Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

(1)

Schedule 1, item 5, page 4 (lines 1-8), omit paragraph 66AY (1) (a), substitute:

(a)

conduct a Commission of inquiry into matters specified in the instrument of appointment relating to the following:

(i)

the outbreak and spread of equine influenza in Australia in 2007;

(ii)

quarantine requirements and practices relating to the outbreak and spread;

(iii)

Australia’s quarantine requirements and practices that relate to equine importation and whether these requirements and practices accord with international best practice;

(iv)

any matters incidental to the matters referred to in subparagraphs (i), (ii), and (iii); and

(2)

Schedule 1, item 5, page 4, after subsection 66AY(4) (after line 16), add

(5)

the Minister must table the Commission’s report in each house of the Parliament within five sitting days of its receipt.

As I said in my speech on the second reading, Labor does support the general thrust of the Quarantine Amendment (Commission of Inquiry) Bill 2007 but, through the amendments that have been circulated in my name, we believe that we can improve it and we ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to consider the amendments.

We on this side of the House are not convinced that the legislation will necessarily deliver the comprehensive and open inquiry that the minister has just referred to. Schedule 1, item 5A lists a number of matters on which the terms of reference must be based. However, the current bill requires an inquiry to be conducted into all or any of the matters on that list. I ask the minister: if the government considers all the matters on this list to be important, why has it used the words ‘all’ or ‘any’ in this bill? These words seem to give the government the flexibility to ignore matters on its own list. Two of the matters on the list require the commission to inquire into matters concerning the outbreak of the disease, but there is no requirement in the bill, as far as we can ascertain, to inquire into its spread. Surely finding out how this disease has been spread is just as important as finding out how the disease came into the country in the first place? I ask the minister why the legislation was not framed to ensure that the inquiry covers the spread of the disease as well as how it entered the country.

Labor believes that it is important that the inquiry also focus on how Australia’s current quarantine structures and practices stack up against international best practice. Labor’s amendments will ensure that this happens. This government has form when it comes to bearing reports that are politically embarrassing or critical of its actions. That is why we are moving an amendment that will require the report to be tabled on the floor of this parliament.

Labor has already asked the government a number of questions relating to the management of this particular matter and of equine quarantine. We are yet to receive responses to those answers. I ask the minister again to provide answers to the questions that the opposition has raised in relation to the warnings the government may have received in recent years about the possibility and impacts of an equine influenza outbreak—allegations that workers at the Eastern Creek quarantine facility have regularly left the premises without changing their gear or showering, in clear breach of normal quarantine requirements; allegations that the minister acted to bend the rules relating to the normal allowable period, in order to allow three horses from France to enter the country; and allegations that, against normal quarantine protocols, horses from Europe and Japan have been allowed to intermingle while they have been in quarantine.

We have yet to receive adequate answers to these questions. I now invite the minister to provide them to this House. Labor’s amendments will improve the inquiry by ensuring that it is comprehensive and open, and that the report is tabled on the floor of this parliament not only for members of this parliament to see but for the industry and the general community to see as well. I urge the government to support these amendments.

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