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Report: Jane Bardon
After years of criticism from farmers the Federal Government will shortly launch an inquiry into the quarantine system.Farmers say very little has improved since the last major review ten years ago.And with several damaging disease and pest outbreaks they want action now.New South Wales Farmers Association exotic pests and diseases committee chairman Peter Carter says the horse flu outbreak has been the last straw in quarantine failures."There's been the Brazilian beef affair, we've had incursions of things like fire ants and fruit fly, and it was only a matter of time before the equine influenza outbreak was inevitable."A former vet and now beef farmer, Peter Carter says the inquiry should be carried out by a small independent team including legal and animal or plant health experts and a farmer. "We have to look at the way AQIS is structured. The Nairn report back in 1996 suggested that and the former government rejected that."And the Callinan Inquiry has also identified that it is being run like a corporation, and that you have very few people with expertise in animal and plant diseases working at the coal face, and the big decisions about how and where to spend money, and what should be done are being taken by people managers."And they have milestones to achieve which are not keeping pests and diseases out of Australia, they are things like keeping within your budget. And you can't run a quarantine system like a show manufacturers and expect it to work."Peter Carter says the quarantine agencies are also spending too much time reacting after outbreaks, rather than preparing for them.Mark Burgman from the Australian Centre for Risk Analysis agrees more preparation for potential risks is needed."We can explore different types of tools which make forecasts, we can make better use of existing knowledge, we can collect data more effectively."And we can use hypotheticals to explore what might happen, if for example, a hypothetical orange came in from a country under free trade rules with a bug and we can use the tools to predict the probably path of entry, the likelihood of entry and the way the bug would spread and the consequences when that happens."Horse flu is the first outbreak to raise the prospect of major compensation claims against the Government.Peter Carter says if the Government doesn't fix the system, taxpayers could be asked to pay billions of dollars in future claims."If the lawyers can see the slightest crack in the armour they will be suing the Federal Government."Then that opens the way for farmers to do something about loss of trade if we get something like foot-and-mouth. Equine influenza will be a watershed. It's changing things in quarantine forever."
In this report: Jane Bardon
After years of criticism from farmers the Federal Government will shortly launch an inquiry into the quarantine system.Farmers say very little has improved since the last major review ten years ago.And with several damaging disease and pest outbreaks they want action now.New South Wales Farmers Association exotic pests and diseases committee chairman Peter Carter says the horse flu outbreak has been the last straw in quarantine failures."There's been the Brazilian beef affair, we've had incursions of things like fire ants and fruit fly, and it was only a matter of time before the equine influenza outbreak was inevitable."A former vet and now beef farmer, Peter Carter says the inquiry should be carried out by a small independent team including legal and animal or plant health experts and a farmer. "We have to look at the way AQIS is structured. The Nairn report back in 1996 suggested that and the former government rejected that."And the Callinan Inquiry has also identified that it is being run like a corporation, and that you have very few people with expertise in animal and plant diseases working at the coal face, and the big decisions about how and where to spend money, and what should be done are being taken by people managers."And they have milestones to achieve which are not keeping pests and diseases out of Australia, they are things like keeping within your budget. And you can't run a quarantine system like a show manufacturers and expect it to work."Peter Carter says the quarantine agencies are also spending too much time reacting after outbreaks, rather than preparing for them.Mark Burgman from the Australian Centre for Risk Analysis agrees more preparation for potential risks is needed."We can explore different types of tools which make forecasts, we can make better use of existing knowledge, we can collect data more effectively."And we can use hypotheticals to explore what might happen, if for example, a hypothetical orange came in from a country under free trade rules with a bug and we can use the tools to predict the probably path of entry, the likelihood of entry and the way the bug would spread and the consequences when that happens."Horse flu is the first outbreak to raise the prospect of major compensation claims against the Government.Peter Carter says if the Government doesn't fix the system, taxpayers could be asked to pay billions of dollars in future claims."If the lawyers can see the slightest crack in the armour they will be suing the Federal Government."Then that opens the way for farmers to do something about loss of trade if we get something like foot-and-mouth. Equine influenza will be a watershed. It's changing things in quarantine forever."
In this report: Jane Bardon
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