Page 2670 - Week 07 - Thursday, 2 August 2018
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I would like to provide some information about the property identification codes, PICs, because they are an important component of the NLIS. Property information helps build a territory-wide picture about the agricultural land use and livestock numbers for biosecurity purposes. PICs are fundamental to the NLIS because they provide traceability to specific properties. With a PIC, property occupiers can obtain permanent identified devices for their animals, identify their property for movement recording and enrol in an industry quality assurance program.
PICs are currently not mandatory. The legislation will make PICs mandatory for all properties in the ACT where cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, horses, donkeys, mules, deer, camels, alpacas, llamas and certain numbers of small or large poultry are kept. Information on PICs will be recorded in a territory register held by the director-general with administrative responsibility for the Animal Diseases Act.
Many ACT rural landholders already have PICs because it is mandatory to provide a PIC when delivering cattle, sheep and goats to properties, saleyards or abattoirs in New South Wales, where the NLIS is already in place. A PIC also needs to be provided to owners or transporters of livestock delivered from other jurisdictions. Making PICs mandatory in the ACT for all cattle, sheep, goats and pigs will ensure that diseases or contaminated livestock being moved from one property to another in the ACT can be located. Mandatory PICs will help ACT rural landholders purchase livestock from other jurisdictions. Extending the requirement for a PIC to properties where other livestock are kept, such as horses and poultry, will make it easier to locate these animals in a biosecurity or food safety incident. During the equine influenza outbreak in 2007, the ACT government’s response was hampered by a lack of knowledge about the location of horses.
Poultry production is also at risk, with a number of outbreaks of avian influenza in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland since 1976. However, a PIC will be required only by owners of 100 or more small poultry such as chickens, ducks or geese, and 10 or more large poultry, such as emus and ostriches. Recreational poultry owners will not be affected by the amendments.
PICS will also be mandatory for saleyards and properties on which stock events such as the Canberra show are held. Should an abattoir, feedlot or piggery ever be established in the ACT, it would also require a PIC.
All stock and station agents trading in livestock in the ACT will require an agent identification code. Stock and station agents are often temporarily in charge of livestock at saleyards and other properties and have responsibilities for ensuring the traceability of livestock under the NLIS.
The bill’s other amendments relate to stock required to be identifiable under the NLIS: cattle, sheep, goats and pigs. The bill’s amendments will have the greatest impact on the ACT’s rural landholders. Rural landholders are already familiar with the NLIS through trading with New South Wales and because the NLIS regulations for cattle have been in place since 2004. Also, the benefits of good biosecurity are well known amongst rural landholders, other livestock industry participants and the broader community.
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