When I wrote earlier this month about how the pork lobby had essentially written its own law, I thought we had witnessed the nadir of this Government’s capitulation to agricultural interests – see: How the pork lobby wrote its own cruel law.
I was wrong. The subsequent weeks have revealed an integrity deficit that is deeper, more cynical, and more comprehensively orchestrated than even critics initially imagined. What we are witnessing is not merely bad policy; it is the complete subordination of democratic governance to industry control.
The revelations have come rapidly, each more damning than the last. Through dogged investigative journalism and the parliamentary select committee process, we now have a clear picture of how a small industry with fewer than 80 commercial farms managed to overturn a High Court ruling, sideline expert advisors, and rewrite the law to suit their interests. This is a masterclass in industry capture, and a devastating indictment of ministerial integrity.
The Minister’s shameless defence
At the Primary Production Select Committee last week, Associate Agriculture Minister Andrew Hoggard mounted what can only be described as a breathtakingly brazen defence of his pig welfare reforms. When Labour MP Jo Luxton questioned why he had excluded groups like the SPCA from consultation, his response was revealing in its bluntness: “Because they are ones impacted. They are the ones that are going to be paying.”
This single statement encapsulates everything wrong with this Government’s approach to regulation. In Hoggard’s worldview, only those who profit from an industry should have a say in how it’s regulated. Animal welfare advocates, scientists, and the public – despite overwhelming support for ending farrowing crates – are irrelevant because they’re not “paying”. It’s a philosophy that reduces governance to a transaction between government and business, with everyone else locked out.
Even more tellingly, when pressed about giving the industry 10 years to transition when they had agreed five was sufficient, Hoggard admitted he was primarily concerned with whether “this industry would be able to survive these costs”. The welfare of sentient animals wasn’t even a secondary consideration. It simply didn’t factor into his calculations at all.
Reversing a ban and rewarding an industry
The new Animal Welfare Amendment (Pigs) Bill effectively cancels a looming ban on farrowing crates that was set to come into force on 18 December 2025. Farrowing crates are small metal enclosures that tightly confine mother pigs (sows) for weeks on end, preventing them from turning around or performing natural mothering behaviours like nest-building. The crates were deemed so cruel that in 2020 the High Court ruled their use violated the Animal Welfare Act. In response, the previous Labour Government pledged to ban them, giving farmers five years (until end of 2025) to transition to alternative systems.
Instead, Hoggard’s bill enshrines farrowing crates until 2035, merely reducing the allowed confinement from up to 33 days per litter to a maximum of seven days. Other “improvements” are minimal: sows will hypothetically get about 13% more space in pens (still nowhere near enough for an animal that can’t even turn around), and from 2035 farmers must provide some “manipulable and deformable material” for nesting (SPCA scientists worry that could amount to nothing more than a token sack or mat). In short, the policy locks in the status quo for another decade (and then some minor tweaks) all while portraying itself as a welfare upgrade.
The Smoking Gun: Industry writes the rules
Anusha Bradley’s investigation for RNZ has exposed what she aptly calls “brazen industry capture”. The evidence is overwhelming. NZ Pork didn’t just influence the new regulations, they effectively authored them. Key phrases from their 2022 submission appear verbatim in the government’s bill. Their “alternative proposal” has become Government policy, down to the specific percentages and timelines they requested.
Bradley also uncovered that Hoggard and officials held eight meetings with pork industry representatives in 2024 while formulating the new rules, but excluded the SPCA and other animal welfare groups. In fact, NAWAC itself (the statutory advisory committee) was largely sidelined. The SPCA, which helps enforce animal welfare laws, was kept in the dark and “blindsided” by the sudden changes. When SPCA representatives finally saw the bill, they told MPs it revealed “serious failings in how animal welfare regulation is being developed in New Zealand.”
Most damning is the revelation that NZ Pork was given an “exposure draft” of the bill while it was still being developed. This privilege was denied to animal welfare organisations. As public law professor Andrew Geddis observed, while legal, this practice allows Cabinet to “play favourites”, giving insider access to some while shutting others out entirely.
SPCA chief scientific advisor Arnja Dale didn’t mince words: “The New Zealand Pork Industry Board has been given exactly what they wanted.” When your industry lobby group gets not just influence but authorship privileges over legislation meant to regulate it, we’ve moved beyond consultation into something far more troubling.
Marcelo Rodriguez-Ferrere, an associate law professor and president of the Animal Law Association, agrees: “This is really just an almost brazen instance of regulatory capture”, he says. In other words, the industry didn’t just influence the process – it captured it.
Behind closed doors: The Williams investigation
David Williams’ two-part investigation for Newsroom has lifted the lid on the extraordinary level of access NZ Pork enjoyed with both the minister and Ministry officials. The detail is staggering. Within weeks of the new government forming, NZ Pork CEO Brent Kleiss was meeting with Hoggard to discuss animal welfare. By February 2024, MPI was sharing confidential documents with NZ Pork, asking them to keep the materials secret.
The investigation reveals a constant flow of communication: online meetings, farm visits, conference dinners, and text messages between industry representatives and the minister’s office. When NZ Pork wanted changes to growing pig space requirements, they didn’t have to fight for them, they simply emailed their preferred wording to officials, who responded with “fantastic”.
Meanwhile, animal welfare groups were kept entirely in the dark. As Williams documents, SPCA representatives met with Hoggard multiple times but were never told about his plans for pig welfare reforms. Dr Arnja Dale revealed she had been asking the minister’s office repeatedly about pigs, “and not getting a straight answer”.
The Revolving door spins
The personnel involved in this debacle reads like a who’s who of agricultural industry insiders. Hoggard himself is a former Federated Farmers president. His key adviser on this issue, Nick Hanson, moved seamlessly from NZ Pork’s policy team to the minister’s office. Even NZ Pork CEO Brent Kleiss is a former MPI employee.
This isn’t just the appearance of conflict of interest, it’s conflict of interest as government operating procedure. When industry advocates become regulators and regulators become industry advocates, the lines don’t just blur; they disappear entirely.
Gillian Coumbe KC raised this directly at the select committee, noting that Federated Farmers under Hoggard’s leadership had supported NZ Pork’s opposition to the crate ban: “You have a situation where, in effect, the minister was both the consultee in the consultation process as president of Federated Farmers, but also now the decision maker”. The conflict is so obvious it barely needs stating.
Hoggard insists he followed all Cabinet Manual rules and sees “no conflict”. He argues that as Fed Farmers president he wasn’t personally involved in the pork submission, and that as Minister he had to weigh the economic survival of pig farmers. Indeed, Hoggard’s primary justification for consulting only the industry was the potential cost to farmers of phasing out crates.
These overlapping roles and easy channels of influence exemplify the “revolving door” between government and industry. They help explain why a tiny sector (fewer than 80 commercial pig farms in New Zealand, of which only about 45 use crates) could wield such outsized power to shape policy in its favour.
Expert advice comprehensively ignored
Perhaps most shocking is how completely the government has sidelined its own expert advisory body. NAWAC chair Matthew Stone wrote to Hoggard in April warning that the proposed changes would likely result in practices that fell “below the minimum” standard required by the Animal Welfare Act. The committee was explicit: any regulation that didn’t address both confinement duration and nest-building prevention would likely face continued legal challenge.
The Government’s response? Complete dismissal. As Williams reports, Eric Roy, then NZ Pork chair (and former National MP), boasted on a rural podcast that “NAWAC have now been sidelined”. He told Rural News that this Government had “thrown out a lot of the advice” as not being “world practice or scientifically based”.
Think about that for a moment. An industry lobby group is publicly celebrating that the government’s independent scientific advisory body has been “sidelined” in favour of industry preferences. And they’re not even trying to hide it.
The Slaughterhouse state
Christine Rose’s analysis takes us deeper into what this all means. She correctly identifies this as a manifestation of “slaughterhouse capitalism” – a system where animal suffering is simply the cost of doing business, and where agricultural interests have captured the state apparatus so completely that regulation becomes self-regulation.
Rose’s piece reminds us that this isn’t just about process failures or conflicts of interest. It’s about a fundamental worldview that reduces sentient beings to units of production, where their suffering is acceptable as long as it’s profitable. When she writes about pigs needing “freedom from commodification, cages, forced breeding and from slaughter itself”, she’s identifying the deeper moral bankruptcy at the heart of this scandal.
A Select committee farce
The select committee hearings themselves have been a study in predetermined outcomes. Dr Julia Pasztor of the Aotearoa Veterinarians Union captured it perfectly when she asked: “What is the point of this submission process... especially if submissions will only be ignored?”
The truncated timeline: just two weeks for submissions on legislation that reverses years of progress, speaks volumes about the government’s intent. This isn’t consultation; it’s theatre. The decision was made in those back-room meetings between industry and minister. Everything else is window dressing.
The Government introduced the amendment in early October and rushed it through its first reading in six days, a lightning pace. The select committee was allocated only two weeks for written submissions, far shorter than the usual six weeks for public consultation on such regulations. This truncated timetable clearly suited an agenda of minimal scrutiny. Labour’s animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack has said: “It’s a shortened, truncated process that means the select committee does not have enough time to properly consider the science and all of the submissions”.
The Cost of integrity
Rob Stock’s reporting for The Post captures the frustration of those trying to be heard in this process. Farmers who have already moved away from farrowing crates, veterinarians pointing to successful alternatives, citizens trying to make ethical arguments. All are being steamrolled by a government that has already made its decision based on industry lobbying.
The hearings have become a platform for ordinary New Zealanders to express their dismay. Rob McNeil introduced MPs to his former flatmate, a pot-bellied pig named Piggly Wiggly, trying to humanise these intelligent creatures. Louise Vermelen asked why pigs can’t “feel the sun on their pink round little bodies”. These aren’t just emotional appeals; they’re desperate attempts to inject basic compassion into a process that has become entirely transactional.
What this means for New Zealand
This scandal is about more than pigs. It’s about whether we have a functioning democracy or a “government for sale”. When industry can write its own regulations, when ministers serve their former colleagues rather than the public, when expert advice is dismissed in favour of lobby group preferences, we don’t have governance, we have corporate rule with a democratic facade.
The message this sends is devastating: if you have enough money and the right connections, you can overturn court rulings, ignore public opinion, and write the laws that govern you. The rule of law becomes the rule of lobbying. Democratic accountability becomes a joke.
Dr Bryce Edwards
Director of The Integrity Institute
Further Reading:
Anusha Bradley (RNZ): Minister defends decision to only consult pork industry on new pig welfare reforms
Russell Palmer (RNZ): No consultation on pig welfare regulation changes - SPCA
Rob Stock (Post): Frustration over plan to extend farrowing crate rules for 10 years (paywalled)
Anusha Bradley (RNZ): ‘Brazen industry capture’ alleged in pig welfare rule changes
Christine Rose: Pigs and the slaughterhouse state
David Williams (Newsroom): Behind NZ Pork’s campaign to keep farrowing crates – Part 1
David Williams (Newsroom): Behind NZ Pork’s campaign to keep farrowing crates – Part 2
'This scandal is about more than pigs. It’s about whether we have a functioning democracy or a “government for sale”.'
It is also about whether we are even halfway decent human beings.
The pork industry engages in animal cruelty for the sake of profit. One way for us to respond is a total boycott of New Zealand farm raised pork, which for me starts today. Let these dregs of colonialist society learn that there is no money to be made out of cruelty.
Thanks Bryce, for continuing to unearth such deeply concerning behaviour with respect to both animal mistreatment and what appears to be brazen political corruption. What disgusting people to be profiting from the suffering of animals. Then this Minister rushing through legislation knowing full well that if the story got out in a proper consultation process there would be widespread outcry and push back despite that our primary industry is based on slaughter for food. Circumventing due democratic process by unnecessarily ramming through dodgy legilsation is becoming a worrying pattern, clearly not just confined to the more extreme left.