Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I present the first report of the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee, The possible impacts and consequences for public health, trade and agriculture of the government’s decision to relax import restrictions on beef.

Ordered that the report be printed.

I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the report.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

There has been a lot said on this issue. There has been a private member’s bill passed through this Senate and there is another full report to come. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave not granted.

Because there is new science since the committee was first convened on this issue, because there is no real understanding of the transmissibility of a chronic wasting disease in North America and Canada, because the path to the cattle herd is still not scientifically confirmed, because most witnesses were not even aware of such a disease and because of the lack of knowledge of a lot of people who were taking a view on this particular issue, most of whom did not understand the difference between an import risk analysis and an assessment, we made a decision. I note there is a dissenting report, which is, to say the least, splitting hairs and I note that the government has altered its position. We decided there are to be further hearings and at those hearings there will be evidence of continuing investigation into the science, not only on the question of BSE but also on other diseases.

The World Trade Organisation rules allow us to invoke a clause for a full import risk analysis because of changed circumstances and things like the chronic wasting disease. There was a set of weasel words used in terms of what equivalency was for applying nations. In Australia we have, for instance, a birth to death traceability program which was interpreted by some people, without getting too aggressive, to mean that you could have closed herd status traceability or states traceability. However, this year there have been 40,000 cattle that have come across the border from Canada with their herd demography being after 1999. In fact the latest BSE reactor, which was not disclosed to OIE for some time after it was discovered by Canada, was in the 2003-04 cattle herd up there. All this means that 40,000 cattle have been transported across the border into the United States and—given that there is no live test, given that there is no reliable dead test except in advanced cases and given that a lot of the world trade now is under 36 months or 30 months, for which there is no reliable dead test—Australia should err on the side of caution under the precautionary principle. I think what the government has decided is the right way to go, and I am not going to get into an argument as to why everyone changed their mind.

I think it is important to recognise, and I do so now, the work of all members of the  Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee. We have done a lot of good work. If we had not done that work, we would not have changed the government’s mind. I think there is no question about that. That work alerted the public to the whole thing. It was distressing to see people who allegedly are peak body representatives not understanding the technical things and to see someone come to the committee and say, about the protocols that were agreed to by Mr McCutcheon from the department, that they agreed to them not having seen them and not having understood them. At one stage of the game some of these peak bodies—without naming them—did not even know there was trade over the border with Mexico. So if you are going to have livestock identification within 48 hours, obviously you have to go back—for the purposes of followers, calves—to the point of birth, which means that in the case of Canada and Mexico they would have to be traceable back to Canada and Mexico and then there is the power of the United States cattle lobby, which has told the US government, ‘We’re not interested in having traceability of that nature’. I think the report speaks for itself and I commend the report. I congratulate and thank the secretariat for their patience in putting this report together. I appreciate there is a dissenting report, which is some sort of face-saving, hair-splitting operation.