Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The opposition will support the National Cattle Disease Eradication Account Amendment Bill 2006, but with some reservations, which I will outline to the chamber. The bill amends the National Cattle Disease Eradication Account Act to enable the funds currently held in the National Cattle Disease Eradication Account—an account held and operated by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry—to be transferred to the Cattle Disease Contingency Fund, an account held by Cattle Disease Contingency Fund Pty Ltd. The owners of this new company are the Cattle Council of Australia, the Australian Lot Feeders Association and Animal Health Australia. Since 2002, cattle industry levy moneys have been paid into this account.

The National Cattle Disease Eradication Account was set up in 1991 to hold and distribute funds for programs aimed at eliminating brucellosis and tuberculosis from the Australian cattle and buffalo populations. That was a successful initiative of the then Labor government. It is pleasing to see that the original objectives of that scheme, which at the time met with some opposition from some industry operators and farmers, have been fulfilled and we have managed to eradicate those diseases from our herds. The current balance in the account is approximately $13.5 million. The Cattle Disease Contingency Fund Pty Ltd, as trustee, is permitted to use the funds in the Cattle Disease Contingency Fund for a number of specific purposes, including prevention and control of endemic or exotic cattle diseases, research and other animal health activities likely to benefit the Australian cattle industry.

I note that the proposal has received support from industry groups and Labor will not be opposing it, but I point out on the floor of the Main Committee our concerns with what would seem to be the privatisation of many of the functions of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. This has the potential at the end of the day to reduce Commonwealth scrutiny over these matters and accountability for the use of the funds. I have observed this trend over the 10 years this government has been in office—accountability mechanisms have not been as stringent as we would expect. Many bodies are at arm’s length from this parliament, which makes it increasingly difficult for the parliament to exercise scrutiny over their funds.

This money was collected from levy payers for a specific purpose, and now, with the agreement of industry groups, it is about to be used for other closely related purposes. As I said, we are not going to oppose the legislation, but we do point out that this is part of a trend that has occurred over the past 10 years of these sorts of bodies being put at arm’s length from the parliament to reduce the scrutiny of them and the accountability for their funds. We can see how, when ministers put firewalls around particular issues, all of this can go wrong. The AWB is a classic example of this. We certainly do not want a situation where funds that belong to producers in this industry are misused in any shape or form. I certainly hope that the minister has his eye on this whole accountability issue.

From an opposition’s point of view, we have found it very difficult at times to get appropriate information on the activities of many of these bodies through the estimates committee process of the Senate. As members would know, that is a very important way in which oppositions and industry groups get to scrutinise some of these proposals and how they are operating. It provides a forum for industry groups when they have complaints about these sorts of matters.

We know that in the beef industry and livestock industries generally there is a lot of concern among producers on these issues. In the past this has led to the formation of different organisations to represent producers. There has been significant controversy over the live export trade and aspects of that industry. I note that the Lot Feeders Association will be a party to the company that is being set up under this legislation. As you would know, Mr Deputy Speaker Causley, as somebody who has been intimately involved with the beef industry in your electorate and in your past political life and the one in this parliament, the legislation deals with a very significant industry that is most important to Australia’s economic fortunes and the futures of regional communities throughout Australia. Each year Australia produces just over two million tonnes of beef. That is an estimate provided by the ABS in 2005-06. The gross value of Australian cattle and calf production, including live cattle exports, is approximately $7.4 billion. That is ABARE’s figure for 2005-06.

There were in excess of 74,000 properties with cattle, according to a June 2005 estimate, holding 27.78 million cattle and calves and 12.9 million beef cows and heifers. Domestic expenditure on beef is estimated to be in the region of $6.4 billion and, as members would know, it is a significant export earner for Australia. In 2005-06 we exported 65 per cent of our beef production, with a total value of approximately $4.5 billion.

I have given a thumbnail sketch of the industry, but it is a big player in economic terms in regional Australia and as far as the national economy is concerned. We must do whatever we can to protect it, to protect its integrity and to ensure that the diseases that ravage livestock are contained and do not have an adverse economic impact on the industry. A lot of research is done in many places on a whole range of pests and diseases that affect production in this industry.

We could speak at quite considerable length about those exotic pests and diseases, but there are two that have caused devastation in other economies and had enormous adverse economic impacts. I refer here to the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in the United Kingdom. I was recently in the United Kingdom—I think perhaps I might have been there at the time you, Mr Deputy Speaker, were there—speaking to various rural groups about the impacts of foot-and-mouth disease and how we might better prepare for the prospect of a disease outbreak. Foot-and-mouth disease had a devastating effect on British beef exports and on the domestic industry in that country.

Of course, there have been some estimates of the impact that it might have here in Australia. In a publication by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry there was a review of the new technologies and the potential impact of new technologies on Australia’s foot-and-mouth disease planning and policies. In that report, the estimates of the effect of even a small-scale outbreak were the immediate closure of many of Australia’s major export markets for livestock and livestock products and an estimated minimum loss to the national economy of between $2 billion and $3 billion in GDP rising to between $8 billion and $13 billion 12 months after the outbreak. This is an enormous impact that would occur if we in Australia had an outbreak similar to the one experienced in the United Kingdom.

The United States, with the BSE outbreak and the failure of the systems there to be able to effectively trace where that outbreak occurred, has been excluded from the Japanese market, and of course Australia has been fortunate enough to be able to partially fill that gap and increase its exports into that market. That has strengthened the export market for Australian beef and provided in some very difficult times extra income and a certain bottom under the international prices received for Australian meat exports.

I note here in the chamber the presence of the honourable member for Grey, who has an intimate knowledge of the beef industry and knows how important it is to South Australia and many producers in his state. I think that honourable members from both sides of the House—it does not matter what their political complexion is—understand very clearly how important these industries are to regional communities. They are important not only in the production end but in the value adding up the chain where jobs are provided in the meat and livestock industries. They are critical jobs to regional areas. If we do not have them, the communities dry up even faster in an economic sense. So it is very important that we keep on top of exotic pests and diseases. Past Labor governments have certainly turned their minds to this and to the substance of this bill, which concerns two diseases, tuberculosis and brucellosis, and their eradication in our herds. But, as we know, you have success on that front and other potentially more devastating diseases are waiting in the wings.

I hope that these funds will be spent wisely and I note the involvement of key industry groups in that process. I have confidence that those groups will spend this money wisely, but I urge them to keep in mind that these moneys were raised for one purpose and are now going to be used for a different one and there is a heavy responsibility not only to growers but also to the taxpayers of Australia and to this parliament. The taxpayers of Australia support the meat industry in a variety of ways, and I think it is important that we have proper accountability for allocated funds.

While I am on the issue of exotic pests and diseases, it disturbed me greatly when I heard on AM this morning Professor Max Whitten and Dr Jim Cullen, two eminent scientific specialists in Australia in pests and diseases, speculating about the impact of the shortage of scientists appropriately trained in the quarantine area. We have had plenty of debates about this in this place. I will be followed in this debate by the member for Lingiari, and the comments I make are particularly pertinent to his electorate. There has been a massive increase in illegal fishing incursions to our north. Failed government policy has seen an extraordinary number of incursions, with some of these illegal fishers setting up base camps on Australian soil. They have been apprehended with animals on board their vessels and in their camps. Anybody who knows anything about the Northern Territory cattle industry would know that it is not just about cattle but about feral pigs and other animals. If a disease like foot and mouth were introduced and took hold, it would decimate a very important industry in the Northern Territory and would certainly affect the whole Australian meat industry.

So here we have two eminent scientists commenting on the shortage of scientists, particularly in the area of exotic pest and disease analysis and prevention. They made some scathing comments about the situation today compared with 10 years ago. They are reported to have said that, 10 years ago, there were three times more technical scientific specialists than there are today and that the system today is overloaded with administrative staff. These eminent people were commenting on a deficiency in an organisation which is at the front line in our fight against exotic pests and diseases, including foot and mouth, BSC and a range of other diseases that affect the livestock industry. A very sombre warning has been sounded and I congratulate these scientists for coming out into the open on this matter. I have been saying for many years that, unless you get the infrastructure right, you cannot get on top of these problems when they occur.

The opposition have been arguing—and we are supported by the New South Wales farmers on this—that we ought to have a thorough inquiry, review and overhaul of Australia’s quarantine arrangements. We are in a new era of global trade. We are in an era of bioterror. We are in an era of massive illegal fishing and there are difficulties in defending our coastline. We are in an era where many of our critical rural industries face the prospect of significant outbreaks of exotic pests and diseases. For many of those industries it is not a question of if; it is a question of when. When these incidents occur, you have to minimise the damage. There must be research into not only the exotic pests and diseases but how we should respond.

I note that in the chamber with me today is the member for Lingiari. I have made some comment on the Northern Territory cattle industry and the importance of getting on top of the exotic pest and disease situation. Productivity in the cattle industry in his electorate is dependent on the ability of producers to keep on top of particular exotic pests, which have the potential to decimate that industry.

In conclusion, the opposition will be supporting the legislation, but we sound a note of concern and warning about the lack of accountability for funds that has occurred in some organisations over the life of this government when bodies at arm’s length to government have been set up. The entities that are involved in this new company are reputable ones, but I just sound a note of caution to the parliament that there are what we thought were quite reputable organisations now under the pump for a massive misuse of funds. We must be eternally vigilant in this regard. Our responsibility as members of this parliament is to ensure that accountancy and transparency arrangements are there so that the Australian taxpayer, producers and the general community are able to scrutinise these funds.

Cameron Thompson (Blair, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

About a quarter of Australia’s 133,000 farming establishments derive their main income from beef cattle farming. The National Cattle Disease Eradication Account Amendment Bill 2006 will materially affect an important part of the process that supports a large slice of our rural industry—particularly our opportunity to export product from rural areas. Beef cattle farming is providing great opportunities and has traditionally provided great opportunities for Australia to export.

Last financial year, there was $13.5 million within the fund that we are talking about. It raises a considerable amount of money to be used to protect our rural industries and we need to ensure that there is sufficient flexibility within our system to arrange protection in ways that will be effective. We should not put it in straitjackets or implement guidelines that limit its effectiveness. We heard from the member for Corio opposite about some of the new threats that are appearing all the time that could potentially cause a danger to our very important beef cattle industries.

I would just remark a little bit on the evolution of the cattle industry in Australia. I do not know how many members know it, but cattle first arrived in Australia in 1788 on the First Fleet—there were six of them. By 1800, we had 1,044 head of cattle in Australia. By 1850, there were nearly 1.9 million head of cattle. In 1900, that had grown to 8.6 million. By 1950, we had 9.7 million and in 2002 we saw the peak in the cattle herd at 24.7 million head of cattle. The drought that we have been suffering that has been causing all the pain and anguish in rural areas has caused numbers to tail off a bit since then.

There are up to 24.7 million head of cattle in Australia, providing great support for communities in all kinds of different regional areas in our country and also providing export income. In 2003-04, for example, exports of beef earned Australia $3.9 billion, which is 3.5 per cent of the total of our merchandise exports. Live cattle exports earned an additional $460 million. We are among the top producers of beef, with the 10th largest herd in the world. We are also the world’s largest exporter of beef, with 25 per cent of the total of our beef production being traded. We had 36,200 beef cattle farms in 2002-03, accounting for 27 per cent of Australia’s agricultural establishments. It is important that we look at ways of providing additional support.

We have seen growth in the cattle herd over the years on the average farm. In 1979 the average cattle herd on a farm would have been 218. Two decades later it reached as high as 301. That does reflect the growth and the trend within our rural industries towards greater, bigger and more substantial enterprises, and also towards greater efficiency and a more competitive industry which builds very strongly for the future of our country.

The National Cattle Disease Eradication Account is used to fund initiatives in the eradication of brucellosis and tuberculosis. The original brucellosis and tuberculosis eradication campaign started back in the late eighties. It has been successful. Since then we have seen a number of programs, such as the Tuberculosis Freedom Assurance Plan and the Tuberculosis Freedom Assurance Plan 2, to monitor effectiveness. They ensure that the achievements of the eradication program for brucellosis and tuberculosis have been effective and long-lasting and that we do not see any resurgence of either of those two deadly diseases within our cattle herds.

I thought I should say just how effective that has been. The last case of TB was found in Tasmania in 1972, in Victoria in 1991, in New South Wales in 1995, in South Australia in 1996, in Western Australia in 1998, in Queensland in 2000, and in the Northern Territory in 1999 in cattle and in 2002 in buffalo. I remember they spent an awful lot of effort trying to completely wipe out the buffalo herd in the Northern Territory, but I think that, as the member for Lingiari will probably tell us, there are still some out there. It is still important that we continue to maintain a watch on what is going on.

I thought I might move from that discussion of the program to the importance now of providing greater flexibility. The purpose of this bill is to enable funds to be available for transfer—and I spoke before about $13.5 million in the last financial year being available in that fund—into a fund for a broader attack on cattle diseases through the Cattle Disease Contingency Fund. I think that, on the face of it, is quite clearly very much a desirable outcome. There are plenty of other threats out there for the cattle industries and it is very important that we enable that flexibility to exist. The scope of the Cattle Disease Contingency Fund is much wider and it will be used for the prevention, eradication and control of diseases as well as for research. I want to come to that in the short bit of time that remains to me.

I would like to inform the House that there are significant changes occurring in my electorate that will contribute manifestly to this program. In the electorate of Blair we have the University of Queensland Gatton campus. Recently the University of Queensland, a very strong and reputable university with a significant worldwide reputation in veterinary achievements, announced that they are going to be transferring their vet school from St Lucia, in the leafy suburbs in the western part of Brisbane, to Gatton. This will enable students to have much more direct exposure to the heavy animal industries and to the wide range of rural pursuits that are engaged in in Queensland, particularly in areas like beef cattle. This will give the students greater awareness of the risks of these diseases.

It is also significant that, once this revised school is established at the Gatton campus of the University of Queensland, we will have a much greater focus on those diseases and on those other diseases that threaten the future of our cattle herd. Students undertaking study there, as opposed to students who in the past studied at St Lucia, will be much more focused on those heavy animal industries and much more prepared and able to support our endeavours in the beef cattle industry than I think they could ever have been being trained within the built-up area of Brisbane. That is a good thing.

I want to point out the cost of transferring that incredibly difficult learning process. It is the most complex learning process. They say that doctors have to study only one type of organism, whereas vets have to study a huge number of different animals and all the complexities that go with them. So it is a very complex undertaking. That transfer is not going to be free. For example, funds from sources such as the one that we are discussing today should be brought into play to ensure that those students have the best facilities. About $80 million is required to re-establish the facility at Gatton. To be honest about it, the university has been pursuing the Commonwealth for something like a $25 million contribution towards that. It may be that the stakeholders within this fund, the Cattle Disease Contingency Fund, will find it a worthwhile investment to help with the establishment of that facility, because the more we can train vets with a focus on the rural industries as opposed to dogs and cats in the cities, the better off we will be, the greater the future will be for our nation and the greater strength there will be within our rural industries.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank my colleague the member for Blair, who has just spoken, for cutting the time of his contribution to enable me to speak on this legislation. The National Cattle Disease Eradication Account Amendment Bill 2006 amends the National Cattle Disease Eradication Account Act to enable funds held in the National Cattle Disease Eradication Account—an account held and operated by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry—to be transferred to the Cattle Disease Contingency Fund, or CDCF, an account held by Cattle Disease Contingency Fund Pty Ltd.

Since 1991—and this date is important to note when I come to the discussion about the campaign on tuberculosis and brucellosis shortly—the cattle and buffalo industries have been contributing through levies to the National Cattle Disease Eradication Account. That money was raised for initiatives to combat brucellosis and tuberculosis. The most recent initiative was the Tuberculosis Freedom Assurance Program, or TFAP.

I am aware of this program simply because of its impact upon the Northern Territory cattle and buffalo industries. We should be in no doubt about the trauma placed on many producers as a result of this campaign, which was developed in the early nineties to eradicate brucellosis and tuberculosis from cattle and buffalo in Australia. This had a dramatic impact upon the cattle and buffalo numbers over a period of time. Whilst moneys were being paid out to the buffalo and cattle industries, many producers were left short. In some cases, smaller owner-operators found it very difficult to sustain their operations in the cattle industry as a result of the costs incurred. They did not believe that they had received adequate compensation for the eradication of brucellosis and tuberculosis from their herds, and such eradication often meant the destruction of large herds of cattle.

One particular property that I am aware of, Nutwood Downs in the Northern Territory, is owned by the Dunbars. They had a significant cost to bear as a result of this campaign. I think they, like others in the industry, found it very difficult over a period of time to sustain their activities in the industry as a result of the costs that were incurred. Be that as it may, they are still in the industry. They are still producing very fine cattle off their property, as are other cattle producers in the Northern Territory. But the buffalo industry is very different. The impact on the buffalo industry was very dramatic to the point where the number of commercial buffalo producers was reduced substantially as a result of this campaign.

The Tuberculosis Freedom Assurance Program finishes on 31 December. At the request of the cattle and buffalo industries, the remaining funds, approximately $13½ million, will be transferred to the more broadly focused Cattle Disease Contingency Fund—a trust fund established to fund such programs. The Cattle Disease Contingency Fund Pty Ltd is a private company jointly owned by the Cattle Council of Australia, the Australian Lot Feeders Association and Animal Health Australia, itself a private company owned by industry and state, territory and Commonwealth governments. Since 2002, cattle industry levy moneys have been paid into this account. The member for Corio, the shadow minister, raised governance issues which we have some concerns about in relation to this program. We know that moneys which were collected for a specific purpose will now, with the agreement of industry groups, be used for other closely related purposes. We support this legislation. I do so because I am very much aware of the importance of the cattle industry to the Northern Territory economy.

The peak body for the cattle industry in the Northern Territory, the Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association, represents around 98 per cent of the Northern Territory cattle herd, from small family operations to large corporate organisations. I have some figures from the association. Their members managed a land mass in excess of 620,000 square kilometres in 2005 and produce 532,000 high-quality cattle each year. Over 212,000 head of cattle are delivered directly to the port of Darwin for export to the Asia-Pacific region, and a further 320,000 head of cattle are transported and sold to all states and territories in Australia. We know that this is of tremendous importance to the Northern Territory economy. The pastoral industry generates over $330 million directly and another $180 million indirectly for the Territory economy.

But there are animal health issues which remain a concern for the cattle industry. The biggest animal health concern for producers in the Northern Territory is botulism. Producers in the Alice Springs region are also concerned about lice, and Top End producers are concerned about buffalo fly. The most common disease that producers vaccinate for is botulism, with a smaller number of producers in the Top End, Katherine and the Barkley region vaccinating for vibriosis. Based on producer estimates—and I am relying here on information from the Department of Primary Industry, Fisheries and Mines in the Northern Territory—carrying capacities across the Northern Territory are expected to rise through increases in station infrastructure. Estimated increases are 29 per cent by 2009 and 54 per cent by 2014, with the largest increases in carrying capacity relative to area being in the Top End due to planned improved pasture development on already cleared land.

There are other pests, of course, which concern the cattle industry. Animals such as wild dogs and pigs have a very substantial impact on the industry. Wild dogs were named as the feral animal receiving the greatest amount of control because of the impact they were having. The average cost of control of feral animals in the Northern Territory in 2004 was $4,928 for each property.

We know the importance of this industry to the Northern Territory and Australian economies. What we need to appreciate is that we cannot allow that industry to be devastated in the way it could potentially have been as a result of the brucellosis and tuberculosis infestation that occurred in the late eighties. While there was an infestation, we reached an agreement for our producers to be able to export to the United States market—if my memory serves me correctly—and we needed to ensure that our herd was clean. As a result, we embarked upon a massive program for the cattle industry right across the Australian community.

Just as we are concerned about brucellosis and tuberculosis, we need to be aware that there are other exotic diseases which could potentially decimate the Australian cattle industry. We need to be very aware of that. We need to be supporting producers and producer organisations and we need to be supporting government agencies who are involved in assisting in managing those threats.

I want to commend to the chamber the work which is being done by all sections of the cattle industry in the Northern Territory and also the work which is being done by the relevant department in the Northern Territory government, the Department of Primary Industry, Fisheries and Mines.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise with great pleasure to speak on the National Cattle Disease Eradication Account Amendment Bill 2006. Having been involved in the very early stages of the development of the program and involved at a personal level in the sense of having cattle involved in this scheme in those very early days, it is a great pleasure to see that the scheme has been so successful that we are winding up the residual levies and putting them into a fund that will be used for research and for the benefit of the cattle industry in the future. The bovine brucellosis and tuberculosis eradication campaign is possibly one of the most successful campaigns of its type anywhere in the world. We have to give great credit to the industry itself. It led this campaign with the cooperation of state, territory and federal governments, departments of agriculture, field workers, veterinarians and staff on cattle properties right across Australia.

Obviously public health is of paramount importance to the food industry in Australia and of course the cattle industry wanted to make sure that they were able to meet the increasing need to give the countries importing our beef guarantees that our beef going into their markets is free of diseases that could have a public health risk attached to them. There was a huge challenge in implementing this program. I think the experience that it built on was the eradication of pleuropneumonia from the beef industry. That was eradicated from the beef industry by about 1967. It was running post the Second World War. We built on that experience to implement the program for the eradication of brucellosis and tuberculosis from the beef industry in Australia.

I mentioned a moment ago that this was a huge challenge to the beef industry. This was because we were dealing not only with small holdings in Southern Australia that were probably going to find it very easy to manage this scheme but also with large pastoral areas in Northern Australia. You have to make sure you are able to test all the cattle in these large pastoral areas. That means you have to muster them in, contain them, inoculate them and read the reaction to that inoculation in very large herds. You also have to deal with the wild buffalo population, which also could be a carrier of the disease. These animals are roaming wild in northern parts of Australia. The other problem was feral pigs.

So it was probably the most ambitious eradication program that has ever been conducted in Australia. The great success, as I said a moment ago, should be seen as a great benefit to the industry and we should commend the leadership of the industry in wanting to make sure that they persevered with what was going to be an incredibly difficult campaign. The funding for this program came with a levy attached to it which was funded by 50 per cent of the cost being borne by the producers, 20 per cent at least by the federal government and 30 per cent by the state and territory governments. The residual funds that are in this fund now will be transferred to a more permanent fund that will enable the cattle industry to use them perhaps for further exotic disease research and also, importantly, for the benefit of the beef industry more generally.

Brucellosis was eradicated in Australia in 1989 but to eradicate tuberculosis from the beef industry was going to be far more difficult. The complexity of where cattle run in Australia and the difficulties in Northern Australia meant that this area was going to be dealt with last. As difficult as it was to implement the program it was nonetheless successful and in 1997 Australia was declared free of tuberculosis.

The importance of the beef industry to our regional communities cannot be understated. The beef industry and its exports—whether in processed or live cattle form—contribute enormously to our export wealth. But it is also the jobs that the beef industry creates at a local level which are important to regional economies and rural communities. That is underpinned by the ability of Australian cattle producers and meat exporters to be able to export our beef or live cattle into other markets with confidence. To now be able to give that guarantee—that our cattle and beef are going to be free of brucellosis and tuberculosis—gives us an advantage in many ways over other countries that cannot give that guarantee to importing countries.

The beef industry have moved ahead again with the desire to ensure that they are able to identify at a consumer level the cattle and meat produced by them. That led to the introduction of the National Livestock Identification Scheme, commonly known as NLIS. There was a very difficult debate within the industry as to who would fund it and whether it would be successful, and there have been teething problems with the roll-out of that scheme across Australia. The National Livestock Identification Scheme ensures that cattle can be traced from their property of origin from the moment they leave a property to go through to feedlots or into the meat processing chain. That is important because, if we have exported beef to the United States, we are able now to identify the source of the meat, the history, and trace its progress from paddock to plate.

That gives Australian producers another marketing edge: an ability to guarantee that, if there is a problem, we are able to trace at very short notice the source of contamination or possible disease. God pray it will not happen but, if it does, we are able to trace it quickly and efficiently. If quarantine is required—if an exotic disease has emerged and has arrived on a property by accident—then a particular area or property can be quarantined and dealt with very quickly.

We have only to look at the experience of the United States with mad cow disease to understand just how important traceability is today. A number of years ago the beef industry in the United States identified two or three cows that had entered the food chain or had been identified with mad cow disease. The problem for the beef producers of the United States was that they were not able to guarantee that cattle which could have mad cow disease had not entered the food chain. Importing countries such as Japan then immediately put a ban on the importation of beef from America. That has been a huge advantage to Australia because we have been able to guarantee that our beef on the market in Japan is able to be traced to its source and that this traceability extends to being able to trace its history from property to property and from feedlot to processor to a retail outlet.

You have only to look at what has happened in the United States and how they have been kept out of a very valuable market—the Japanese market—to understand that the traceability of animals today is an important issue for us. We have a competitive advantage because of the introduction of the National Livestock Identification Scheme. I am pleased that this federal government injected some $20 million into that scheme to help with the set-up of the infrastructure required for the reading of cattle at saleyards. Some state governments assisted with the subsidy on ear tags, which have an electronic chip in them, and production costs. Unfortunately, our Queensland government failed to a large extent to support our cattle producers in Queensland in relation to the cost of those ear tags. But that is a debate we have had and the beef industry in Queensland will always hold the state Labor government accountable for their failure to support a scheme that was going to guarantee the export status of beef from Australia.

In Queensland the beef industry is our second largest export by value, which gives you some idea of the importance of it to Queensland. It is the second largest export by value—second only to coal—out of Queensland. It underpins jobs in regional areas, meatworks and export shipping terminals, and it is an example of why the livestock identification scheme was so important as part of the brucellosis and tuberculosis identification scheme in being able to identify cattle and individual properties. The principle used, dating back to the eradication of pleuro in Australia and then followed with brucellosis and tuberculosis, was about identification of cattle and properties so that if cattle were identified as part of that scheme they were able to be traced and dealt with accordingly with regard to the eradication of those diseases.

I want to conclude by saying that, having been involved personally as a beef producer in the early days of the scheme, happily our own cattle did not read positive in any way to brucellosis or tuberculosis. But having been involved at an industry level and having watched with great interest the challenges that the beef industry right across Australia had to eradicate this disease, I commend the industry. I commend all those who have been involved in it from government, at a departmental level, from producer organisations and the producers themselves, because not only are we winding up this scheme in terms of the levies but that levy will go on to great use for the benefit of the beef industry in a contingency fund. I commend the bill to the chamber.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank members who have contributed to the National Cattle Disease Eradication Account Amendment Bill 2006the members for Corio, Blair, Lingiari and Maranoa. The conclusion of the Tuberculosis Freedom Assurance Program, TFAP, at the end of this year will mark a significant milestone. Successive campaigns over a number of years have resulted in both brucellosis and tuberculosis being considered to be eradicated in Australia. However, ongoing vigilance will still be required for these and a number of other diseases. The National Cattle Disease Eradication Account, NCDEA, has played an important role by holding the moneys used to fund the tuberculosis program and previous initiatives. These funds have been contributed by the cattle and buffalo industries through charges on export of cattle and buffalo and levies on cattle transactions and slaughter of cattle. I stress that funds held in the NCDEA have been derived solely from industry levies and charges and the interest on those moneys.

In anticipation of the completion of the Tuberculosis Freedom Assurance Program, the cattle and buffalo industries have requested that residual funds in the National Cattle Disease Eradication Trust Account be transferred into the more broadly focused Cattle Disease Contingency Fund. This legislation is required to enable the transfer to take place. The cattle and buffalo industries are very aware that, although the threats posed by brucellosis and TB have been reduced, other diseases could have a significant impact on their herds. Transfer of NCDEA funds to the CDCF will ensure that these moneys can be used for a wider range of purposes related to cattle health and diseases while still retaining the ability to fund any future activities related to bovine tuberculosis or brucellosis.

There are a number of safeguards to protect the use of the funds. These include the fact that the Cattle Disease Contingency Fund is a trust fund. The CDCF was established in 2002 by the Cattle Council of Australia, the Australian Lot Feeders Association and Animal Health Australia in recognition of the ongoing importance of biosecurity matters. The provisions of a trust deed that these bodies have signed outline the financial accountability of the trustee and specifies the use to which fund moneys can be put. Hopefully we can therefore allay concerns the opposition has expressed that this move will reduce the scrutiny and accountability in the use of the funds. That clearly will not be the case.

While the legislation allows the transfer of NCDEA funds to the CDCF, I can assure you that this will not occur unless the trustee can demonstrate that full accountability for these funds will be maintained. I anticipate that this will be achieved through an agreement between the trustee and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, which currently administers the NCDEA. The bill enables any funds in excess of what will be required in the future for brucellosis and TB programs to be used in the ongoing work of building a strong biosecurity framework for the Australian buffalo and cattle industries. It has the full support of these industries and will foster their ability to play an active role in maintaining Australia’s animal health status.

In conclusion, I congratulate the cattle and buffalo industry on its management of disease risk in its herds and its proactive approach on this issue. It is recognition that the focus has shifted now from diseases which are largely of the past to those of the future, which we obviously have less knowledge about, but we need to maintain security and obviously sufficient funds in accounts should a disease risk occur. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.