Agmates Editor Steve Truman writes:
On Monday Agmates reported that Warren Truss former Federal Minister for Agriculture in 2005 had fobbed off concerns expressed by the Australian Racing Board (ARB) that relaxed quarantine standards could lead to an outbreak of Equine Influenza in Australia. Mr Truss in a letter to the board was dismissive of the ARB’s concerns and gave them a written guarantee that “it could not happen”.
  A report in yesterdays Sydney Morning Herald says A WAR of words has broken out between the Australian Racing Board and the Federal Government over Australia’s quarantine standards and their role in the outbreak of equine influenza.
Mr Truss who should be embarrassed by the the surfacing of the letter instead rejected the criticism and accused the board of being hypocritical about quarantine. A spokesman for Mr Truss last night accused the board of dissembling, and ignoring two other occasions - in May 2003 and November 2005 - when it was involved in asking the Government to speed up quarantine for horses being imported from South Africa and Japan. Equine influenza broke out in both countries soon afterwards. “The hypocrisy of this organisation is breathless,” the spokesman said.
Warren Truss has come in for more than his fair share of criticism over the relaxing of Australian Quarantine Standards during his time as Minister for Agriculture. Now when trying to defend the indefensible he has resorted to attacking those that dare speak out against his policies. It would appear that a written guarantee from Mr Truss is not worth the paper it’s written on.  Â
ARB Executive Officer Andrew Harding last night rejected the accusations. He said the 2003 request was not to speed up quarantine but to make a decision about whether horses could be imported from South Africa for the first time. “We didn’t care one way or the other,” he said. “We just wanted a decision after waiting 12 years for a risk assessment to be completed.”Â
“The claim of hypocrisy is unfounded and we reject it outright. What we asked for in 2001 was not a relaxation of quarantine measures but for a rational science-based decision be made and for quarantine policy to be applied consistently.”
The board’s chairman, Bob Pearson, said the incident had highlighted rising concerns about Australia’s quarantine policies: “If anything the initial handling of the issue by the authorities in 2001 only serves to further suggest that Australia’s approach to quarantine policy is not always as good as it should be.Â
In a strongly worded letter, written in May 2001 just weeks after the Government had sold off the Eastern Creek quarantine centre, the board’s executive officer, Andrew Harding, accused Mr Truss of a “seriously flawed” approach to the importation of horses and ignoring scientific evidence.
Read the complete Sydney Morning Herald article Here.
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