The Opportunity Party has yet to form a position on whether imported animal products should be required to meet New Zealand welfare standards, with deputy leader Daniel Eb saying deeper systemic failures are the real issue.

The debate has sharpened following the release of a Curia poll of 1,000 farmers from Animal Policy International.

The findings show 79% agree it is important that NZ farmers are not undercut by imported animal products produced to lower welfare standards. A further 78% agree imported animal products sold in New Zealand should be required to meet NZ welfare standards, and 78% say parties should commit to ensuring animal products meet those standards.

“It’s a tricky one,” says Eb, the party’s agricultural spokesperson.

“On the face of it, you think this is a question about fairness and protecting New Zealand producers, who can be against that? But on the other hand you do have to weigh up the fact that the entire food and farming sector is built on good solid trade relationships.”

Eb says any move to restrict imports could carry unintended consequences that a small trading nation has to carefully consider.

“The threshold for making changes to our import restrictions is probably a lot higher for a small country like New Zealand that doesn’t have influence,” Eb says, and that any move to restrict imports could carry unintended consequences.

Rather than blanket restrictions, he says a new generation of free trade agreements that build high-ethics, high-value trading relationships to lift the global floor on animal welfare is needed.

The deeper issue, he says, is the absence of a national food strategy, a forum where health, cost-of-living, producer and ecology perspectives can be worked through together rather than left to competing lobbyists.

“What is more detrimental to producers, in this case, is regulatory uncertainty,” Eb says.

“We’re feeling the pain of a poorly designed political system in yet another individual flash point.”

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