Three Little Pigs

Mating stalls, sharpening knives, and changing sides.

Why don’t you sit right back?
And I, I may tell you a tale
A tale of three little pigs
And a big
Bad
Wolf

Songwriters: William Charles Manspeaker / Marc L. Levinthal.

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Pig #1 - Hoggard’s Mating Stalls

ACT Party MP Andrew Hoggard is the Associate Agriculture Minister; before that, he was President of lobbying group Federated Farmers - can you see a problem?

Needless to say, Mr Hoggard has been keen for cows to burp and urinate wherever they want, without farmers being held accountable for climate-changing emissions or the quality of our water. Unfortunately for pigs, Mr Hoggard is less concerned about the conditions in which the bacon in his sandwich is kept before he eats it.

Pre-empting protest over the conditions that pigs are kept in, Hoggard proposed improvements to farrowing crates and to reduce the time they can be held in mating stalls from seven days down to three hours at a time, because these are far from romantic reproduction settings for an animal so noble as the pig.

Pigs in mating stalls. Photo / RSPCA

So good on Hoggard showing his old industry can’t sway him; the only issue is that his changes won’t come in for 10 years.

Yes, you read that right - 10 bloody years!

Hoggard called the changes “substantial” and said the requirements wouldn’t come into force until December 2035 to “give farmers sufficient time to prepare for them”.

Not 2026, when the Ministry recommended mating stalls change, or 2031, when they wanted the farrowing crate changes to take place, but nothing at all for a whole decade.

Green Party animal welfare spokesperson Steve Abel said that the 10-year wait was not in the interests of animals:

Green MP Steve Abel warns that a government involving his party would push to make changes to pig-mating regulations faster. Photo / Marty Melville

“In no degree has the minister centred the best options for the mother pigs; it’s always about centring what the pork industry would prefer.

He’s bending over backwards to do the bidding of the pork industry rather than actually look at practical ways to make life less miserable for mother pigs in our farming systems.”

The conditions that we keep pigs in are disgusting, and I posted:

Imagine Andrew Hoggard in a farrowing crate while a Green MP says, “quiet piggy” in response to his complaints.

Alana said, “I’d sell a kidney to watch that.”

Richard pointed out, “The difference is that pigs deserve our protection and respect.”

Moira was on board, “I think this is cruel and inexcusable! The push-out to current farrow crates is to save farmers money, Groundswill Hoggard said when the decision was made! He needs to be put in a tight crate for 7 days, where he can’t turn and see how he likes it!”

Inevitably, someone said that if we don’t retain such rules, we’ll end up importing pork from countries with looser requirements.

That might be true, but you can make the same argument about child labour, and no one is suggesting we introduce that here, although, to be honest, it does sound like the sort of thing ACT might offer businesses through its Charter schools.

Pig #2 - Luxon awaits the chop.

Following poor poll ratings and a failure to connect with Kiwis, the NZME drums are beating for a change at the top, although none of the commentators seem particularly inspired by the alternatives.

The du Plessis-Allan-Sopers were ready for blood…

Keeping with our piggy theme, Heather began, “Either Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is telling porkies, or he’s the most out-of-the-loop person in Wellington. His claim that there’s ‘no talk’ of rolling Chris Luxon is complete nonsense. There is talk—serious talk.”

According to Heather’s source, presumably Apple (sorry), senior National figures have decided they can’t go on with Luxon and are deciding if/when to replace him and whether Chris Bishop might do a better job.

Presumably on the basis that he could hardly do worse.

Heather surmises that they have two options: either keep the unpopular guy or roll the dice on the unknown. There was some mention of Jacinda, but not even ZB are willing to suggest that a late change to Chris Bishop might result in a similar increase in popularity.

Mr Soper was interviewed by his wife and pointed out that the National Party has around 20 new backbench MPs who must be looking at the polling numbers and considering their futures.

According to Soper, the inside word is that Luxon’s leadership is seen as “untenable”, but in Bazza’s view, they would be foolish to change horses at this time, and he mostly ranted about the inadequacies of the opposition.

Meanwhile, at the Herald, Matthew Hooton felt it was time to change the captain…

Hooton notes that Luxon makes a big deal of his ability to put people in the right roles and says that, given how badly the team are polling across issues, the PM has to take some responsibility for getting it so wrong.

He suggests that if individual ministers aren’t the issue, maybe it’s Luxon who is in the wrong job.

According to Matthew, “Senior ministers complain the Government’s whole has turned out to be less than the sum of its parts,” which would suggest that perhaps Luxon is something of a spare wheel.

Christopher Luxon’s leadership is a hot topic in a boring parliamentary week. Photo: Mark Mitchell.

According to Hooton, these senior ministers say, “this Government lacks a Prime Minister who can comprehend and pull it all together, communicate the vision that underpins it and build confidence among voters and the business community that he and his ministers know what they are doing.”

That sounds about right, and even Thomas had his doubts…

Thomas was not smelling blood in the water to the same extent as the others and said of Luxon:

“His position is not as precarious as the chatter around it suggests. But that’s not enough to stop people talking. The chatter has spilt out of National and to its coalition partners, who think something is up, but don’t know what it is. They’re concerned that the major coalition partner might suddenly implode, destabilising their Government. MPs in support parties have resorted to asking the media what is going on inside National, unable to source the information themselves.”

As with the others, Thomas’ call is that if there is a change, then it will be Chris Bishop.

As the phrase goes, “if that is the answer, what is the question?”

Pig #3 - Winston goes to market.

The other late-breaking topic that had commentators chattering, along with David Seymour’s teeth, was speculation that, by announcing he would repeal the Regulatory Standards Bill (RSB) just days after voting for it, Peters was telling Labour he was open for business.

And Winston knows how to sell a deal, just as he has this week, claiming that the government saved money on ferries - without mentioning the small matter of the break fees that have been wasted along the way.

Seymour looked stunned by Winton’s U-turn on the RSB, because, unlike Peters, ACT has no other potential partner.

Winston said that Seymour’s bill was “not fit for a modern democracy”, which raised the question as to why he had helped it pass just days earlier.

Seymour said, “So if he wants to do this, he’s got to go with Labour. If his goal is to get rid of the Regulatory Standards Act, he’s not going to get votes from us to do that, so he’d have to go with Labour.”

Just quietly, David, I don’t think Winston was looking for your support - that’s the point.

I don’t have an issue with Labour ruling out a CGT and then campaigning on one at the next election; the same is true of National with Asset sales. But to go from supporting something to rejecting it in just a couple of days is quite a flip-flop, even for Peters.

Chief stirrer, Willie Jackson, said, “What a shocker, Winston turning on Seymour and the Government. This is a coalition in big trouble, huge trouble, and Chippy [Labour leader Chris Hipkins] is on fire. He is without doubt the best political leader in the country at the moment.”

Winston will be looking to position his party as a handbrake to Labour’s ambitions, ruling out TPM, and minimising Green involvement, or a more central centre-right coalition with ACT marginalised, and no more taking turns at being deputy.

Even after all these years, I imagine if Winston were offered the top job, he would go with whoever was willing to give it to him. I don’t doubt that he still holds ambitions to be PM.

But if he thinks Chippy will step aside, I think he has another thing coming. Labour is on a roll, and Hipkins would never be such a pushover in negotiations as Luxon was.

I’m getting warnings about the size of this email, so I’ll leave it there for today. Hope you have a great Saturday, all of you lovely people. 🙂

Ngā mihi,
Nick.

To end today, when my youngest lad was little back in the early 90s, I used to play him this one - Green Jello and Three Little Pigs. Look out for Piggy Slashers, and I don’t mean Andrew Hoggard.