In contrast to ‘normal’ animal protectionists, our Members of Parliament work within the political arena. This also has great advantages. Indeed, in their fight for animal welfare, non-governmental organisation are limited to attempts to influence public and political opinion. However, the ordinary political parties are so disinterested in animal welfare that this generally has little effect. In the past, no party has placed the issue of animal rights on the political agenda. More to the point, no party has also ever been called to account for this. In short, politicians got away with their lack of interest in animal welfare far too easily. This situation has now fortunately changed as a result of our presence in parliament.

The Party for the Animals holds two of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives. In terms of numbers, our influence is currently still limited. Nonetheless, our political influence is far greater than one would imagine on the basis of the number of seats we have. We are the pacemakers in the marathon; the front runner who sets the pace for the other runners. The impact of this role was already visible even before we had been elected to parliament. The establishment of the Party for the Animals led to increasingly more media interest in political standpoints relating to animal welfare. The other parties were now more or less forced to adopt a position on animal issues. Politicians were suddenly falling over each other to say how humane they were. In sum, just the establishment of our party alone was enough to transform animal welfare into a political issue.

Since our arrival in the House of Representatives in November 2006, we have continually ensured that animal welfare is placed on the political agenda. This can, for example, be with regard to issues that have never previously been discussed in parliament, such as the welfare of fish. Indeed, we are the very first political party in the Netherlands to ever have drawn attention to the way in which fish are killed. We also raise issues that had once been the subject of political discussion a long time ago, but which have since been neglected. One prime example of this is the Dutch policy on animal experimentation. The legislation, which is supposed to protect laboratory animals, is now thirty years old. Until we were elected to parliament, no-one paid any attention to this antiquated legislation. In addition, we also offer a new approach during debates on much-discussed subjects, which have never before been tackled from an animal welfare perspective. One good example of this is the debate on the agricultural budget, which took place shortly after the 2006 elections. At the time, we had only been in parliament for a week. During this debate, the former Agriculture Minister heaved a sigh when suddenly, in contrast to previous years, eighty percent of the debate focused on the issue of animal welfare. These are all good examples of our party’s influence on the political discussions that take place within our parliament.