David Farrar: Meet the Greens – Animal Welfare Policy

Policy No 3 is Animal Welfare. Some extracts:

• Ban cats from roaming outdoors (mandatory catios!)

• Establish a Parliamentary Commissioner of Animal Justice

• Limit the number of companion animals an individual can have at once

• Make it illegal to have just one guinea pig or rabbit

• Ban horse racing

• Ban rodeos

• Taxpayer funded spaying and neutering

Most of the costs here are societal, not economic. But the annual cost of taxpayer funded spaying and neutering would be around $25 million a year.

Banning the horse racing industry would cost around $1.9 billion to the economy and put around 15,000 people out of work. So not bad for one of their smaller policies.

David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders