Animal Welfare Minister Andrew Hoggard. Photo / RNZ
By Keiller MacDuff of RNZ
The Green Party is welcoming news that the Government has backtracked on plans to reinstate live animal exports.
Animal Welfare Minister Andrew Hoggard told 1 News he could not get Cabinet agreement on overturning the ban, which formed part of coalition agreements with both Act and NZ First.
Green Party spokesperson Steve Abel said the news was a win for animals, the public and the groups campaigning against the move.
He said there had been backlash to the proposal right from the start.
“From the outset, there was overwhelming outrage from veterinary experts who expressed there was no way to maintain animal welfare standards and herd cattle onto ships where they spend weeks at sea wallowing in their own waste,” Abel said.
“It’s fundamentally cruel, and there’s no way to uphold the barest animal standards while exporting at sea.
“They couldn’t get it across the line because New Zealanders didn’t want to see animals suffering in that way.”
A 57,000-strong petition calling for the ban to stay in place was presented to parliament in 2024.
At the time, Hoggard said he wanted the ban overturned by 2025.
In April 2025, Hoggard told RNZ he expected the legislation to go to Cabinet within months, but that a backlog had slowed the work of the Parliamentary Counsel Office in drafting the amendment.
Last month, Livestock Exports NZ chief executive Glen Neal said uncertainty around the bill was unhelpful, but the industry remained hopeful the ban would be overturned.
Abel said Parliamentary questions revealed the minister had not received any advice on the plan since mid-2025, despite telling scrutiny week committees the amendment had gone before cabinet in December last year.
If the coalition intended to make it an election issue, it needed to tell the public immediately, but Abel believed “the handbrake had been pulled” at the Cabinet level because of the unpopularity of the move.
The Ministry for Primary Industries initiated an independent review of live exports in 2020, after the sinking of Gulf Livestock 1, which resulted in the deaths of 41 crew and nearly 6000 cattle.
The vessel, registered to Panama and owned by a UAE shipping company, left Napier in August 2020 bound for China, but sank off the coast of Japan in a typhoon.
In 2022, the previous government passed a bill banning live exports, beginning in April 2023.
At the time, National’s animal welfare spokesperson Nicola Grigg said the ban was disproportionate and ideological, and would hurt farmers and consumers.
The National Party had campaigned on overturning the ban, with a proposal it said would require greater regulation to protect animal welfare and safety, such as purpose-built ships and a certification regime for importers.
Hoggard, who is a former president of Federated Farmers, had previously said reintroducing the trade was one of his top priorities in the portfolio and he wanted to “progress with some haste”.
In 2024, an RNZ investigation revealed industry group Livestock Export New Zealand planned to spend $1 million to ensure the ban was dismantled, including on political lobbying, a “social media counter offensive”, a “trust and understanding” campaign, media training and creating the “gold standard” for animal welfare.
RNZ has approached Hoggard for comment.
- RNZ