virtue-signalling Government wants to talk to lots of overseas entities that we export to how are they going to explain the massive increase in animal welfare when what this means is there will be a whole lot more four-day-old bobby calves killed? I don't see that as improved animal welfare and I'll be interested to see how this Government spins it—because spinning is of course their pastime and I'm sure they'll try and make something of it. So instead of those animals being exported to other countries where they could be used for breeding stock and they could be used to feed more people in this world we are going to ban it and have them killed as four-day bobby calves.There were other things that could've been done but they required the Government to take a look at a complex issue. This is a complex issue. It would've required some work to have a look at it. They could've focused on some of the things that were brought in in 2020 in October and seen those as ways in which animal welfare could be improved on. They could've worked with Federated Farmers instead of surprising Federated Farmers with this outcome. Federated Farmers have pointed out that our trade in this sector operates to some of the highest animal welfare standards in the world.So it could have been a shining example to the world of how well we treat our animals but instead they took the easy option to ban because banning is what they do best. They could've focused on greater inspections of livestock in ships entering New Zealand. They could have as my colleague said restricted stocking density by 90 percent which would have matched the Australian regulations. They could have increased the reporting from vets and they could have increased the minimum fodder requirements should something go wrong and the voyage have unplanned delays. But again instead of working with the primary sector on a complex issue to bring about workable solutions they chose banning it—banning it that will shut off around $261 million of revenue. At a time when we are going to have our greatest level of debt in this country ever they are going about their way to ban and restrict our revenue. It defies belief that we can be entering such a period of extreme debt and at the same time be virtue signalling with bans that decrease our revenue. But I guess that's because that's the sort of fairy land that this Government works in.I listened to a number of the speakers say Well I've read about this and I've heard that this happens." On our farm we exported livestock so I haven't read about it; I've seen it. Then I went and spoke to farmers that are doing this live export and asked them what would be the impact. That's how I heard that there would be more bobby calves killed. So instead of these lofty aspirations that we've heard from the other side lofty aspirations about how wonderful this is going to be for our livestock welfare—I even heard from one member on the Government side say how this would be so much better banning sheep. Does she even know that the basis of this tragedy was cows not sheep? If she was the reporter for some Hawke's Bay newspaper I'd doubt very much if they got much accurate out of that reporter.The issue here is that the Government has taken the lazy way out. They have not worked with the primary sector. They have not tried to save a source of revenue for this country. They have not tried to improve animal welfare by doing things that take a little bit more time and a little bit more work. They have brought in another ban. It is simply not good enough to say that this Government is doing wonderful things with the primary sector and has lofty aspirations for the primary sector. Well if that's the case why the heck have 30000 people come out for groundswell events to tell you to stop imposing unrealistic regulations on their primary sector? They must be mistaken—all 30000 of them must be mistaken. They can't have picked up on your lofty aspirations and your wonderful ideals and your virtue signalling over animal welfare or that 30000 group of farmers wouldn't be out trying to get your attention and trying to engage in meaningful debate with you to try and find workable solutions. National opposes this bill."