A wealthy businessman from an impoverished Asian country reportedly made an appointment with the Dean of a top medical school in London, took out his cheque book, and proclaimed, 'My son wants a place in your school, how much?”
Needless to say, he was shown the door rather rapidly. His mistake, however, was not to falsely assume that corruption is absent in democratic first world societies, but rather to underestimate its true nature.
The New Zealand government scored highly on Transparency International's corruption perception index for 2008, so overt corruption is rare or absent in New Zealand. However, the primary production industries in New Zealand are immensely powerful and they know that they can influence policy makers using more subtle interplays of diplomacy, threats and flattery. The influence this has on laws and regulations concerning animal welfare cannot be overstated.
An audit of the Egg Producers Federation (EPF) accounts, for example, revealed that this battery cage lobby group spent about NZ$500,000 lobbying the government to keep battery cages, a sum far above the budget of anyone opposing them. The EPF used legal threats to prevent MAF from changing the code on layer hens and phasing out battery cages at a time when it looked as if they might do so. A threat of a judicial review from a high powered lawyer quickly caused them to change their mind.
The Pork Board used more subtle but equally effective ways of influencing the government to change regulations in their favour. This occurred after a group of activists raided a farm belonging to Colin Kay at Kuku Beach Road in Levin (the same operation later exposed by Mike King). The activists shot video footage of the piggery, while taking careful measurements of the stalls. They found that many of the stalls were narrower even than the 60cm allowed by the Code of Welfare. The stalls were in effect, illegal. The activists made an official complaint to the Ministry of Agriculture (MAF), and the video footage of the piggery was presented on Campbell Live (22 June 2006).
MAF launched their own investigation and confirmed the activists' findings. This looked like an open and shut case. There was a clear violation of a Code of Welfare. The operator was a top member of the Pork Board and could not claim ignorance. However, the Pork Board, concerned that a prosecution could threaten other producers who were also non-compliant, pulled out all the stops in preventing a prosecution.
They did this firstly by casting doubt on the intent behind the pig Code of Welfare. The Pork Board insisted that the requirement for a space of 60cm x 200cm in a sow stall did not really mean what anyone of normal intelligence and sanity would think it means. Most people, and certainly everyone making submissions on the code, would have been under the impression that it means the 'clear space”, ie the amount of space between the bars of the stall, since this is the actual space a sow has to move around in.
However, the Pork Board insisted that the allowable space referred to what they call 'centre to centre” measurement. The 60cm therefore includes the width of one of the bars of the cage. This is quite nonsensical as it has no biological significance.
MAF officials I spoke to in 2006 clearly appeared to have little respect for the 'clear space” argument at the time. However, after MAF officials had accepted a lunch of coffee and sandwiches provided by the Pork Board on 20 July 2006, they changed their opinion, and retrospectively changed the law to allow the narrower stalls.
Manipulation of government officials in New Zealand may be more subtle than in many overseas countries, but it is nonetheless just as effective. The Wellington luncheon dates, the insistence in job advertisements for public servants that applicants have 'established networks”, the expensive conferences sponsored by industry groups and to which public servants are invited, and the fostering of relationships between industry and those guarding ministers' diaries are just as effective as the open chequebook. Similarly, threats wrapped up in so much legal verbiage that it takes special training in law to even realise they are threats, are just as effective as masked thugs with coshes and horses' heads at the foot of beds.
The first step towards resolving such subtle manipulation of our regulators is a realisation that such corruption exists. Education of the public in government processes and an encouragement for them to get personally involved in the animal welfare debate is an important first step. The support of high profile celebrities like quintessential 'kiwi bloke” comedian Mike King in raising awareness of the issue has been invaluable in this respect.
Arguably the most important reform to neutralise subtle corruption would be to set up a body responsible for animal welfare that is separate from the Ministry of Agriculture, as this ministry is also charged with market access for agricultural produce and with increasing agricultural productivity. There is a clear conflict of interest between these aims, and this shows in a number of ways, including the weighting of regulators towards industry and veterinary interests, the favourable way industry groups are treated by regulators, the selective and suspect scientific advice given by Ministry officials, and misleading press releases on animal welfare standards.
An independent Ministry for Animal Welfare with responsibilities only for animal welfare would be less likely to show such inherent bias.
Alternatively a truly independent Commissioner for Animal Welfare, reporting to Parliament and not the executive government may be another solution. New Zealanders are used to this kind of government structure, with the Commissioner for the Environment, the Commissioner for Children and the Families Commission already being set up in this way.
