North Shore Times (New Zealand)
Parties ranked on animal welfare stance
Voters can now see how political parties rank when it comes to policies around animal welfare.
A campaign called Animal Agenda Aotearoa shows every major political party’s stance on animal welfare.
Parties are judged on 17 issues, including whether it would ban rodeo and live animal exports, whether it would install slaughterhouse cameras, and whether it would provide greater legal rights for animals.
Each party was marked out of 20. The Greens finished on top at 18.5, United Future at 17, Maori Party at 16 and Labour at 14.75.
Act Party failed to reply so scored 0, The Opportunities Party scored 2.5 and National scored 4.5.
Animal Agenda Aotearoa creator Catriona MacLennan set the website up before the 2014 election to help promote animal rights.
‘‘We can only get improvements for animals if several parties have good policies,’’ Maclennan said. ‘‘One party is never going to be enough to change laws and policies.’’
MacLennan has been involved with animal rights issues since the 1980s when she started campaigning against live sheep exports. Parties had shown improvements since the last election, which could be due to media shining a spotlight on animal cruelty over the last 18 months, MacLennan said.
The most important issues that needed policy and legislation changes were factory farming, and the need to ban rodeos and greyhound racing, MacLennan said.
Visit animalagenda2017.org.nz to see how the parties ranked.