John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I strongly support the contribution just made by my colleague and good friend the member for Gorton on the Quarantine Amendment (Commission of Inquiry) Bill 2007. I also strongly support the amendment moved by my other good friend and colleague the shadow minister for trade and regional development, the Hon. Simon Crean, the member for Hotham.

While the Howard government dithered during the initial outbreak of the equine influenza epidemic around Australia, Labor has consistently called for an independent inquiry into how the disease was introduced, whether quarantine procedures are adequate and whether there has been a breach of quarantine procedures and protocols. From this perspective, I am broadly supportive of the bill but particularly of Simon Crean’s amendment. It is ludicrous that it took so long and so much arm-twisting to compel the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to launch this independent inquiry into what is such an obvious breach of Australia’s biosecurity regime. In light of the scale of the breach involved on this occasion, one can only wonder what level of quarantine breakdown would be required before the Howard government initiated an inquiry of its own volition rather than being pushed into the one that we have now with Commissioner Callinan. Surely Australians have a right to expect that quarantine procedures are being administered effectively by their government rather than with the indolence, complacency and lethargy that it has demonstrated on this occasion.

Such was the level of lethargy in the minister’s response to this outbreak that many Australians would be entitled to ask whether he too was suffering some form of influenza. Australians have a right to expect that, in the event of a quarantine failure, the government will act decisively to find out why it happened and how it can prevent a repetition. Unfortunately, after 11 years in government it is clear that the complacency, indolence and lethargy that I mentioned have submerged the Howard government, putting biosecurity enforcement at great risk.

It is obvious that the minister needs all the help he can get when it comes to identifying flaws in Australia’s quarantine procedures or failures in their application. Rather than being forced into an independent inquiry, the minister should have initiated one immediately—but he chose not to. The consequences were painfully obvious to all Australians and particularly those whose livelihoods depend on the racing industry. We all had to endure the unedifying sight of the minister responding on the run and contradicting himself as he went. We know some members of the Howard government are masters of projection and we saw new heights reached on this occasion with this crisis. On 24 August 2007, the minister stated:

It is likely that the infection has originated from another horse in quarantine that has contracted the disease but has not shown any clinical signs of it.

Then, three days later, on 27 August, the blame shifted when the minister indicated that ‘the Maitland event may be the source of the outbreak’. In a sign of defiance, the minister proclaimed on the following day, 28 August:

... there has been no breach of the impenetrable quarantine barriers at Eastern Creek ...

I will come back to the folly of that statement later in this debate. Finally, on 31 August, another three days later, the minister saw the light and questioned his own quarantine regime, when he stated:

We want to identify what went wrong so it can never happen again and so we can repair the breach.

He said:

It’s going to be human error, there’s no question, but were the quarantine procedures adequate?

It is clear that the Howard government has felt for several years that quarantine procedures were adequate, despite several legitimate concerns raised to the contrary.

During the course of the Callinan commission, we will no doubt hear of the prophetic warnings about equine influenza which were raised in years gone by. One of these warnings came from a very unlikely source, a former Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, the Hon. Mark Vaile. In a press statement the then minister stated:

The horse ... facilities at Eastern Creek have served Australia well for over 20 years and Australia remains one of the few countries in the world, which have never had an outbreak of equine influenza.

Now here is the clincher:

An outbreak of equine influenza would cause massive disruption to Australian horse racing and would be expensive to contain.

Indeed. Another former Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, the Hon. Warren Truss, had this to say:

We have a thriving, five billion dollar horse industry that deserves to be protected by the most stringent quarantine controls.

If only both those ministers had taken their own advice.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you know we are an island continent. For this influenza strain to get into Australia there must have been a breach of what Minister Truss labelled ‘stringent quarantine controls’. As Minister Vaile foreshadowed, this outbreak of equine influenza has caused massive disruption to Australian horseracing and it will be difficult to contain, and the effects have been debilitating. In New South Wales alone, 1,300 horses on 146 properties have tested positive to equine influenza. So much for Australia’s so-called ‘stringent quarantine controls’.

In an excellent article by Fiona Carruthers titled ‘The human pain from horse flu’, published in the Australian Financial Review on 1 September 2007, the human toll of equine influenza was very accurately described. The horseracing industry is worth $8 billion a year to gross domestic product, and it is not hard to see why. Ms Carruthers accurately identifies the forgotten victims of equine influenza, be they children’s riding teachers, trainers, strappers, grooms, university students with part-time track jobs, promotional staff, barrier attendants, track workers, maintenance staff, hospitality workers and cleaners. And that is not to mention the truck drivers, veterinarians, horse chiropractors, hairdressers and lingerie and fashion shops that have lost enormous amounts of trade through this crisis.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you know and everyone in this House knows that the horseracing industry employs many Australians. It is a huge industry. No doubt the list of those impacted on by this equine influenza crisis outbreak could go on and on. The racing industry sustains 77,000 full-time equivalent jobs. The Sydney Turf Club and the Australian Jockey Club, of which I am a proud member, employ up to 1,000 casuals between them on big race days. As this crisis draws out, more and more families will wonder where they will find the additional money to pay the mortgage, feed the kids and pay the other bills. All this could seemingly have been prevented if someone—anyone—in the Howard government had taken heed of the warnings presented to them.

It will not be difficult for Commissioner Callinan to spot flaws in Australia’s quarantine system. The commissioner need only scratch the surface to find them. Many concerns have already been raised, as referred to by the member for Gorton in his contribution about lax quarantine procedures at the federal government’s Eastern Creek quarantine facility. The AUSVETPLAN disease strategy for the control and eradication of equine influenza highlights the importance of making horse handlers aware of the risks of transmission of the virus by mechanical means. AUSVETPLAN also states that personnel handling horses in quarantine stations must shower before leaving the station to minimise the risk of transmission. This is for very good reason, as the virus can be spread on clothing or equipment.

Despite this, there is a considerable body of opinion and evidence which shows that pathetic quarantine arrangements existed at Eastern Creek quarantine station. A stallion groom formerly employed by a leading United States stud has stated that he, as well as others, was allowed to come and go from Eastern Creek without changing clothes, washing or showering. The groom was also witness to people unloading horses from trucks at the quarantine station and leaving without washing themselves or their trucks. These are not isolated claims.

On Saturday, 8 September 2007, Mr Alan Frogley, a very respected veterinarian, told Radio 2SM that he went to look at a horse at Eastern Creek, expecting to go through rigorous biosecurity procedures. Like many of us, Mr Frogley must have been duped by the former minister’s claims that Eastern Creek has the most stringent quarantine controls. To the contrary, Mr Frogley advises that he ‘breezed in as if it were just another stable’.

So I ask today, on behalf of the industry: where are these so-called stringent quarantine controls? The minister should immediately answer my questions Nos 6310, 6311, 6312 and 6313, which I placed on yesterday’s Notice Paper. I am still awaiting an answer. Perhaps I should not be asking where the stringent controls are. Given the examples I have just mentioned, a more pertinent question would be: are there any quarantine controls at all?

We must remember that this has all taken place against a background of AUSVETPLAN warnings that equine influenza could potentially be introduced to Australia by imported horses if quarantine procedures were inadequate. The quarantine failures I have mentioned all took place against a backdrop of an equine influenza outbreak in Japan and horses arriving in Australia from Japan at around the same time.

Rather than stepped-up quarantine precautions at Eastern Creek quarantine facility as a result, we now know that people have been walking in and out of the facility without showering, scrubbing down trucks and changing their clothes. So I ask again on behalf of the racing industry: what is going on at Eastern Creek? It is no wonder that leading trainer John O’Shea from Randwick said:

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work out that there is the introduction of this virus into Eastern Creek and now the same virus is in the general population

…            …            …

... there is no doubting that it’s come from Eastern Creek.

John O’Shea is a much respected trainer at Randwick. It may not take a rocket scientist to work that out, but the minister still has his doubts. While the minister already has a lot to answer for, the scandal does not end there for the government. It is now common knowledge that concerns were raised about Australia’s quarantine system as far back as 2004. It would seem that quarantine standards have been slipping for some time under the Howard government.

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