Animal rights advocates have argued rodeos are unlawful in the High Court in Wellington.
“We've petitioned, we've protested, we've really made our call heard very, very loudly,” SAFE chief executive Debra Ashton said.
The New Zealand Animal Law Association and SAFE are seeking to show rodeo practices breach the Animal Welfare Act as they cause animals unnecessary pain or distress.
“We'd like to see an end to rodeo, that's no secret.
“It would be interesting to see, once we've gone through the judicial review process and possibly a consultation process... whether or not there could be any grounds for rodeo,” Ashton said.
The New Zealand Animal Law Association also argued there were legal errors in the issuing of the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee’s 2018 rodeo welfare code.
“The decision ought to be quashed and set aside,” Victoria Heine QC said.
It’s the same issue that occurred in the sow pig High Court case, which was the first time legal action has been sought over a code of welfare.
That case saw farrowing crates that confine mother pigs ruled unlawful in 2020 and public consultation on the pig animal welfare code take place this year.
Ken Stephen was the Crown counsel acting on behalf of the Government and in particular Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor who is responsible for the Animal Welfare Act.
“My point was this was a genuine error,” he said about the rodeo animal welfare code’s issuing.
National Animal Welfare advisory committee barrister Rachel Roff said the same consequence should be put in place as a result of this judicial review that was the case for the pig ruling.
“I would ask your honour to exercise your discretion and not grant relief in this case,” she said.
The New Zealand Rodeo Cowboys Association declined to be interviewed.
Barrister for the association, Jared Ormsby, disagreed there was an issue.
“What NAWAC did was the right course of action which was to establish a chain of events that would gather them the knowledge that they needed to have in order to do the review that they're now undertaking.”
There are 35 rodeo events held across New Zealand annually.
In recent years there have been allegations of animal abuse.
Ormsby said the association is in the process of putting industry best practice codes in place for each individual event.
The Government previously backed down on promises to ban aspects such as electric prodders after NAWAC reported regulations are already in place for these actions and recommended stronger self-regulation.
“Even though the code allows it, I am trying to make sure that we don't use electric prods anywhere in rodeo grounds, I'm saying the code allows it but we maybe want to step above the code,” New Zealand Rodeo Cowboys Association president Lyal Cocks told TVNZ’s Sunday in 2018.
A decision on the judicial review is expected to take months, according to SAFE.
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