Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition (Social and Community Affairs)) Share this | Hansard source

I am quite astounded by that contribution to the debate because it is quite clear to me that if the government had actually listened to the Australian Racing Board three years ago, when it said that changes to quarantine procedures on imported horses would expose this country to just the kind of equine influenza pandemic that we are currently dealing with, we would not be here debating this issue today. The ARB was so concerned at the time about quarantining procedures that it highlighted the risks that were going to be presented in hiring commercial horse floats and in the use of private vets instead of AQIS officers. But the government was prepared to let all of that go by the by, and what have we got? We have the most extraordinary devastation of the racing industry in Australia that could possibly have been imagined.

I want to focus today on the influence of this pandemic on my home state of New South Wales, because it is most significantly affected by equine influenza. What do we have in New South Wales? Fifty thousand or so people earn their living in the horse-racing industry, and in New South Wales at the moment we have 410 properties with 4,427 horses and 24 restricted areas being quarantined because of the outbreak of equine influenza. That has to have quite an extraordinary economic impact.

Let me tell you, Mr Deputy President, what the impact will be, not just on this racing season but on the next racing season. There will be huge impacts, first of all on horse breeding. A whole series of horse-breeding regimes have now been placed in serious jeopardy. We know that the young horses that are being bred at the moment are particularly vulnerable to equine influenza, and in fact it is fatal in up to about 40 per cent of young horses—that is vulnerability just for this year. Alongside that, we have the inability to move mares and stallions around, and that will have a drastic impact both this year and next year on the breeding season.

The inability to move horses around affects almost all rural industries. It impacts on the sheep and cattle industries because stockhorses cannot be moved to do mustering and droving, and this in turn stops people from inoculating or weaning their stock. People have to start thinking about the fact that the impact is actually beyond the racing industry in New South Wales. We have the farriers, who are usually in contact with multiple and successive horses. They have just about lost their work for this season, as have the companies involved in livestock transport. The livelihood of the veterinarians is also affected. Vets in regional areas and vets specialising in equine services have been particularly hard-hit already.

Let me tell you about the impact of this just on my home town. This is where we see the importance of having appropriate quarantining facilities.