Back to the same old bull
If you’re getting a strange sort of feeling that we’ve all been here before, it’s because we have. Whether you call it déjà vu or déjà moo, what’s currently being pumped out by politicians and the farming sector is the same old bulls... we’ve been fed previously.
Less than a year after live export was banned, animal-abuse profiteers are back at it: this time trying to justify what’s almost certainly an already done deal to revive the practice.
And back we go. Lenz (Live Animal Export New Zealand) is banging on about “gold standard animal welfare”, a darkly funny term when applied in this instance, and the tired old go-to of suffering farmers and GDP. As before, they do this ignoring that before the ban, live animals represented only 0.2% of primary revenue exports. But really Lenz could save both their breath and money. Their $1 million war chest funded by industry key players to both lobby the Government and charm the public is entirely unnecessary, at least in regard to the former.
The man with the power to reintroduce live export has unashamedly pinned his colours to the death-ship mast, both verbally and by way of his credentials.
Andrew Hoggard, recently the Federated Farmers president and now associate minister of agriculture, last month said restarting trade was one of his top priorities and he wanted “progress with some haste”.
To be fair, Hoggard and his party were clear on this from well before the election. In June, less than two months after the ban came into effect, ACT announced its intention to overturn it.
Not that it had to. ACT’s Mark Cameron had already put in a Member's Bill to repeal the ban, a good month before it even began, and was joined on the banban wagon by a desperate National Party.
Christopher Luxon, who somehow believed he was entitled to an annual $52k for living in his own house, said New Zealand doesn't have the luxury of turning off half a billion dollars in revenue.
And back we go. Now there are planned marches, other protests and, God save us, yet another petition to Parliament. We’ve seen it all before but this time, having justified a ban, it’s about a ban on overturning a ban.
This time, the petition is spearheaded by Dr John Hellstrom, ONZM, former chair of the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee, and the once Chief Veterinary Officer to the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries. In summary, he says the ban was world-leading and heavily supported by public submissions and expert opinions.
“Reversing this legislation ... would disregard public sentiment, condemn animals to suffering during shipment and at destinations, throw away years of progress, and harm New Zealand’s international reputation.
“It would also be the first time, to my knowledge, that New Zealand legislates to reduce rather than enhance animal welfare.”
And back we go. As protesters once again congregate on the nation’s wharves, animal welfare organisations like SAFE and the SPCA are fighting against a ban on the ban they have already both justified and achieved.
That ban, remember, was precipitated after the ship Gulf Livestock 1 sank in 2020, going down with 43 crew, including two New Zealanders, and nearly 6000 cattle.
Regardless of its filthy fund, Lenz will never convince Aotearoa that live export is safe, sane or in any other sense justifiable. But with friends like Luxon and Hoggard, it doesn’t have to.
Still, the one good thing about going back is that we have been here before.
Back then it was public pressure that first killed live export; that same old outrage will keep it dead forever.