Roberts AngelaANGELA ROBERTS (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker—talofa Madam Speaker. It is my pleasure to rise and take a call on the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. I'm a little confused about the understanding from the other side of the House. This bill is clear it is concise it was well signalled and it was well traversed in the select committee. And I just want to acknowledge my colleagues in the Primary Production Committee. I think Jo Luxton signalled that we work really hard to come to consensus solutions and this was not one of those occasions. But everybody turned up in good faith and made submissions. I acknowledge the submitters and I acknowledge the communities that are impacted by this legislation. But I'm really curious about the idea that we can look after these animals by establishing some sort of gold standard. It was curious—like I say submitters turned up in good faith and we asked them good questions that they tried to answer. But they didn't know despite the fact Australia is working on something what the cost of meeting a gold standard would be because they didn't know where they are now and they didn't know where they were planning on going nor how they were going to get there. I think that's quite telling because what that says is—we heard from the other side of the House that this is something that could be worked on. Well I think actually that the animals we care for and our primary exporters deserve more than that. When we support our farmers and our primary industry it isn't just We trust you get on with it."; it's "We trust you and we will support you to build a sustainable future for our primary industries for our exporters and for our economy and our nation." So this gold standard that anybody's had an opportunity to develop before now because apparently you know there's been a few "concerning" matters for animals that have been transported—nobody's worked on it till now. Nobody was going to work on it until we made them and that's very very concerning. We've got an opportunity here. This is a really great example of how we are progressive and how we have ambition for this country for our primary exporters and for our primary industries. It's a great example of how we're supporting them to make a just transition. Because it's hard. I live in Taranaki and it's a hard conversation to have about this. We've heard that there are concerns about any role a Government might play in the market: "We should just leave it to the market. The global market will sort it out. If consumers don't like it they'll stop buying our products." Well actually the interesting thing is the Government does have a role to play in global trade. This Government has committed and successfully negotiated free-trade agreements. The really interesting thing about these latest free-trade agreements is they are progressive and they are innovative. And it's really interesting to see how Governments have seen that this is actually a mechanism that enables a nation to reward and support its own exporters. Because what it does is it says: actually if we think you guys aren't stepping up to your Paris accord commitments then that's not fair on our farmers. So what we've done is we have committed to supporting our wonderful primary sector who are innovators as we've heard. We've got an amazing innovative primary sector. What we do in those free-trade agreements is we're supporting them and lifting the bar for everybody. And what we're seeing is other countries around the world are going "Crikey I want a bit of that so maybe we have to lift our game as well." So instead of a race to the bottom in how we care for our animals it is about supporting those in our primary sector who are doing great things. We're shifting practice we're rewarding shifting practice and we're working towards an ethical efficient and sustainable primary sector globally. The really interesting thing is—I love a teachable moment as an economics teacher. I always talk to students about sunrise industries and it's interesting when you hear from the other side of the House that we're going to go backwards if we don't allow this to continue. The interesting thing is we are going to be left behind. The EU have made a commitment. Now they have banned exports for anything—this is the first step—more than eight hours and those animals don't have to cross the equator. What they've done is they've made a commitment to a transition because it is about shifting everybody to a more efficient and ethical system that favours the transport of semen or embryos over breeding stock and carcasses and meat over animals being moved for slaughter. Now we don't have to worry about that bit because funnily enough as usual we led the world with innovation with frozen lamb from down in Otago a very long time ago. So why not lead the world again? We are ambitious for our primary exporters and we believe that by supporting something that is sustainable it is efficient and it is ethical.We heard about Winston Peters earlier today—not Winston Peters bless him. We heard about Winston Churchill looking at opportunity in times of challenge. There is an opportunity here. The EU have made a commitment to invest in more and better solutions to reduce the need to transport live animals. They are raising the bar and so are we. We are ambitious for our primary industries and we know that they're up for it and we're prepared to commit through free-trade agreements to a whole pile of commitments whereby we will be able to show leadership globally. This is mainly about animal welfare but the leadership that happens when the world continues to look at us—do they look at us for best practice with dairy farming? Absolutely. This is something else that they can look to us for best practice. How do we get around the challenges that have been presented? We can and we are. And so it is really great to see this bill coming to the House. I acknowledge the submitters. They did come in good faith. And I need to acknowledge the Minister for having the courage to committing to this. This was well signalled. And the opportunity that was afforded by that was to have the conversations about how we shift away from the—in very recent years—growth of this sector and how we mitigate the risks and the costs effectively of what we do about bobby calves.So it's wonderful to see this leadership. I think that when you hear not just—obviously the EU haven't got the challenges we have. If you look at Chile they also have to cross the equator and they're looking to us for leadership. That helps our global brand and that helps people to trust all over the world when we are selling our products and it helps us to show the world why we are proud of our primary industries. I have no problem in supporting the work that has gone into making this bill happen and to make sure that our primary sector has an opportunity to really really step up. So because of that because of this opportunity for a just transition to be supported I commend this bill to the House."