A sow farrowed in a pen. Photo: Claudius Thiriet/ Biosphoto via AFP) Photo: CLAUDIUS THIRIET
The government announcement looked like a good news story on pig welfare - but closer examination reveals a winding back of plans to ban farrowing crates and mating stalls
Andrew Hoggard admitted his proposals would "not be welcomed by all those with an interest in animal welfare".
The associate agriculture minister was right.
The SPCA says it's been blindsided by his plans to change the law on pig farrowing crates and mating stalls just weeks ahead of a deadline that would have seen them banned.
But in spite of claims from the minister that key stakeholders had been consulted, the group says it hasn't been - certainly not by this government.
SAFE (Save Animals From Exploitation) has likewise been taken aback.
"SAFE have been very vocal about their opposition to the use of both farrowing crates and mating stalls," says RNZ rural reporter Monique Steele.
"And I think because it sounded as if New Zealand was going to abandon the use altogether, in those years prior, SAFE's chief executive Debra Ashton said to me she was shocked by the change, because they felt that it had undone decades of animal welfare progress."
The changes give farmers 10 years to adapt their farm equipment to new dimensions, and restricts the amount of time pigs can be confined in crates and mating stalls. Pigs must also have access to materials to enable them to engage in nest-building behaviour.
The pork industry says the move gives certainty, compared to the previous five-year transition period away from the crates, which was described as having had "vague" requirements.
Today on The Detail we look at the immediate history of the Animal Welfare Act that governs the use of this pig farming equipment, and look at the contortions in the law the government will have to perform to carve out pig welfare from the regulations.
We also talk to Marcelo Rodriguez Ferrere, an associate professor at Auckland University's Faculty of Law and the president of the Animal Law Association.
He's written an article for Newsroomwhere he highlights the "Orwellian doublethink" of the announcement and the spin put on it by the government on the new requirements.
"Well number one ... those requirements don't kick in till 2035, 10 years from now," he says.
"And number two and most importantly, and I can't emphasise this enough, they were going to become illegal in December. They weren't allowed to be used at all. So it's pretty cheeky I'd say at the very least, of the government to claim this as a welfare win for pigs."
Rodriguez Ferrere says the legal manouvering around the law has been done "in the weirdest way that I have ever seen", and the move should outrage not just those who care about animal welfare, but anyone who cares about democracy.
"One way that the government likes to describe it is that they won an election in 2023, and that means that they have a legislative majority and they can do whatever they want.
"And that's a very thin, cynical way of thinking about a democratic mandate."
In 2018, 112,000 people signed a petition against the use of farrowing crates.
In 2020, there was a huge victory for animal welfare groups when the High Court declared they broke laws designed to protect the welfare of the pigs.
The then-Labour government, after extensive consultation, gave the sector five years to make changes - but it didn't stay in power long enough to cement the changes in law.
With the ban looming on December 18, Andrew Hoggard acted.
For bacon and ham consumers who want to avoid pig meat produced on farms with farrowing crates ... good luck.
Three quarters of our pork products are imported, and not all of the countries exporting them have strict animal welfare requirements. Farrowing crates and mating stalls have been banned entirely in Switzerland, Finland and Norway, along with parts of the EU, but are permitted in Canada and the United States, as well as China, India and Brazil.
Steele says consumers have limited options in voting with their wallets, because currently no pork products sold here have the SPCA sticker that certifies the product has met or surpassed best practice animal welfare regulations.
These law changes are going through the select committee process now and the SPCA is urging New Zealanders to speak up on farrowing crates. There are just eight days left to do that.
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