National will vote against a member’s bill, which could see factory farms phased out within 5 years. Sue Kedgley’s Animal Welfare (Treatment of Animals) Amendment Bill would see practices such as the use of cages for pregnant sows and layer hens, which conflict with several sections of the Animal Welfare Act, phased out over 5 years. Despite support from the Greens, Labour, United Future and the Maori Party, without National or ACT’s support this bill won’t pass it’s first reading.
Of course, National can’t say that they like factory farming, as this would make terrible press. So instead Agriculture Minister David Carter has cooked up a pretty lame excuse.
“The way the bill has been written is problematic and would probably stop the transportation of any group of animals from a farm to a meat processing company,”
The bizarre thing is that it is glaringly obvious that this would not happen. Kedgley’s response today shows this excuse for the pile of BS it is. Because the proposed bill only affects practices deemed contrary to the Animal Welfare Act, and transporting animals isn’t contrary to the Act, transporting animals would be fine under Sue’s bill.
It seems as though National hopes they can get away with this bizarre excuse for allowing disgraceful forms of animal cruelty to continue. What’s more, because of the lack of media coverage so far, they are.
For all those who’d like to see the government held accountable for voting against an end to factory farming, a demonstration is being organised for Wednesday the 22nd of September.
At 12pm, a sow crate will be brought to parliament. Invitations for MPs to try out the crate were put in the post today.
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