The futility and hypocrisy of the petitions system.

It was with trepidation that NZAVS embarked on its second Petition. The Society's previous Petition to Abolish the Lethal Dose 50 Test had reached a sorry end. Though the Petition was reported back to government from the Parliamentary Select Committee with a Recommendation for Favourable Consideration, the Test was not banned, and those attending the Hearing of 28 May 1985 will never forget that the event was nothing more than a mockery and a farce.

With great determination and courage NZAVS Petition to Abolish Vivisection in New Zealand was launched in Wellington on World Day for Laboratory Animals 24 April 1987. Zoe Morris, the first signatory at Civic Square received a complimentary copy of Slaughter of the Innocent, and two years later when the Petition was presented to Parliament on WDLA 24 April 1989, exceeding all our hopes, and thanks to the efforts of a few dedicated individuals, one hundred and twenty thousand further signatures had been added.

The Petition was not supported by any NZ animal rights group!

From WDLA 1989 to WDLA 1990 when NZAVS distributed hundreds of thousands of leaflets to the public informing them of the situation, the Labour Government steadfastly refused to hear more than one submission to the Petition or to register the 700 supporting submissions. By the time they finally agreed to NZAVS' terms and had organised a Hearing for ten people it was too late, their days in power were finished and they were voted out of office.

The painstaking and thorough spade-work that had been necessary to accomplish this gigantic Petition, one of the biggest in New Zealand's history, was carried through in the preparation of the Society's submissions and its political stratagem. Thirtyfive seminars involving hundreds of hours work took place in the period 19 July 1990 to 20 March 1991. During this eight-month period those presenting evidence to the PPC (as listed elsewhere in this Mobilise! (http://www.nzavs.org.nz/mobilise/30/11.html)) investigated and perfected their cases on which they were questioned by the group in simulated Hearing situations. Minutes of these meetings, which averaged from two to three a week, were despatched to the out-of-town members of the team who were involved in the exercise, which was aptly titled "Operation Knockout". Thus a well-informed confident unit capable of facing any opposition to the Petition with a keen argument based on a staggering amount of facts.

The group was however to learn, that preparing, researching, collating, perfecting and presenting written and oral evidence to a Petition is one thing, but getting politician to read, hear and debate the evidence, entirely another! Mr Ross Meurant, Mr Wallbank's successor as Chairman of the Primary Production Committee, deceiving NZAVS into believing that the new government would consider the Petition, and that the Society's hard won conditions for a hearing were still applicable, set the date for 20 March 1991. Tragically the stark reality, for the ten witnesses who had worked so hard at such sacrifice, and the thirty supporters who accompanied them into the Hearing chamber, was brutally obvious from the moment the proceedings began.

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