Hon DAVID CARTER (Minister of Agriculture) Link to this
I move, That the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill be now read a third time. The Animal Welfare Amendment Bill seeks to raise the penalties for animal cruelty offences and to redefine the way offences are described. It sends a very clear message that serious offending against animals is unacceptable in our society.
First, let me thank everyone who has been engaged in the development of this bill and who has worked in a cooperative manner with the Government to reach this point. The Government originally decided to adopt and prioritise this bill after it was advanced by the member of Parliament for Tauranga, Mr Simon Bridges, and I thank that excellent member, once again, for bringing this important issue to the attention of the House. I also thank those who submitted on the bill and the Primary Production Committee for diligently considering the issues that were raised. I acknowledge that the bill has received strong support from every party in the House, which reflects the importance that Parliament gives to animal welfare in New Zealand. New Zealanders can rest assured that with this bill we will see improved animal welfare in this country.
I do not propose to go through the bill again in detail, but would like to briefly recap its main provisions for the benefit of the House. The bill increases the penalties for wilful ill-treatment of an animal, as well as the penalties for ill-treatment and other neglect-type offences, including failure to meet the physical, health, and behavioural needs of an animal. The maximum term of imprisonment for wilful ill-treatment of an animal will increase from 3 years to 5 years.
The bill also expands the threshold for wilful ill-treatment of an animal—the most serious category of offending—to include serious injury to, or impairment of, an animal. Additionally, it introduces a new offence of reckless ill-treatment of an animal, alongside the existing offence of wilful ill-treatment. This will capture those offenders who might otherwise not have reached the threshold for the offence of wilful ill-treatment to apply. The bill allows the court to impose a minimum disqualification period from animal ownership in cases where serious or repeat offending has occurred. Where the court sets no minimum period, a default period of 2 years applies before that disqualification can be lifted.
Finally, the bill allows for the forfeiture of any, or all, animals owned by the offender where the court believes that this is required for an animal’s protection. These changes will enable cases of cruelty towards animals to be prosecuted at the appropriate level. The changes show that we take cruelty towards animals seriously, and send a strong message to potential offenders that animal welfare offending will simply not be tolerated in our society.
When considering the bill the Primary Production Committee expressed concern about the perceived lack of Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry animal welfare inspectors. Since becoming Minister of Agriculture I have taken prompt and positive steps to address this issue, in the form of an extra $8.2 million for animal welfare activities over the next 4 years. In the first year alone this new funding will enable the ministry to double its number of full-time animal welfare inspectors. As well, $1.2 million will be provided to the SPCA to support the vital role it plays in upholding animal welfare standards in our communities, and I commend the work that the SPCA does.
Animal welfare is a priority for this Government, and the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill sits alongside a range of initiatives it has under way to improve compliance with animal welfare requirements in New Zealand. This bill reflects the fact that most New Zealanders find animal cruelty to be truly repugnant and want strong laws to protect our animals from harm. The Government is confident that the bill will provide a higher level of protection for animals in New Zealand than has previously been the case.
With the legal changes brought about by this bill, New Zealand can continue to uphold the highest standards of animal welfare. The bill will enable the judiciary to impose tougher sentences for serious offending and will give them the tools to protect more animals from harm. This in turn will help prevent some of the more serious offending against animals from occurring in the future.
In conclusion, the passing of this bill is not just the National-led Government acting to improve animal welfare; the entire Parliament is sending the strongest message to potential offenders that cruelty towards animals is abhorrent to society and will not be tolerated. I commend this bill to the House.
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour) Link to this
The Labour Party supports the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill in its progress through the House. How could we not support a bill that is aimed at offering better protection to animals around this country? There had been a number of cases of terrible cruelty to animals, and the Government stepped in and took action. It has brought in a bill that effectively doubles the penalties for any ill-treatment of animals: wilful ill-treatment of animals, neglect of animals, or, as the Minister said, failure to meet the physical and health needs of an animal. Labour supports the protection that is needed for animals. There is no question—no ifs, no buts, no maybes—that we have to offer that protection to animals.
The bill as introduced doubled the penalties for those offences, but the Government had not put in place any additional resources for the policing of that law around the country. I acknowledge that the latest Budget has shifted money within the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to provide some more for animal welfare policing; I might come back to that issue later on. Clearly an additional effort has been made within the ministry to carry out that work.
I acknowledge the need for this bill: there were more than 14,000 complaints about animal welfare in 2008 but only 58 convictions. There was a big gap, and there was a need for resources and for a tidy-up in the law. We have moved in that direction. To quote the Minister, it is absolutely unacceptable that we should have offending against animals. The Minister said that offending or failure to meet the physical and health needs of animals “will simply not be tolerated in our society.” That is why Labour supports the bill.
The question I have for the National Government is: what about the people that it has forgotten? In coming into this House today and celebrating the passage of this legislation—and I see that the Minister has already gone—which will rightfully protect animals in this country, what is National doing to also protect the physical and health needs of people in this country? I tell members what it is doing: it is neglecting them.
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR Link to this
Mr Calder should listen carefully because he might not meet these people. Yesterday on the streets of Westport I met a woman who could not walk without the aid of two walking sticks. She is currently embroiled in a battle with the Accident Compensation Corporation and has been told that her application in relation to an accident—medical misadventure—that was accepted at the time is now under review. She was in tears when she was talking to me and is fearful for her future. Nick Smith and the National Government are determined to discredit the accident compensation scheme, and then to say that we have to cut back in certain areas. They are issuing policy instructions saying that the corporation should go back and review these cases. At the moment in this country people are fearful for their future. The protection of their physical and health needs is not being met by current legislation.
As we pass this good animal welfare legislation, I ask what the National Government is doing about people. National members are silent. There is not a murmur from them, because they know that in celebrating this protection for animals they are neglecting the health and physical needs of thousands and thousands of people in this country today.
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR Link to this
And animals too, but they are making progress on animals. We acknowledge that, and it is why the Labour Party supports this legislation. But the Government should bring to the House legislation that guarantees the health and welfare of individual New Zealanders. That is what we want to see in this House, but the National members ignore that.
In fact, it is worse. In reviewing thousands of accident compensation cases the Government is putting fear into the hearts and minds of thousands of New Zealanders for their future. Those people do not know whether they will get an income. Many of them are unable to work but their accident compensation case managers are saying that they have to look at their cases again, as they may not be entitled to any cover for accidents that were acknowledged as occurring at work. Those accidents that were work-related should be covered by the scheme.
I say to the people affected that they should not blame the accident compensation scheme; they should blame National. It is that Government’s policy to discredit accident compensation, firstly by saying that it is broke and failing. We now know that that is not the case. The scheme took a hit, like every other investment fund around the world, and it lost money because of the international recession. It is now on the way back up. The scheme is not broke, but, in an attempt to discredit it, the Minister for ACC is issuing policy instructions to review cases and, wherever possible, throw people off the support system that they rely on. It is their only support system.
I ask the Minister of Agriculture, who referred to the failure to meet the physical and health needs of animals: what about humans? Abuse of animals will not be tolerated in our society, and that has rightfully been tidied up in this legislation. If people are caught doing it, they will be penalised. We have put in more resources to identify where abuse is taking place. Any Minister can come and ask me and I will identify where abuse is taking place against individual New Zealanders. They can come and ask me about it. I write to the Minister for ACC on a frequent basis to seek support and intervention to stop the physical abuse and the failure to meet the health and well-being needs of individual New Zealanders.
I cannot help but make that point when animal welfare legislation comes to the House, because it is absolute hypocrisy to cheer the passage of animal welfare legislation to protect animals at the same time as we are heading backwards in the care and protection of New Zealanders: of children, of people receiving accident compensation, and of the elderly. That is why, in conjunction with the Green Party, we have an inquiry to investigate the growing abuse, lack of care, and neglect of elderly people that is occurring up and down this country. If the Hon David Carter is to be believed—if he seriously believes his own words that failure to meet the physical and health needs of an animal will not be tolerated in our society—then I ask him about people. What about individual New Zealanders? Government members are absolutely silent.
If I have said this a hundred times in this House, I make no apology, because that is why I have come to this Parliament. I have come to this Parliament to protect New Zealanders when they need it. I stand in this House as the first speaker for the Labour Party on the third reading of the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill because I have come to this House to support any Government that brings in legislation to protect animals in this country—and we are doing that. Every one of us in the Labour Party supports this legislation because we have rightly said that it improves the protection of animals in New Zealand.
Jo GoodhewHon DAMIEN O’CONNOR Link to this
Ms Goodhew cannot even look after the ethical behaviour of one of her finest citizens. I suggest that she goes back to Timaru and defends Mr Hubbard, because we know what is going on down there. He is just one—thankfully, well resourced—individual who is being abused in this country. What about all of the other silent individuals—the children, the people on the accident compensation scheme, the people on benefits, and the elderly—who do not have enough people standing up in this House to defend their rights to fair protection, to prevention of cruelty, and to prevention of wilful ill treatment and neglect? The definitions in this bill about wilful neglect apply to humans just as much as they apply to animals.
The Primary Production Committee improved the bill. We did a lot of good work. There was goodwill to try to get good legislation, and I think we have. But maybe Ms Goudie should go to the Social Services Committee and do the same for individual New Zealanders. That is what I say.
SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) Link to this
Damien O’Connor, the previous speaker, asked: “What about the people?” I say to Damien O’Connor that 99.9 percent of the bills that come to this House are all about the people. Arguably, this one, the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill, is as well in some ways—I may get to that. I want to be very clear to the member that we are not in a general debate right now, where we could do point-scoring. I came to this House to talk about the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill and animal welfare, and that is what I am going to do.
The latest contemporary research continues to confirm that animals are much smarter than we give them credit for. They are much more like us than we have historically thought. I have heard someone say that they are much smarter than Damien O’Connor, but that would be cruel. There are differences between humans and animals. Animals have not devised as many ways as humans to be cruel and inhumane. In the first reading debate, I went through last year’s SPCA list of shame. It listed 50 of the worst cases of animal cruelty we have seen in this country. I will not read it again. The range of sickening, bloodcurdling acts is abhorrent to us, but it makes one wonder who really does deserve the title of “animals” sometimes. The short point is this: humans can be cruel and sadistic. This bill addresses that in relation to animals and it gets tough in relation to animal cruelty.
I will briefly do a couple of things this afternoon. I will recount the passage of this legislation, then very briefly summarise the law as it will be. The passage of this bill is worth telling. In only a few months we in this Parliament, with the support of the SPCA and other animal lovers, have made some pretty big changes to animal cruelty laws. I know some—Sue Kedgley amongst them—will argue that we should do more, and that is a legitimate debate to have. Nevertheless, I do not think that anyone could argue in this House that we have not taken justice for animals much further in this bill than we have previously. As some members may know, I was approached by an SPCA Auckland board member—other SPCA members have also talked to me—about reform. It quickly became very clear to me that change was required. Despite the frequency of heinous acts towards animals in this country, before this bill less than 3 percent of prosecutions resulted in imprisonment. The most common penalty was a fine. At the time that this bill came to the House we may have seen something of a change already with the publicity surrounding the bill, but at that time less than 10 people ever had been to—
Hon Trevor Mallard—I thank the member—fewer than 10 people ever had gone to prison for animal welfare offending.
Throughout much of this, I have liaised with the Minister of Agriculture, David Carter. I thank him and I acknowledge him for taking this bill on and substantially improving and widening it. Becoming a Government bill has made it an absolute priority bill. By the end of today we will have done something very strong and positive for animals and against animal cruelty in this country. I turn to the law. We are not getting a law that simply lifts the maximum penalty for the wilful ill-treatment of animals from 3 to 5 years, as my member’s bill would have done. That would have been a good start, it would have made some difference, and it would have achieved my goals of raising public awareness and sending a message. However, with this bill we are getting much, much more, thanks to the Minister of Agriculture, the Prime Minister, and, ultimately, everyone in this Parliament. We are getting a substantially strengthened law that simplifies and rationalises offences, increases offence penalties across the board, and does more to protect the welfare of animals. There was, if I am frank, the possibility that my member’s bill would have had a more symbolic than real effect. Our Government bill will certainly do more than that. It will improve the law across the board.
As I say, I take the view that this bill is in some respects historic. We have all—123 members of this Parliament—
Hon Darren HughesIt is hard to give a serious speech with some of those members across the other side of the House. Members with different views and different approaches—122 MPs, whether Green, ACT, or other—are voting for this bill. In other words, the entire Parliament of New Zealand is coming together on this legislation and is reaching a consensus against animal cruelty. In conclusion, this year the Government is doing something great for animals and against animal cruelty. I commend this bill to the House.
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) Link to this
Why do I feel as if I have just sat through the public launch of Simon Bridges’ autobiography?
I am very happy to take a call on the third reading of the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. I have checked my diary; apparently today officially is the “Hon David Carter Day of Action”. He had a question in the House and a third reading speech, all within the space of 2 hours. The Minister should be careful that he does not have a nose bleed—that is a lot of work in one afternoon. I think all we can ascertain from that is that there must be a Cabinet reshuffle on the cards. I congratulate the Minister, David Carter. It takes a lot of gall for the Minister to be able to sit there in front of the man whose member’s bill he stole, and to regale himself with the eloquence in which he did it.
I commend the member Simon Bridges, who did all the work for this bill. We heard the long story of the build-up of this legislation and how he was approached to deal with this very important issue. He developed the bill, he took it through his caucus, and he put it in the ballot. It was drawn from the ballot but, with the snip of a Cabinet reshuffle in sight, it was then stolen from him by the Hon David Carter—
Unbelievable. But it is a very good piece of legislation, and of course Labour is happy to support it at its third reading.
I am not quite sure what noises are emanating from the back benches of the Government, but I think I will just ignore them.
This bill is very important, because we have a long history in New Zealand of inadequate penalties for animal cruelty. It takes about $10,000 to prosecute a case of animal cruelty, and it can take a number of years for a case to be taken through to conviction. As compared with 20 years ago when a third of the cases were taken by police, now the SPCA finds itself having to take 90 percent of the cases, which is undoubtedly a heavy load for a voluntary organisation like the SPCA. Along with other members, I put on record our thanks to the SPCA for the good work it does in our country—the good work it has done, and the good work it will continue to do. We are pleased to see that more funding will be going to the SPCA to assist that work, and to prosecute cases of animal cruelty in general.
I tell the Minister that $8 million is a good amount of money but, again, as my colleague Damien O’Connor pointed out, that has to be put into context. There was $40 million provided for private schools, so suddenly the $8 million provided for prosecuting cases of animal cruelty does not look quite so much like the generous appropriation that the Government is trying to make out it is.
One of the points that Labour has been making throughout the course of this entire debate is that doubling the penalties for animal cruelty is a good idea, but if the Government does not make sure that the provision is adequately resourced, then it will not mean a single thing. Historically, only 0.4 percent of animal cruelty cases have gone to conviction—0.4 percent. I think it is fair to say that there is very little disincentive to move away from animal cruelty when we look at the fact that 99.6 percent of cases never end up with convictions. So the resourcing of this legislation will be absolutely critical. As I said before, we are pleased to see that more resourcing is going into this area. We certainly hope that this legislation will result in much tougher penalties for cases of animal cruelty. We certainly hope that it will result in more cases being taken through to conviction.
Some interesting changes were made at the Primary Production Committee during the course of the bill. I think one of the interesting parts of the bill in general is the introduction of the provision for reckless ill-treatment of animals versus that for wilful ill-treatment of animals. One of the big problems in animal cruelty cases has been the necessity to prove intent. Of course, that is difficult enough to do when we are talking about human beings who can tell us what happened; it is virtually impossible to ascertain intent when it comes to animals, which was an important part of the requirement under the law. So the legislation draws a distinction between wilful ill-treatment and reckless ill-treatment. Obviously, wilful ill-treatment, if it can be proven, is a much stronger offence, but I certainly would not like to see the gap between those two offences open up wide. I would hate to see the offence of reckless ill-treatment of animals suddenly, by default, occupy exactly the position we have now, or conjure up very low penalties, which is also a problem we have now.
The penalties under the law that we have are not even being used to their full extent, so doubling them is good. We hope to see that decent penalties will be handed out. I certainly hope that those who are in a position to hand out penalties are noting the fact that Parliament is speaking with one voice on this legislation. We are saying very clearly to the courts that we want to see much tougher penalties for animal cruelty and for the mistreatment of animals.
But I would hate to see the clause about the reckless ill-treatment of animals resulting in lower penalties. The clause is very good because it opens up a whole area for convictions that were very difficult to get in the first place. But if we end up again with few prosecutions or with very low penalties, then the reckless ill-treatment of animals provision may end up just being a way, by proxy, of keeping the status quo that we have now—that is, ineffective penalties. That is particularly important because it may well be that we know that the ill-treatment was wilful, we know that it was intended, but we just cannot prove it. So the provision of the reckless ill-treatment of animals may well be taken in very serious cases—and it is good that those cases will be taken. But I would hate to see the penalties under that clause being seen as very low because Parliament intended “reckless” to mean that someone did not intend to do it or that he or she was just being slightly negligent. That may not be the case; it may be that it was very wilful ill-treatment but that that test could not be met under the law.
The other interesting work the select committee did was on the forfeiture of animals, which is always a very difficult area. When one is deciding who should or should not own animals, a decision is difficult to make when people move animals between different owners to evade the law. I think that the select committee came up with a very sensible way of dealing with that. It said that if someone mistreats an animal and that animal is on his or her property but he or she does not own it, and if the owner is a very good animal owner who has no history of ill-treatment, the authorities would not take the animal off the owner, because the owner may not have known about the ill-treatment. The owner may not have had anything to do with it. Clearly, the select committee did not want that unintended consequence to be carried through.
That provision is very interesting, because not too long ago in this House we had quite a robust and divisive debate about microchipping animals. When I read through this part of the legislation and the select committee’s comments on it, I thought about how far we had come from those days when the Hon David Carter and, probably, Shane Ardern were screaming at us about what a terrible idea the microchipping of animals was. It was dreadful, they said, and it would not work. Well, is the Minister going to repeal the microchipping provisions? No, because that would be doing three things in one day, and that is completely out of the question.
This bill relies a lot on the fact that we know who the owners of animals are and that we are able to trace them. The Minister does not seem to think that it is important to know who the owner of an animal is, but there is a clause in this bill for taking an animal from its owner. I suspect that if the Minister was taking an animal off someone who had mistreated it, and that person said that they did not own the animal, the Minister would say that it was not useful to have a microchip that said in effect “Well, actually you do, because you’re the registered owner.”
In the animal, I say to the Minister—in the animal. The Minister is free to microchip any members of his caucus if he feels that is necessary. But we are talking about microchipping the animals, not the owners.
The fact is that we have come a long way from the debate on animal microchipping, which allows the SPCA to track animals in a way that it could not do before. It allows animal control officers to track animals in a way they had not been able to before. Members on the other side of the House are now taking advantage of that situation, but they were frothing at the mouth when we dared to suggest that we try to track animals so we could know where they were and what their history was. Those members have now done a complete turn-round and have tried to forget history in its entirety. I thought it was important to point out that during the third reading debate.
It is great that we have all come together once again on this bill. It is very important legislation. I hope it will make a significant difference, and I thank the member Simon Bridges for bringing it to the House.
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) Link to this
Well, for 11 long years this Parliament has ignored the petitions and pleas of hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders to put an end to the worst forms of animal abuse—the sow crate and the battery hen cage. Parliament has kept a stony silence about these issues, which so many hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders care so passionately about. So it is something of a red-letter day that we are here having a very serious debate about animal welfare, and considering the first piece of legislation about animal welfare that the House has considered, and indeed is about to pass, in 11 years. I congratulate Simon Bridges on initiating the legislation, and I congratulate the Minister of Agriculture on adding to the original bill the new category of reckless ill-treatment of animals, and on increasing the Budget provision for animal welfare.
The Green Party is supporting this bill largely because of the new category of reckless ill-treatment, which we hope will make it easier for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the SPCA to take prosecutions. Really, the main reason we had seen so few prosecutions for animal cruelty over the years was simply that it was so difficult to prosecute animal cruelty under the existing legislation. One had to prove wilful intent to commit cruelty towards animals in order to succeed. So if a farmer starved his cows to death, it was often difficult to prove there was intent to cause cruelty, and intent to starve the cows to death.
The other reason was simply that there was such a lack of resources and staff to undertake prosecutions. Until now there have been only five full-time Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry inspectors overseeing the welfare of over 100 million animals in New Zealand. It is little wonder, then, that between 2007 and 2009 these five inspectors took only 44 successful prosecutions for animal cruelty, out of the more than 14,000 complaints lodged with the ministry. Only 3 percent of the cases that the ministry investigated resulted in a conviction, and only 0.3 percent of the cases that the SPCA took resulted in a conviction.
The SPCA told us during our consideration of the bill that it was so cash-strapped and so short of resources that it was not able to undertake many prosecutions. Most of its inspectors, after all, are volunteers, and 60 percent of them are part-time, so it is extraordinary that successive Governments have abdicated their duty to enforce the Animal Welfare Act, and that that work has been carried out by a charity, the SPCA. The society has had to have cake stalls, and so forth, to try to fund its prosecutions. It is extraordinary that the SPCA is the only enforcement agency in New Zealand that still has to fund-raise and try to raise money in order to do the work of the Government, in terms of taking out prosecutions under the Act. We hope that this new category will make it easier for the SPCA, and we also hope that some of the new funding will go to the SPCA for the fantastic work it does. Having 10 inspectors instead of five at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry will also make a difference.
We are not optimistic, however, that simply increasing the length of sentences will reduce animal cruelty in New Zealand. There have, after all, been only 11 cases of people who were jailed for animal cruelty in the entire history of New Zealand. A decade ago we introduced 3-year sentences for animal cruelty, but no person has ever received a 3-year sentence. I do not think that just an increase in sentences, by itself, will make any difference, but we hope that the new category and the new resources will make a difference.
When the Minister introduced this bill, he said that as a result of the bill we would see improved animal welfare in this country, and that is great. But he ought to have added “for some animals”, because this provision is particularly for companion animals, for individual animals. The truth is that this bill applies to only individual cases of animal cruelty, and completely turns a blind eye—completely ignores—all cases of institutional cruelty to animals in the farming sector. Any farming business that has a code of animal welfare in place is exempted from this legislation. So if someone carries out something that could be argued to be animal cruelty, it will not be deemed to be animal cruelty if there is a code in place; this bill will not apply.
The 90 million hens that spend their lives in cages will not be touched or affected in any way by this bill. They will continue to live their lives inside cages, where they will be unable to move around or spread their wings. They will not even be able to turn round, and they will not be able to express almost any forms of natural behaviour. The thousands and thousands of sows that are locked in cages for months on end, where they are not able to turn round, will not be affected by this bill, either.
It is interesting that Simon Bridges commented on the intelligence of many animals. In fact, sows and pigs are generally thought to be even more intelligent than dogs. They are thought to be highly intelligent. There is some research showing that they have been able to use joysticks and play computer games. Nevertheless, these highly intelligent animals will remain locked in their cages, experiencing what can be deemed only to be animal cruelty, and they will be untouched by this bill.
This Parliament will pretend that keeping a pig in a cage is not animal cruelty, so that owners will not be prosecuted under this bill. But it is interesting that if someone kept a dog in a cage for, say, a week or maybe weeks, that person could be prosecuted. That person could be prosecuted under the existing legislation, but certainly under this bill that person could be prosecuted. The owner of a dog that was kept in a cage for a long period of time could end up, arguably, in jail under this bill. However, if the owner of a highly intelligent sow kept the sow in a cage for months on end, that person would not be affected by this bill; he or she would not be prosecuted and would continue to be rewarded by our society and by this Parliament.
Effectively what we have in New Zealand now is a double standard, when it comes to animal cruelty. We have one standard for individual animals, particularly for companion animals, and a completely different standard for farm animals. In fact, Federated Farmers came to our select committee and said that this bill should not apply to any farm animal, any production animal. It said that we should continue to turn a blind eye, and that farmers should be able to continue to carry out any form of animal cruelty, to treat their animals in any way no matter how cruel, because they are production animals. We should have one standard for production animals, for farm animals, and one for other animals. [Interruption] Yes, my colleague is reminding me that it is a bit like George Orwell’s Animal Farm. The animals on our farms will get the Orwellian cruel treatment—
—if they are permitted to. That is fair enough; the member is pointing out that most farmers do not treat their animals cruelly. Most farmers treat their animals extremely well. However, we cannot say the same for so-called chicken farms, hen farms, and intensive pig farms in New Zealand. Yet Federated Farmers argued that no farmer should be prosecuted, because farm animals are production animals. They were arguing a double standard.
The Minister said that his Government takes animal welfare seriously. He says that this bill shows that animal cruelty will not be tolerated in New Zealand. It is abhorrent to society; it will not be tolerated. All I can say to the Minister is that those are fantastic words. Can this Parliament and the Minister now turn their attention to the institutionalised cruelty of animals in New Zealand?
It is already under way? Well, we have been waiting for 11 years to do something about sows, about the pig code, and about hens. The Minister is assuring us that they will be liberated from their cruelty; I am delighted to hear that. If that is the case, I say to the Minister that he has my heartiest congratulations.
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) Link to this
I rise in support of the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill, along with the rest of the Parliament. This is a rare occasion when the Parliament, I understand, is unanimously—100 percent, 122 votes—in favour of the bill. It does happen from time to time, and, when it does, it should be celebrated.
The interesting thing about the debate from members on the other side of the House is that I have never been subjected to so many angry speeches in support of legislation. I think the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill may have arrived just in time for some of my colleagues on the other side of the House. Clearly, something is going on over there, from a cruelty point of view, that could make them so angry when they are in support of legislation. I wonder what they are like when they do not like something. I have been sitting here pondering what could have caused it. I think I have come to a conclusion, and the member Sue Kedgley may have given me the hint. After 12 long years of Labour and Green Governments, they were unable to do anything; they never achieved anything. Nothing was done. And what happens? A National Government, which, according to the last speaker, apparently supports farmers who are cruel to animals—not—comes along and introduces legislation that will fix up some of the issues that have been ongoing, as the member said, for a very long time.
Yes, that is right; in 18 months it is already done.
The further point that needs to be made—and it was raised by some of the previous speakers—is about the lack of resources. The National Government not only introduced a bill to fix up some of the problems but also added another $8.2 million towards a lot more resources to solve the issue.
It is worth repeating—an extra $8.2 million will help with the fight against cruelty to animals.
The Hon Damien O’Connor, who was a member of the Primary Production Committee, spent most of his speech talking about this legislation in terms of how it addresses issues of negative behaviour of people in society. Well, he must not have listened to submitters during the submission process who said time and time again that there is an absolute link between cruelty to animals and further violence in society towards people. So in answer to Damien O’Connor’s challenge to the House about what National is doing in the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill to address problems in society like violence towards people, I say that this bill, according to those submitters, whom I have no reason to doubt, will go a long way to prevent some of the negative, heinous behaviour that we often see from people who start off by being cruel to animals and progress to being violent towards their partners, their families, their children, or whatever the case may be.
The Primary Production Committee received the bill in good faith from the Government on 23 February 2010. The closing date for submissions was 15 March 2010 and the committee delivered. We received the bill, we got the submissions in—17 different organisations across the country submitted to the committee—and we went through the process and delivered a result. We made some recommendations to the Government in terms of changes that might be considered, and the Government looked at those recommendations and put them in the bill. This legislation has had a sound, robust parliamentary process. It is supported by all members in the Parliament.
I need to finish with one point: New Zealand is an agricultural nation. I know that a lot of people in New Zealand hate that, and I know that a lot of people in New Zealand would like to change that. But the fact is that we are an agricultural nation. Members from the Green Party are gesturing as though that is some kind of revelation to them. Well, I mention to them that when I attended a political meeting in my own electorate, in Raglan, members of the Green Party were there and said that they would ban agriculture if they were given a chance. So I need to point that out to the members over there. We are an agricultural nation, we are dependent on our primary production systems, and we need to make sure that we present to the world farming systems that can stand up to scrutiny as far as animal welfare concerns go. I believe this bill will go a long way in doing that.
Dr ASHRAF CHOUDHARY (Labour) Link to this
It is a pleasure to speak after the chairman of the Primary Production Committee on the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. I assure Mr Ardern that if he were a Minister there would not be many angry speeches in this House against him. He is a good chairman; he is a good man, who should be the Minister of Agriculture.
This bill is an interim arrangement. I call it an interim arrangement because even Simon Bridges, who introduced this bill, accepted in his speech that there is a need to do more. So, clearly, this bill is an interim arrangement, because just increasing penalties, fines, and jail time will not solve all the problems. In this country we cannot accept cruelty to animals. I acknowledge the work done by the select committee, along with the chairman who also mentioned the work that the committee has done, and also the work of the officials. I must also acknowledge that we have made some very good amendments to the bill, and the committee did a good job.
This bill comes after some very unfortunate incidents in relation to animal cruelty, such as kittens being fed to pit bulls or dogs being shot. There have been very cruel incidents, and this bill has arisen from those situations. I am delighted that Simon Bridges took the initiative with this bill, which was passed on to the Minister of Agriculture who picked it up and brought it to the House. I am glad that the recent Budget has increased funding for the SPCA and for issues to do with animal cruelty.
As we know, in 2008 there were nearly 14,000 complaints received by the SPCA against animal cruelty, and only 110 cases resulted in some kind of charge being laid. Out of those cases, there were only 58 convictions. That shows how hard it is to prove animal cruelty, whether ill-treatment or the new offence of reckless ill-treatment of animals, which is now a new clause in this bill.
I think it is very important for us to realise that although we have done a good job in terms of this bill, and the whole Parliament of 122 members has approved this bill, there are important issues for us as an agricultural nation. We are very highly dependent on the export of animal products, whether they are dairy products, meat, wool, or whatever. We are highly dependent on the welfare of our animals and, particularly, on the perception out in our market places of the welfare of our animals. People want to know that the meat, wool, and milk from New Zealand is coming from animals that are well treated and well looked after. That is an important issue that we have to be very careful of in the future, particularly in relation to the legal areas.
As we know, there are ever-increasing difficulties in exporting our products to the EU and Asian countries, and we want to ensure that more and more of our products are going to those markets. But people are watching the way that we treat our animals—particularly farm animals, as the member from the Green Party said. We have to be very careful about the perception out there in the market place in relation to our farm animals’ welfare. We have heard, for example, about pigs in sow crates. We have heard about cubicle farming, and about some of the issues there. We have heard about 1080 drops, and that is an ongoing, controversial issue. Personally, I totally agree that we need to use 1080, because there is no other option at the moment. The science has not come up with anything new that is comparable with 1080 drops, so we have to use it, but there are people out there, within the country and overseas, who are opposed to using 1080 drops.
There are issues like that, and also issues in relation to the treatment of young animals like lambs and calves in the snowy areas, for example. I think that we are all very mindful of those issues as we go forward, with regard to how the market place will see the way that we treat those animals. I think it is important that we as a nation look after animals very well, particularly, as the Minister of Agriculture has accepted now—
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER Link to this
I am sorry to interrupt the member. The level of noise is so great that I am having difficulty hearing the member. I ask members to please quieten down. If discussions need to take place, please go out to the lobbies.
Dr ASHRAF CHOUDHARY Link to this
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I appreciate your intervention in this case. As I was saying, it is very important for us to be mindful of our future exports to the markets that are becoming very differentiating in terms of where animal products come from. As we very proudly say when we travel overseas and meet other parliamentarians and officials, we take a lot of pride in our country’s clean, green image. That is very good, and we are very proud of that. But at the same time, the stories about animal mistreatment, particularly on farms, reach out to the market places, and people want to know exactly what is happening.
This bill is, in my view, an interim bill and we will have to do more. I am quite sure that in a few years’ time, this issue will come up again in relation to the treatment of farm animals. I think that all the farmers in this Parliament realise that we have to be very mindful of this issue, particularly as to how we treat our pigs, cows, and sheep on farms, as the farms become more and more intensive. This is especially so for dairy farming. We have heard about the issues in relation to water utilisation in dairy farming in Canterbury. Cubicle farming was a very hot issue a while ago, although at the moment we are not hearing very much about where that is at, but we are getting into more intensive farming. I suppose that to grow our GDP as a country, we will have to get more and more exports of dairy products, particularly, for which I believe there is a huge market out in Asia. There is a growing market in Asia, in countries like China, and India and other Asian countries are coming up. Those countries are very keen to import our products, particularly dairy products and wool. They are also interested in importing our forestry products and other products, but our main exports to them are animal products. It is important that we are not careless in the way that we treat our animals, and it is better if the unfortunate stories like the ones we heard earlier do not go out into the media and the market place.
In conclusion, I once again say that this is a good bill. I acknowledge Simon Bridges, who is sitting at the back of the House. His good work started this bill. I know that the current Minister of Agriculture was the chairman of the Primary Production Committee for 6 years and, as far as I know, he never raised this issue. Obviously, this bill is a credit to the new, young member for Tauranga, who has done a good job of bringing it to the House. I am delighted that the Government has taken over this member’s bill and has taken the next step, and I appreciate the extra money that the Minister has made available in this area in the Budget. With those words, I commend this bill to the House.
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) Link to this
There is clearly a great deal of public interest in this important issue of animal welfare, and it is good to see that it has commanded urgent attention from a diligent Minister of Agriculture and a very busy and effective Government. Like Mr Choudhary, the previous speaker, I pay tribute to my colleague Simon Bridges, the member for Tauranga, who I think deserves considerable kudos and credit for his hard work and attention to detail on this matter, and for showing his responsiveness to that widespread public interest. I think it is a fitting reward that his member’s bill has been adopted as a Government bill, and I congratulate him on that. I know that he has worked tirelessly to achieve that end.
Absolutely indefatigable—I thank Dr Calder for that.
The provisions of this bill have been well canvassed by previous speakers and in the bill’s earlier readings as it has moved through the House. I am pleased that it is now a very comprehensive measure that underlines the seriousness of the issue. Several of my constituents in Hamilton West have raised with me in recent months their very real concerns about animal welfare issues. The Animal Welfare Amendment Bill demonstrates that we are taking their concerns, and, indeed, in many cases their deep revulsion and distress, very seriously.
I imagine that all members of this House and an overwhelming number of New Zealanders struggle to understand how anyone could deliberately be cruel to a domestic pet, and are sickened when instances of that type of abuse are brought to our attention. How anyone could feed kittens to a pit bull terrier is almost impossible to comprehend. How anyone could take pleasure from training dogs to fight is beyond me. The disturbing reality is that such sickening cruelty to animals often reflects a propensity to inflict cruelty on the frail and vulnerable adults and children in our communities. So it is right that we enact stronger penalties to reflect society’s collective revulsion towards those who inflict terror and pain on any living creatures.
I am encouraged to detect support for this bill from all the other parties in the House. But it was disappointing to hear Mr O’Connor wander from the topic in his speech. When both he and Ms Mackey expressed concern at the relatively low number of convictions for animal cruelty, I found myself in agreement with them, but for 9 long years under their Labour Government, very little happened in that area. But Mr O’Connor’s suggestion that the new National Government is neglecting the people is bizarre, irrelevant, and unfounded. It was a shame that he showed little ability or inclination to focus on the provisions of this bill when he spoke. Animals barely got a look-in when he was on his feet. In fact, it was a real “Four legs bad, two legs good.” type of address, and that was very disappointing.
So let us look at what more informed commentators have said about this measure. There are not many more qualified to do so than the SPCA’s national president, Bob Kerridge, who said: “It is time to recognise that cruelty to animals is a social sickness that is as heinous as any act of violence inflicted on fellow humans, and the two are inextricably linked.” He also said: “Wilful ill-treatment epitomises the most reprehensible acts of animal cruelty we encounter, for which sentences are generally abysmally light given the nature of the crimes.” Well, this bill addresses Mr Kerridge’s concern and increases the maximum penalty for wilful ill-treatment of an animal to 5 years of imprisonment.
The bill has also been warmly endorsed by Dr Wayne Ricketts of the New Zealand Veterinary Association, who backs increasing the maximum penalty for wilful ill-treatment of animals and who has commended the Government’s comprehensive overhaul of animal welfare legislation and codes of welfare for commercial activities involving animals. Dr Ricketts said: “We are delighted to see an increased compliance and enforcement effort with the doubling of enforcement officers and the stated focus on bringing the key organisations involved in animal welfare together.
There is no doubt that there is considerable professional support for this bill. Those who have great experience dealing with the issue out in our community are right behind it. It is wonderful to know that all members of the House are behind it, and I look forward to this bill very shortly becoming the law of New Zealand.
STUART NASH (Labour) Link to this
This is an interesting debate because I have heard Shane Ardern and Tim Macindoe trumpeting about the wonderful things they have done to fix animal rights. Well, that is good and great, and, as has been mentioned, we all support that, but I would love members of the Government to stand up and talk about some measures they will put in place to help humans. What have they done? There have been a whole lot of cuts. If we start at the beginning of life, we see that there have been cuts to early childhood education.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER Link to this
This is a third reading speech, not a first reading speech, and the bill is about animal welfare.
Very much so.
This is a great debate. One of the first legal debates we had at law school was a discussion of whether a fish is an animal. I suppose that comes down to whether a human is an animal. Of course, a human is an animal. That is why I am talking about the welfare of humans as well as the welfare of animals. The welfare of human animals has been affected by cuts to home help and early childhood education, and everything in between. The only animals that have benefited from this Government are the ones that walk on four legs—clearly not the ones that walk on two legs. There is no doubt about that whatsoever.
When it comes to animals, I support this bill. Who would not support this bill?
I will talk about this bill. As mentioned, the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill was initially brought to the House by Simon Bridges. I suspect that the reason Mr Bridges is no longer in charge of the bill is, as he admitted last night in the debate, that he lost about 50 percent of the cases that he heard as a prosecutor or defence lawyer. I do not quite know how that works. If someone had Mr Bridges as a lawyer and tossed the coin, that person would win 50 percent of those cases and lose 50 percent of them. Goodness me! The Government could not risk this bill being defeated in the House, so it took it away from Mr Bridges, looked for a safe pair of hands, and then gave it to David Carter.
But, anyway, the bill is before the House, it is having its third reading, and it will be supported by everyone in the House, which is fantastic. I suppose Mr Bridges did well to pick it up to start with, and he acted in a very magnanimous way when it was ripped from him and given to a Cabinet Minister, who is more important. I commend him for retaining his dignity. Someone with a lesser personality would have jumped up and down and whinged when such a simple task had been taken off him, but he did well. I must admit that I love his glasses; they look good. I wonder whether there are lenses in them. He looks very smart.
Anyway, animal cruelty is abhorrent to everyone. We all know that when photos of such abuse appear in newspapers and on TV, they always raise groans of disgust. Animals are not humans, but many are treated in such a way. I know of cat owners who think that cats are on a higher level than humans—
Carmel SepuloniI will. The abuse shows a disturbing lack of not only responsibility but also any thought of empathy. It is quite frightening. We all know the stories about Guy Fawkes Night, when kids set fire to dogs and cats. It is just dreadful. Parliament has a role to send a message loud and clear that certain behaviour is simply not acceptable. This is what this bill does. It sends a message that any abuse of any sort of animal is simply not acceptable to society, so we will increase the measures wholeheartedly, and let us hope it works. Let us hope it is picked up and broadcast loud and wide.
I was astounded to read that in 2008 the SPCA had over 14,000 complaints of animal abuse—14,000. I know that only 110 resulted in charges being laid and 58 resulted in convictions, but I ask what the hell is going on out there when 14,000 cases of animal abuse are being reported. Goodness me; we need to do something about this. One thing we really need to do is fund the SPCA. Parliament gave it an extra $1.2 million over the next 4 years. We rely on it to such a large extent, yet we expect it to hold cake stalls and to raise money so that it can do the public good. The SPCA needs to be funded, and money also needs to be provided to early childhood education, adult and community education classes, and home help.
Let me get back to these animals. I ask whether a fish is an animal. Is an orange roughy an animal? I am not too sure. I have been to the SPCA in Napier, and it does a fabulous job. There were not only cats and dogs at that SPCA; there was even a turtle. The chief executive officer of the SPCA in Napier, a wonderful guy called Rob Johnson, has done an amazing job of turning that place around. He has got money, he has the buy-in of the local community, and he has got local sponsors. I know that Rob would like to spend more of his valuable time actually advocating for animals and building cases against those who neglect and abuse them, rather than getting out there and raising money. This is what we have to do. This is a classic case of an organisation that could do with more funding.
I ask why this is important. It may have been Tim or Shane Arden who mentioned that tackling animal cruelty can have a greater benefit for society. There is a proven link between cruelty to animals and abuse of humans. I can tell members about a 1997 survey that was undertaken by the Humane Society of the United States of 50 of the largest shelters for battered women. It found that 85 percent of the women and 63 percent of the children entering those shelters discussed instances of pet abuse in the family. That is simply dreadful, and it is something we must do a lot about.
I am in a relationship where the cat shares the same privileges as me—except when it comes to rights over the couch or the prime cuts of meat. The cat’s name is Mozzarella. That cat has been around longer than I have, so I suppose Mozzarella has pre-emptive rights. Even in moments of tiredness, when the couch would be nice but the floor beckons, thanks to Mozzarella’s disposition, there is never, ever a moment when I would consider treating this ball of fluff any differently from how I would treat a child. The thought of cruelty, quite frankly, makes me feel ill. I simply cannot understand how there can have been 14,000 reported instances of animal abuse in 2008. And those are just the ones that are reported; I assume it is probably the tip of the iceberg.
This bill is obviously supported well and truly in this House. It has been reported widely that the SPCA will be given the powers, the police will be given the time, and the other agencies that do the work around this area will be given the mandate to go out and put in place the measures in this bill. I hope that we see more convictions and that the complainants do not have someone like Simon Bridges as a lawyer, because he admitted, as mentioned, that he won only 50 percent of his cases. I suppose that is not too bad; it is better than the Irish rugby team against the All Blacks. I support this bill and I commend it to the House. Thank you very much.
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) Link to this
I am delighted to be speaking on the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. I thought I would break from the tenor of the contributions to the debate and actually talk about the bill—gosh, imagine! The bill itself and what it does have not been talked about very much.
I reiterate that the bill clarifies ownership. I am quite taken by clause 7, which amends section 169 of the Animal Welfare Act, which states: “A court may … disqualify a person for any period that it thinks fit, from being the owner of, or exercising authority in respect of, an animal or animals of a particular kind or description where the court convicts that person of an offence …” prescribed in the bill. I think that is really great.
A person who has been convicted of the wilful ill-treatment of an animal does not deserve to own or have authority for an animal, and the court may decide the period of time for which this applies. The bill states: “In making an order under subsection (1), the court may also specify a minimum disqualification period.” I think that if it is easier for the court to make that determination with a conviction, then that is great. Those people do not deserve to own an animal if they cannot look after it. If they have had a couple of tries and they have been found wanting, then I think that minimum disqualification period—it will be assessed in accordance with the actual offence—should be quite lengthy. If a person cannot look after an animal in the first instance, any future behaviours, or further ownership, or exercising of authority will probably be found to be wanting.
I would like to make a comment in reference to the amount of complaints made. A number of complaints made about the ill-treatment of animals are found to be not qualified—that is, people not necessarily understanding what they are seeing. I will give members an example. Horses can be kept in a couple of paddocks where the grass is pretty short, but in actual fact those horses are in really good condition because they are being fed all sorts of other types of matter, not just pasture. When people see a horse in a fairly empty paddock, they do not necessarily know that that horse is being fed a lot of other different types of feed and is in really good, first-rate condition. I had that concern, so I went and spoke to the owners and had a look at the animals. The owners told me what was happening. They said they had had a lot of complaints, but they were pretty spurious.
I just make that short comment. I would like to commend Simon Bridges for his excellent contribution in bringing this bill before the House, the Minister of Agriculture for his foresight in acknowledging the importance of this bill, and the Government for taking it up and for contributing of $8 million - plus to furthering the care of animals in New Zealand. It is a great bill. Well done, everybody.
Dr CAM CALDER (National) Link to this
As the 18th century jurist and philosopher Jeremy Bentham said about animals, “the question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, [rather] Can they suffer?”. Curbing cruelty to animals is a priority for National.
The relationship between mankind and animals has probably been extant longer than that between man and the oldest profession. The emotional symbioses and synergies, the confrontations and territorial disputes between mankind and animals have exercised the poet, the author, the philosopher, and the statesman over the years. All have had their thoughts.
Mahatma Gandhi observed: “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” This Government is concerned that the people who are cruel to animals are also often violent to their families and others. Immanuel Kant wrote: “We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.”
How will this bill work? Among the things that this bill explores is the expansion of the threshold for the wilful ill-treatment of an animal—the most serious category of offending—to include the serious injury or impairment of an animal. The bill increases the maximum penalty for wilful ill-treatment to 5 years’ imprisonment.
The deep relationship between animals and humankind has occasioned a raft of comments verging on the metaphysical. Theophile Gautier, for instance, said: “Who can believe that there is no soul behind those luminous eyes!”. An anonymous person observed: “Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this.” Warren Eckstein wrote: “In the beginning, God created man, but seeing him so feeble, He gave him the cat.” Anatole France wrote: “Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” As a medical doctor, I was well aware of the therapeutic benefit that many of my patients derived from their daily interaction with their family pets.
The vast majority of New Zealanders—whether urban dwellers, with their cat, dog, turtle, or parrot, or the “horny-handed sons of toil” in the rural sector, with hundreds of dairy cows or flocks of thousands of sheep—nurture and care for their animals in an exemplary fashion. This bill sends the clear message to the very, very small number of offenders that cruelty to animals is completely unacceptable and it will be dealt with severely. I commend this bill to the House.