In 1983 the NZ pro-vivisection community, headed by the Minister of Agriculture set up the NAEAC. They formulated a code of ethical conduct to which vivisection carried out in New Zealand must adhere. To this end each laboratory must form its own ethics committee at which those experimenting on animals decide, in the peer review system, which experiments are ethical and which are unethical. With vivisection protected by a law which is as flawed as vivisection itself it is worse for the animals, and for abolitionists, than if no law existed, for a token law is merely a legal bulwark against dissension. ie "Everything is being carried out to the letter of the law". Scrutiny of the composition of animal ethics committees is spine-chilling. Members of these committees are profiteers from vivisection, some are established vivisectors. Their claims to respectability come from the presence on the committees of nominees from animal welfare groups like the RNZSPCA and by holding joint conferences with groups such as ANZCCART.