Why wait?

The government has announced that it will ban the export of livestock by sea. Huzzah! A vile, cruel and unconscionable trade will be ended! But there's a catch: the ban won't kick in until 2023, giving farmers two ful years to continue to profit from extreme animal cruelty.

But why wait? This ban doesn't require legislation. The export of live animals for slaughter is already banned under the Animal Welfare (Export of Livestock for Slaughter) Regulations 2016 (which extended a ban which had been in place since 2008), and this regulation could simply be extended. The enabling clause in the Animal welfare Act makes it very clear that export regulations "may prohibit, either absolutely or conditionally, any specified type of exportation of animals", so there's no question of legality. There is a consultation requirement, but that doesn't take two years, and neither does drafting and passing a regulation. So again, why wait? Its hard to see this as anything other than deliberate foot-dragging by a government that still wants to pander to a particularly cruel and vicious industry.

Time to end feedlots

Our usual picture of New Zealand farming is of animals in a field somewhere, eating grass - a natural environment, where the animals get to exhibit their natural behaviours. But on Monday, SAFE exposed the beef industry's dirty secret: we have American-style feedlots in New Zealand:

The Five Star Beef Limited feedlot in Ashburton is New Zealand's biggest and has been running since 1991.

The cattle spend six months grazing, eating grass, before being moved to the feedlot where they are locked in square, uncovered pens, given vaccination to prevent disease and fed grains, for anywhere from two and a half, to eight months.

Animal welfare group SAFE has serious concerns about both animal welfare and the environmental impact of having nearly 20,000 cattle confined.

Feedlots are an environmental and animal welfare disaster. The animals are confined, fed an unusual diet which causes them health problems, and unable to exhibit their natural behaviours - its basicly battery farming for cows. Environmentally, all those cows leads to a lot of shit and piss, which pollutes the local water table or goes straight into the nearest river. I suspect the Environment Minister is not the only one struggling to see how this is legal. And its effect on New Zealand farming's international reputation - which is built on that image of animals in green fields - is catastrophic. But rather than recognise this, and move to fix it, Federated Farmers is instead attacking the messenger. But while "militant vegan" may be horrifying and instantly discrediting in the eyes of rural hicks, to urban voters its about as persuasive as calling someone a "pretty little communist", and it says more about the mindset of the accuser than the accused. If they were looking to defend their social licence for cruelty and pollution, I think that's likely to backfire.

If feedlots aren't legal, then the RMA and Animal Welfare Act need to be rigorously enforced. If they are, then those laws need to be strengthened. Because like dirty dairying, this is not a type of farming that New Zealanders find acceptable. The farmers who use them need to stop, or the public will make them.

Meanwhile, if you don't want to support their type of farming, you can get a list of feedlot beef stockists from the wayback machine here.

MPI looks the other way on animal abuse

We've seen plenty of examples of how MPI refuses to prosecute fishers, even when they blatantly and repeatedly break the law. But fishers aren't the only group which has captured MPI. Newsroom has a story today about a farmer who beat cows with a steel pipe. And naturally, MPI didn't want to know about it:

A Northland sharemilker caught on hidden cameras hitting dairy cows with a steel pipe in his milking shed had previously been the subject of a complaint to the Ministry for Primary Industries about other claims of animal abuse.

[...]

The farmhand and another former worker raised concerns about the abuse with the owner of the farm.

When nothing was done by the owner they raised the issue with MPI by phone. The former worker said MPI didn’t seem to understand the issues.

“She was going on about - 'On a scale of one to 10 were the cows skinny, or in good condition?'

“I said ‘Look, you’re not really listening, they’re well-fed, the abuse is physical abuse’."

When MPI did nothing, the farmhand went to Farmwatch, who installed hidden cameras and caught the abuse on video. That evidence has now been turned over to MPI. It will be interesting to see whether they act on it, or continue to make excuses for an animal abuser.

As Catriona MacLennan points out, this is another example of MPI's reluctance to act on animal welfare issues, and it is clear that they see their role as advocating for farmers rather than enforcing the law. Which suggests that we need to resolve this fundamental conflict of interest by removing responsibility for investigations and prosecutions from MPI, and placing it in the hands of a separate, specialist agency.

The party of cruelty

Fox hunting is the perfect example of pointless aristocratic cruelty. Its banning in the UK was a huge advance for animal welfare. Now Theresa May wants to bring it back:

Theresa May has announced she hopes to bring back fox hunting.

The Conservatives will renew a pledge to hold a free vote on overturning 2004 ban on the blood sport, Ms May said.

During a visit to a factory in Leeds, the Prime Minister said: “This is a situation on which individuals will have one view or the other, either pro or against.

“As it happens, personally I have always been in favour of fox hunting, and we maintain our commitment, we have had a commitment previously as a Conservative Party, to allow a free vote.

Another example of how the UK Conservatives are the party of cruelty. They'd probably bring back serfdom if they thought they could get away with it.

We should not let an animal abuser export live cattle

Sheik Hamood Al-Ali Al-Khalaf, of Saudi sheep-farm fame, is back! And this time, he wants to export live cattle to China:

More than 5000 New Zealand dairy cows are due to be shipped to China by a Saudi businessman.

RNZ reported the Ministry for Primary Industries has received an export application for 5300 dairy breeding cattle, however an export certificate had not yet been issued.

It reported the businessman was Sheik Hamood Al-Ali Al-Khalaf, who was involved in 2015's Saudi sheep scandal, where the New Zealand Government made a multi-million dollar deal with Al-Khalaf and set up an agribusiness hub in the desert.

Worth noting is the fact that nearly all the lambs of the sheep Murray McCully bribed him with died. More importantly, his previous live animals exports from New Zealand led to 5300 sheep dying in appalling conditions - which is why we banned the practice. Al-Khalaf is basicly an animal abuser; we should not let him be involved in this trade.

And while we're at this: while the export of live animals for slaughter is banned, the penalty for doing so is derisory: a mere $10,000 fine. That seems to be... insufficient, especially compared to the potential profits involved. A higher penalty would require actual legislation, rather than merely a regulatory ban, but that seems entirely justified.

We need an independent animal welfare regulator

Another day, more tales of gratuitious animal abuse by farmers:

Animal rights supporters are calling for an independent watchdog to take over animal welfare responsibilities from the Ministry for Primary Industries following more allegations of farm animal abuse.

Comments made by members of a dairy farming Facebook group about how to stop a cow from kicking and to get it to let down milk have been called "sickening".

Complaints based on the Facebook comments have been made to the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), which has started "several investigations" as a result, with some already completed.

Some of the suggestions included inserting a hose into the cow's "fanny" and blowing into it (called "tubing" in the industry), which is a breach of the Dairy Cattle Code of Welfare.

Unfortunately, MPI is utterly captured by the industry it is supposed to be regulating, and the police just aren't interested. These farmers won't be punished for their cruelty. Which is why we need an independent body to investigate and prosecute these sorts of offences. Sadly, we won't get it from National - the farmer's party has no interest in holding farmers accountable for their crimes.

A bribe predicated on a lie

Remember sheepgate? Murray McCully bribed a Saudi businessman with $10 million of public money, supposedly to avoid a $30 million lawsuit. But it turns out that that lawsuit didn't exist:

The Nation has obtained Cabinet papers from 2013 showing Mr McCully claimed the Government faced a $20-30-million lawsuit if it didn't resume livestock exports.

[...]

However, Mr Al-Khalaf's business partner George Assaf has told The Nation they had no intention of suing the New Zealand Government.

"We have never taken any action or thought about this. We may get a legal opinion but we had no appetite, no ambition to take any Govt to court let alone NZ," he said.

He also appears to have been trying to secretly resume live sheep exports, in contravention of New Zealand law.

Which means that McCully appears to have misled Cabinet - and Parliament. Isn't it time he was held responsible for this, and sacked?

Today's sheepgate revelations

The government's "defence" of Murray McCully's sordid Saudi sheep bribe has been to blame Labour, alleging that it promised to resume live sheep exports with Saudi Arabia and then changed its mind. But today in Question Time, it turns out that the opposite is true: it was Murray McCully who raised Saudi expectations. The transcripts aren't online yet, but you can watch the details here; McCully admits that he had met with Brownrigg and Al Khalaf's business partner George Assaf to discuss the resumption of the live sheep trade, and that he promised to "look seriously at resolving the live trade impasse". The government then turned around and renewed the export prohibition order - so you can see why they were upset.

More interestingly, it appears that former National Party President Michelle Boag has her dirty pawprints all over this, was involved in the negotiations, and may have suggested the bribe. So it looks like this goes beyond just McCully.

Time to ban exports for breeding too

When New Zealand originally banned the export of live animals for slaughter, it was driven by animal welfare considerations (and concerns about how rich European and North American customers would respond to them). The trade was cruel, and what happened to the animals at the other end was even crueller. But the trade in animals for breeding was allowed to continue, despite it using the same cruel ships, on the basis that it wasn't as bad.

Murray McCully's sordid Saudi sheep bribe blows that out of the water. Yes, they airfreighted 900 pregnant sheep to Saudi Arabia, so the trip was nowhere near as stressful. And then when they got them to the other end, the lambs died:

High numbers of New Zealand bred lambs on a controversial demonstration farm in the Saudi Arabian desert have died soon after birth.

New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, which is running the operation, said it was not responsible for animal welfare at the farm, which is intended to showcase New Zealand agriculture.

The Government flew 900 pregnant sheep to the Saudi farm late last year as part of an $11 million deal with the farm's owner, Hamood al-Ali al-Khalaf, whose anger over the cancellation of live sheep exports was preventing a free trade deal with the Gulf states.

By December, the lambs were being born and promptly began to die. New Zealand Trade and Enterprise could not confirm exactly how many had died but described it as "high losses".

According to One News' Heather du Plessis-Allan, the fatality rate was 75%, with some lambs dying of starvation. That's about fifteen times higher than the death rates in New Zealand, and its an animal welfare nightmare. But NZTE seems to be trying to wash their hands of it because

the welfare and treatment of the lambs at the demonstration farm were matters for the Saudi farmer Mr Al-Khalaf

Bullshit. NZTE exported them, and they are morally responsible. And what they're responsible for here is an animal welfare disaster.

Quite apart from showing what a crazy idea McCully's sheep bribe was, this also casts doubt on the entire breeding export industry. And we can't let New Zealand exporters continue to ignore it. We simply cannot permit animals to be exported into conditions where they will suffer more than they do on a New Zealand farm. And if farmers aren't willing to guarantee that, we cannot let them export at all.

The sheep files

Two weeks ago, John Key tried to blame Murray McCully's sordid Saudi sheep bribe on Labour, claiming in Question Time that:

The second point I would make is that these issues are issues that have actually been dealt with by successive Governments. I would take this opportunity to encourage the member to speak to Annette King and Phil Goff about the warnings that they received on these issues when they were in Government and about the actions that they were looking to take. He might be amazingly surprised to hear the answers.

He then repeatedly blocked release of the Cabinet papers he thought would be so damaging. But today Labour unilaterally released them (though with purported OIA redactions). And despite McCullay's rather desperate attempts to claim otherwise, they show nothing of the sort. What they do show is:

• Following the 2003 ban, the Labour government attempted to negotiate an agreement with Saudi Arabia to address animal welfare issues around live exports, similar to that negotiated by Australia.
  
• In August 2006, MAF was directed to review its policies on live exports. This meant that the agreement with Saudi Arabia could not be finalised, as it would be effectively revoked if a ban was put in place, "prompt[ing] questions about New Zealand's good faith as a negotiator and trading partner".
  
• The review recommended a ban on live exports for slaughter for animal welfare considerations and to protect New Zealand's international reputation (and exports to much bigger markets in Europe and North America). MFAT was quite cold-blooded about this: they did the maths and concluded that live sheep slaughter exports were worth only ~$5 million a year, a tiny fraction of the sheep meat export market ($2.4 billion), and much less than the potential cost of a consumer boycott in key markets. (The lesson here: if you want to change NZ government policy, run a smear campaign attacking agricultural exports in Europe. Climate change campaigners take note!)
  
• There were "international legal and policy risks" around this. All detail is (unfortunately) redacted, but its pretty obvious: it could be challenged via the WTO, and the Saudis might be upset that the NZ government had changed its mind. There's no suggestion of a specific legal risk from affronted Saudi businessmen with investments in New Zealand, and certainly no suggestion of paying them millions of dollars to go away.
  

In short, John Key constructed a crude Muldoonist smear, and got caught. It's quite illustrative of what sort of a politician he is - one that we should not trust to lead our country.

Toothless

As we all know, New Zealand has banned the export of live animals for slaughter. So what's the penalty for violating this ban? A paltry $10,000 fine.

What about the Animal welfare Act? That requires live animal exports to be certified for animal welfare purposes. The penalty for breaching the recommendations of an animal welfare inspector on this? A $25,000 fine.

This is simply bullshit. These penalties are so small that they will neither effectively punish or deter offending. Instead, companies will view them as simply a cost of doing business. Assuming they can be enforced at all - because there's no protection against animals exported for breeding purposes simply being sold to a slaughterhouse (or re-exported to one) at the other end.

Our law is toothless. And its time our politicians strengthened it. An increase in fines would be a start, but there needs to be the capacity to seize profits and additional damages on conviction as well.

Time to end live animal exports for good

When the Labour government banned the export of livestock for slaughter back in 2007, we thought this horrific trade was over, it was for good reason: the long-distance trade was cruel and inflicted terrible suffering on the animals. Overcrowding and overheating (not to mention just the dangers of a sea voyage) meant that these ships would leave a trail of corpses behind them, and the survivors would be disgorged half-dead. That wasn't acceptable to the New Zealand public, so we banned it.

But as Murray McCully has reminded us in the last month, there was a loophole: the law only bans the export of live animals for slaughter. The export of live animals for other purposes, such as breeding, is still perfectly legal. And so we have this:

Guarantees have been given the 50,000 live sheep exported from drought affected areas of Canterbury to Mexico have been sent for breeding purposes, amid condemnation from animal advocacy groups and opposition politicians concerned the sheep would be slaughtered upon arrival.

The livestock carrier Nada docked at Timaru on Tuesday to begin loading 50,000 sheep and 3000 cattle destined for Mexico for breeding purposes.

But while there are "guarantees", the government is not actually going to do anything to see whether they are adhered to. So there's nothing to stop these animals being redirected to another destination once they leave New Zealand, or simply loaded onto another boat once they reach Mexico.

(Well, we can watch the voyage though the ship's AIS beacon, and journalists and animal rights activists could do the followup that the government refuses to do. But really, it shouldn't be up to third-parties to police this)

But more importantly, the animal welfare concerns which saw the slaughter trade originally banned don't disappear simply because the transport is for a different purpose. These animals will still face two weeks at sea. They will still be overcrowded in unsanitary conditions. Thousands of them will still die, and the survivors will suffer terribly. And that's simply not something we should accept. Its time we ended this vile trade for good. Farmers should consider their social licence revoked.

A regulatory bribe

A couple of weeks ago we learned that the government had bribed a Saudi billionaire to get him to exert his influence over Gulf governments and back a free trade agreement. It was a sordid, disreputable deal, which undermined New Zealand's position on corruption. But it gets worse - because it turns out that we gave him a regulatory bribe as well:

An investigation by ONE News has discovered the Government agreed to "delete" a proposed rule around animal safeguards when a Saudi businessman asked.

[...]

Foreign Minister Murray McCully wrote an undated letter to Hamood Al Ali Al Khalaf, which ONE News understands was written in March 2012, detailing just how far New Zealand would go to help him. Mr Khalaf lost hundreds of millions of dollars when New Zealand banned the export of live sheep to Saudi Arabia nearly a decade ago.

Mr McCully said the export of sheep for breeding, not slaughter, could be allowed "relatively easily" providing some rules were put in place.

But Mr Khalaf didn't like all of them.

Mr McCully wrote to Mr Khalaf: "You expressed strong objection to provisions that extend past disembarkation." In other words, any rules around what happens to sheep once they land in Saudi Arabia.

Mr Khalaf responded saying local rules were strong enough.

Mr McCully caved, saying: "I agree to recommend deleting provisions past the point of disembarkation."

Which coincidentally creates an enormous loophole allowing live animals to be exported for slaughter again, provided the exporters lie that they're breeding stock. It would be interesting to know how many have been exported under this new provision - and how many have died in transit.

Meanwhile, wouldn't it be nice to have a government that stood up for our values, rather than giving them away as bribes to the rich?

Isn't there a name for this?

The New Zealand government is currently trying to negotiate a "free-trade agreement" (which will as usual be nothing of the sort) with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council. But there's a problem: banning live sheep exports upset Hamood Al Ali Khalaf, a powerful Saudi businessman. So they gave him $6 million to make his objections go away:

The Government's spent millions of taxpayer dollars kitting out a farm with top-of-the-line New Zealand equipment and hundreds of sheep to "compensate" a Saudi businessman.

ONE News has learned that the Government has spent $6 million air freighting 900 pregnant ewes and farming equipment to Hamood Al Ali Khalaf's farm in Saudi Arabia.

According to Mr Al Ali Khalaf's business partner, Sydney-based George Assaf, everything from the fencing to "the shed and the wool shed and the yards and the drafting machines, the weighing, the scales, you mention it, it's all from New Zealand".

Mr Assaf says the deal was done to "compensate" the pair over a six-year-old ban of live sheep exports in which they say they lost hundreds of millions of dollars.

He says New Zealand was told "unless you fix that part of it, we won't sign" the free trade deal between New Zealand and the Gulf States.

National: gives $6 million to a foreign millionaire while kiwi kids go to school hungry.

But that snark aside, there's a name for this sort of activity, of paying people so that you get your policy: its called bribery. And if Khalaf was a public official, rather than just a rich prick who had officials in his pocket, it would be a crime.

(No, I don't buy the use of the term "compensation". "Compensation" implies wrongdoing. And we did nothing wrong by banning the trade in misery of live sheep exports. Quite the opposite, in fact. The fact that we're supposedly paying compensation for this simply heaps obscenity on obscenity).

Better late than never

The government released its new Animal Welfare Code today, which will outlaw sow crates from 2015. Good. Sticking pigs in tiny cages, where can't move or socialise is barbaric and cruel, and something that should have been outlawed long ago. And while I would prefer to see it done sooner, better late than never.

Something to go to in Wellington

Animal welfare advocates will be protesting at Parliament tomorrow in support of Sue Kedgley's Animal Welfare (Treatment of Animals) Amendment Bill:

When: Noon, Wednesday 22 september
Where: Parliament Buildings, Wellington

Drawn

A ballot for three member's bills was held today, and the following bills were drawn:

• Animal Welfare (Treatment of Animals) Amendment Bill (Kevin Hague)
• Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Waitaki Easter Trading) Amendment Bill (Jacqui Dean)
• Human Rights (Disability Commissioner) Amendment Bill (Catherine Delahunty)

Only one of these bills have previously been covered in "In the Ballot", Delahunty's disability commissioner bill. You can read about it here.

There were fifteen new bills, half of them from Labour, but also a fair number from the Greens as they swapped out old ones to tackle new issues. I'll try and put together an "In the ballot" post covering some of the newcomers later this afternoon.

The full list of bills is on Red Alert.

Washing his hands

Yesterday in Parliament, Green MP attempted to hold Agriculture Minister David Carter accountable for the Pork Industry Board's conspiracy to circumvent the Official Information Act. The Minister responded by washing his hands of the matter:

SUE KEDGLEY (Green) to the Minister of Agriculture: Is he taking any action in response to reports that the Pork Industry Board sought to avoid the public embarrassment of reporting conditions in New Zealand piggeries by deliberately evading the Official Information Act; if not, why not?

Hon DAVID CARTER (Minister of Agriculture): No, and for a very simple reason: I have no responsibility for the Pork Industry Board being compliant with the Official Information Act.

The law however begs to differ. The Minister is responsible for appointing "at least 1, but not more than 2" directors on the Board's recommendation (the rest are elected by pig farmers), and has statutory powers to remove directors for

disability affecting performance of duty, bankruptcy, breach of any duty set out in Schedule 1 that applies to the director, or misconduct, proved to the Minister's satisfaction.

Those duties include a duty to exercise powers for a proper purpose, a duty to act within the Act, and a duty of care and diligence. Arguably the Board's conspiracy against the law violates those duties and constitutes misconduct. The Minister can therefore remove them from office.

Carter cannot be allowed to wash his hands of this. A statutory body within his portfolio is conspiring to breach the law. He must step in and make it clear to them that the government expects them to obey the OIA. If he refuses, then he should resign and make way for someone who will.

Absolutely unacceptable

The Dominion-Post reports this morning that the Pork Industry Board - a statutory body established to boost returns to pig farmers - is attempting to evade the Official Information Act. Faced with the possibility that they will have to make the results of an audit of pig farms public, they have instead hatched a scheme to keep it secret:

The leaked email, sent to farmers on behalf of the Pork Industry Board, said: "It is likely there will be a number of farms requiring corrective actions and ... those actions could cause embarrassment to the farmer if made public and could cause embarrassment to the industry if used by animal welfarists, [so] some alternatives to current procedures were put forward."

A suggested alternative would mean only the farmer and auditor would hold "completed documentation", with the board notified of pass, fail, or "pending corrective actions (unspecified)".

Board chief executive Sam McIvor said its legal advice suggested the audit report would belong to the farmer, meaning it was personal information.

Fortunately, the attempt is unlikely to succeed - information held by a private contractor is deemed to be held by an agency and so "official information". But it is absolutely unacceptable. The board is a statutory body, scheduled in the OIA. It has a duty to obey the OIA - and not just its letter, but its spirit. And if they won't, then the Minister should exercise their power (under s2(1) of Schedule 2) to remove them from office for breaching their duties.

Submit!

The Primary Production Committee has called for submissions on the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. Two copies, by Monday, 15 March 2010, to

Primary Production Committee Secretariat
Parliament Buildings
Wellington

Or you can submit online using the handy form here.

The bill increases penalties for animal cruelty and introduces a new offence of reckless ill-treatment of an animal. Its not a real solution - the real problem is enforcement, not penalties - but it does underline the seriousness of these offences. The greens have some idea about how the bill can be improved here.