Tirikatene Rino: Animal Welfare Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTirikatene Rino: Animal Welfare Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 05 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3166. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Kia ora Mr Speaker. I am pleased to make the penultimate contribution in the third reading of the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. Even though I am not a member of the Primary Production Committee I know that this is a very very important piece of legislation that we are debating in the House today. It further enhances our reputation as a quality food-producing nation and exporter to markets around the world. It is a very important piece of legislation.We have heard in previous contributions that we as Kiwis feel very deeply about animal welfare and that is true. We have heard that two-thirds of households have pets. We have heard that our export industries are largely underpinned by our food production and our food product exports. I need not go into the detail of how important it is in terms of our way of life and our standard of living that we do have strong primary industries. We are fair-minded as Kiwis. We do like to see our animals treated well. We are horrified when we see examples of abuse conducted on animals whether it be on farms or in other situations. All of those matters are sought to be addressed through this bill. We are supporting this bill based on that underlying principle and policy.Again we have heard numerous contributions from the Government side of the House about the importance of animal welfare in terms of our primary industries but again it has failed to even mention the importance of the seafood industry to our country. I repeat that the seafood industry is very important. It is a $1.5 billion export industry and it is very important in terms of the communities that it services. I think of communities in my own electorate such as Bluff or Kaikōura or even over on the Chatham Islands. It is a very important industry.Animal welfare under the application of this bill is equally important to the seafood industry. The No. 1 export product in the seafood industry now is live lobster. The very fact that our lobster which is potted here in the waters of Aotearoa has to live in a tank in a restaurant principally in North Asia is incentive enough for the industry to ensure that the animals are absolutely treated with the highest standards of handling and transportation all the way from—dare I say it—a rock over on the Chatham Islands through to their handling on the plane to Asia.The seafood industry has come about only in the last say 15 to 20 years. It is an industry that has flourished and now the No.1 product in our seafood industry is lobster and that is principally based on animal welfare handling and the catch methods that are applied to live lobster. I am very pleased to say that the fishing industry has a very good relationship with the Ministry for Primary Industries in terms of the protocols or codes of practice that are in place for example for live lobster. I would imagine that the industry is looking forward to those codes of practice eventually being put into regulation again because the value lies in the very fact that the product has to be live. That is where the value lies and that is where the premium is paid to our exporters. Ultimately the returns flow back to our fishing industry our fishers and their families through the very fact that that lobster is handled and is received live by our customers.It does not really stop there because opportunities abound for further live exports. We know that there are small bits of trade that are happening around live pāua exports. We have significant live shellfish exports that take place. All of these are enhancing the value that we are earning as a seafood industry which ultimately benefits our country. The one area of opportunity that is yet to be developed is in the live fin fish export trade. If you go into any restaurant in North Asia in China and southern China especially live fish is a very much highly prized dish in the Chinese market. If we are able to actually export live fish that can turn a low - value species fish in New Zealand into a high-value fish just by ensuring that we look after that fish or that animal and making sure that it is delivered in good condition to the customer.It not only goes to the fact that the fish is alive but it goes further in terms of the appearance. Our customers in North Asia like colourful fish. They like stripes; they like distinctive looking and highly prized fish that will end up on their plates. Opportunities abound for our seafood industry and I know that it will be working with the Ministry for Primary Industries to ensure that there are very appropriate regulations or codes of practice put in place to ensure that we can unlock the value to generate further foreign exchange earnings which will ultimately benefit our nation.This is a very important piece of legislation. I do though want to take issue with the Minister for Primary Industries because I do believe he was being slightly disingenuous in his comments about how the Government is doing so much to support animal welfare and enforcement. The Minister mentioned that there have been extra front-line animal protection officers appointed or put on to the job to ensure that there would be on-farm inspections compliance and the like. But that is not entirely correct because a fair portion of the actual animal welfare inspectors that the Ministry for Primary Industries does engage at the moment or employ are actually fisheries officers. They are those good men and women whose job is to actually detect and investigate breaches of our fisheries legislation. Yet those fisheries officers are now being shifted into roles that require them to be animal welfare inspectors as well or biosecurity officers to investigate incursions that take place. Again the fact that the Government is sort of fudging the numbers in terms of what is actually going into the front line is slightly disingenuous.Finally can I also say that the Minister has talked about the fact that resources are going into animal inspections. Can I say that when it comes to fisheries the fishing industry pays over $35 million each year in cost-recovery compliance and $10 million of those cost-recovery levies that are imposed on and paid by the fishing industry is supposed to go on compliance. Unfortunately now we are finding that the fisheries officers are having to be animal welfare inspectors as well. It is easy to take money from an industry but the Government needs to make sure that it is actually delivering services to that industry for those costs. Thank you.