We trust that the National party's new found concern for animal welfare will not be confined to the days before and during a strike; the test as to whether the national party's commitment is genuine or not will be the extent to which the Party will work with us to eliminate the practices that cause thousands of animals to suffer for 365 days of a year, and not just three days prior to a strike, such as sow crates and battery hen cages.
We agree with the National party that there are occasions when animals are held prior to slaughter and export when their welfare could be severely compromised by a strike, and we have accordingly proposed an amendment to schedule 1, part B which will require that all people who are involved in holding live animals (as defined by the 1999 Animal Welfare Act) immediately prior to export or slaughter be required to give three days notice of a strike so that the care of any animals in their protection can be managed in such a way as to avoid any suffering.
We are confident that this amendment will have wide support. We have amended our earlier amendment to take care of the National Party's concerns that it did not include animals such as eels and lobsters. Under our new amendment all animals, including eels lobsters, chickens, pigs etc will be covered.
The amendment does not extend coverage to the processing of animals for the simple reason that we could not identify any animal welfare concerns that relate to animals once they are dead.
We will not support the National party's amendment to add the production and processing of poultry to Schedule I, part B because it won't be necessary. Our amendment covers chickens, and I am sure the National party is well aware that there are clauses in the employment contract that service workers have with the major poultry company's such as Tiegels and Inghams, which stipulate that no work stoppages will take place in the poultry industry until all chickens have been processed.
Anyway, I must say we are a trifle sceptical about the National party's concern to protect the poultry industry in the event of a strike, because the poultry industry is not an industry that is known for its concern about animal welfare. It is an industry which is known for the cruel way it keeps animals --hens in cages where they cannot even stretch their wings, and which keeps up to 26 thousand chickens in one shed where they very little room to move.
I would like to make the observation that the schedules we are discussing are decades old. They were drawn up in the Muldoon era, and they should have been reviewed during the select committee stage rather than with these last minute amendments during debate. Regret that government would not allow debate on the schedules during select committee process.
Finally like to say we're pleased that the government agreed to our proposal to add public transport to schedule 2.
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