Page 1891 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 5 May 2009
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MS PORTER (Ginninderra) (12.05): This past week has seen increasing worldwide concerns regarding a potential pandemic occurring and involving an outbreak of swine influenza. A number of countries have imposed import bans on pork products from Mexico and the United States. These trade bans have been made despite the fact that health authorities, including the World Organisation for Animal Health and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations are unanimous on the fact that swine influenza cannot be contracted through eating pork or pork products. Members might recall that when equine influenza broke out in Australia, New Zealand immediately imposed an import ban on Australian horses.
The reputation of the Australian horse breeding industry was battered and the international restrictions placed on trade as well as the national restrictions placed on animal movements during the equine influenza outbreak saw the Australian horse industry placed under incredible pressure whilst Australia government-associated equine industries tackled the task of containment and eradication. Although Australia can now declare itself equine influenza free, it will be some time before the industries will fully recover from the biosecurity and quarantine restrictions that were required to be imposed.
I know a number of jockeys, trainers and racehorse owners as well as people who run TAB agencies in the ACT. I am well aware of the hardship and distress that these individuals and their organisations experienced at the time. Of course, there are also others who make their living through other equine activity such as competition, recreation activity and trading. As I said, it will be some time before these people will fully recover.
This legislation is designed to protect their future livelihood and protect the animals that are so important to them. But if the outbreak had occurred without the emergency animal disease response agreement or its supporting action plans and underpinning legislations being in place, there is a strong possibility that there would have been an entirely worse outcome for Australia’s horse industry. Australia remains only one of two countries that have eradicated horse flu. South Africa also was able to eradicate the disease, but it was a much longer and drawn-out process compared to the quick response that was able to be made here under the emergency animal disease response agreement.
The emergency animal disease response agreement provided for the containment of this disease by providing a framework and incentives to take certain actions. Immediately upon a notifiable disease being detected in this country, it must be reported to that jurisdiction’s control authority. The response agreement facilitates this reporting by providing financial disincentives for failing to report the disease in a timely manner. The response agreement outlines the funding ratios for government and industry participants affected by a specific animal disease.
In some cases, the response will be entirely funded by the government participants to the agreement. In other cases, the entire cost of eradication will met solely by the affected industry participants. In between, there are a number of diseases where costs will be shared between government and industry. The response agreement outlines
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