Selwyn Johnston… Independent Advocate

There have been many unfortunate decisions by BioSecurity Australia but the introduction of Equine Influenza into Australia will be up there with the best.

In order to get a few equine sires into Australia, BioSecurity Australia has cost the racing industry millions, not to mention the enormous and ongoing costs it will impose on the rest of the equine industries.

It must now be apparent to our erstwhile Canberra politicians that they have introduced a grossly defective system regarding our quarantine services and the worrying thing is that there are similar incidents to the equine influenza event in the pipeline.

Next cab off the rank will be ‘fire blight’, an exotic disease of deciduous fruits and it will finish up with the same decision and result as equine influenza.

The only solution is to get rid of those responsible for the defective management systems which will ensure a win-win result.

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It’s time that BioSecurity Australia just came clean and admitted the base cause of the equine influenza now causing havoc within the equestrian industries in Australia as a result of importing horses from a country/s where the disease was currently active. The claim by BioSecurity Australia that it provides a science-based quarantine assessment, and policy advice, that protects Australia’s favourable disease status, has proven to be far from the truth.

BioSecurity Australia operates under rules set out in a World Trade Organisation (WTO) Agreement, which is meant to facilitate trade and the prevention of discrimination in trade between countries with the same circumstances, or words to that effect. It goes without saying that a country that has active equine influenza is not a country that has “same circumstance” as Australia, which up until a week or so ago was Equine Influenza free.

Shortly we will see the same thing that happen to apple growers when New Zealand is allowed to export apples into Australia when in effect in regard to fire blight the countries do not have the “same circumstance”.

When all this has settled down and the Minister, after a protracted inquiry into all the circumstances, announces that all the protocols were complied with which will be soul destroying and meaningless.

Just what are those protocols that have been so rigorously adhered to and how do they affect Australia, and you and I?

In order to assist us in this regard BioSecurity Australia has printed a Handbook on Import Risk Analysis, which addresses the issues that are now supposed to protect Australia.

We no longer have the luxury of simply saying to a country that has a disease; we don’t have it, and don’t want it, so keep out. We basically have to develop a protocol as to how we handle it when it gets here.

Once again we have lost out right to govern our own country and the party politicians have facilitated this situation.

Read the Handbook yourself. Just click HERE.

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Compulsory reading for all Australian Primary Producers

There are times when you must genuinely wonder just who our Government is working for. In the days of Labor’s Hawke and Keating the joke was that they were busy building level playing fields for the rest of the world to screw us on, but believe me, the construction technique of Hawke and Keating has now been turned into an art form by the Coalition.

Nowhere does this apply more so than to quarantine. Quarantine management in Australia is divided into two parts.

Firstly there is the AQIS side, which does a wonderful job given that it is under constant restraint and impediment, and secondly, BioSecurity Australia, which, in addition to creating policy and assessing risks, gives every appearance of being a remote, impractical policy making body which by and large works in the interests of anyone but Australians and serves to impede AQIS.

There is more than a strong suspicion that the decisions of BioSecurity Australia, while made in accordance with AN interpretation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Rules always seem to come down in favour of any interest but Australia’s.

The rules that BioSecurity Australia has to follow are set out in a document called the “Import Risk Analysis Handbook”, and are available to all those who have Internet access or even perhaps by request to the Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry. These rules follow along the WTO lines but it seems that the document can be interpreted in any number of different ways.

Two parts of this “Handbook” are of particular interest. Firstly is the section on “Objectives” which states in part:

“Australia has unique and diverse flora and fauna, has valuable agricultural industries and is relatively free from serious pests and diseases. Therefore successive Commonwealth Governments have maintained a conservative but not zero-risk approach to the management of biosecurity risks. This approach is consistent with the World Trade Organisation ‘Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures [the SPS Agreement], and is evident in the range of biosecurity related activities, including policies on imported commodities, procedures at the border, and operations against incursions of pests and diseases.

The SPS Agreement [see Annex 8] defines the concept of an “appropriate level of sanitary or phytosanitary protection [ALOP]” as the level of protection deemed appropriate by a WTO Member in establishing a sanitary or phytosanitary measure to protect human, animal or plant life or health within its territory. In setting its ALOP a WTO Member should take into account the objective of minimising negative trade effects.

CLICK HERE TO: READ THE FULL ARTICLE 

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