Moroney Sue: Animal Welfare Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Animal Welfare Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 05 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3163. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour): It is a pleasure to rise and support the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill at its third reading on behalf of the Labour Party. I just want to note for regular viewers of and listeners to parliamentary debates that they will have noticed something a little different happening in the House this afternoon. It is a Government day where Government measures are going through the House and the Government members are making very fulsome contributions to this debate. It is good to see that occur but of course it is a sign that the Government is not that keen to get through all this legislation very fast because it does not have much legislation on the Order Paper at the moment. That is because the Government has run out of ideas so it has finally found its voice and is wanting to talk rather a lot about its legislation one piece of which is the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill and that is what is consuming our interest today for the next little while in the House.Labour is supporting this bill and we are very pleased to do so although we wish it went an awful lot further and we wish that the measures came in more quickly. Once Parliament determines as it has that certain practices are harmful and are not in the interests of animal welfare then our question is: why wait 15 years to bring in those measures? If we have determined that these practices are harmful we should act as soon as we can. I noticed that the last Government member who spoke on this bill used a phrase where she said that people were doing this “as fast as they economically can”. That is a phrase that I have not heard used a lot before but I think it is very telling in terms of where the priority lies in this regard. I would prefer and the Labour Party would prefer that the welfare of the animals was the priority and that people were urged to treat animals in a more respectful way much more quickly than taking 15 years for those harmful practices to be phased out. So that would be our criticism of this bill. However we are pleased that there is some progress being made.One of the most important reasons that personally I am pleased to see some progress made on animal welfare is the very close and now well-documented link between those who are prepared to abuse animals and be harmful towards animals and those who therefore turn out also to be abusive towards fellow human beings. There is now actually a lot of evidence that tells us this. The young men whom I think were eventually caught undertaking that heinous act of clubbing the seals to death down south—this happened about 18 months ago maybe 2 years ago now. Actually when people show a lack of empathy towards animals in that way—albeit these animals were out in the wild not someone’s pet—they almost certainly have that same lack of empathy towards others in vulnerable situations like children like other fellow human beings like women in their lives as well.So I think it is very important not only for the issues of animal welfare which in its own right is very important and for the issues that many other members have pointed out about how we are placed within the international market and how animal welfare is seen in those terms but it is also important because we know of the impact and the direct correlation and relationship between people who get a buzz out of hurting animals and how that probably means that they get the same buzz out of hurting and have the same lack of empathy for their fellow human beings. I am not going to take up too much more of Parliament’s time. This is an important measure not only for animals but for people. It is important for our place in the international market. Labour supports its passing.