Page 1893 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 5 May 2009
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of such an outbreak, all other jurisdictions would want to ensure we have the number of staff at our disposal as is necessary. As the Chief Minister identified, international trade for this nation is dependent on the ability of all jurisdictions to manage and eradicate any identified serious animal disease. As such, this amendment provides greater certainty for the ACT in addressing such an emergency disease situation. I commend this bill to the Assembly.
MS BURCH (Brindabella) (12.12): I would also like to address the amendments proposed by the Animal Disease Amendment Bill 2009 to the Animal Disease Act 2005. I note from the bill that the first amendment to the principal act will be to clarify that the objects of the act include protection of the health and welfare of all animals and humans as well as protecting all animal-related industries. I believe it is a valid and useful amendment to make to the Animal Diseases Act. As members are aware, the Department of Territory and Municipal Services reviewed its management of the equine influenza outbreak in 2007-08.
A number of areas in the principal legislation were identified that would benefit from clarification to provide greater certainty to officers, industry members and the general public. As members would appreciate, it was identified during the actions undertaken to contain and eradicate the equine influenza outbreak that many of the affected and potentially affected horses were not within the racing industry or the horse breeding industry. However, if actions were not taken to appropriately quarantine, contain and in some instances vaccinate these horses, the outbreak may still be crippling our horse industry now.
I move to the proposed amendments to the change of the title of Director of Veterinary Hygiene to that of Chief Veterinary Officer. I would like to place on record that I support this change. The title of Director of Veterinary Hygiene no longer has a place in the modern animal disease control legislation. When the next animal disease emergency arises in Australia—we all prefer that it would not happen but I think the realists here understand there is a likelihood that it will happen again—it will assist the national emergency animal disease management group to have the ACT using the same terminology for this key controlling position as used by other jurisdictions.
Anything that is likely to cause confusion or uncertainty in an emergency situation needs to be addressed as a priority. I am informed that during the equine influenza outbreak, representatives from various jurisdictions met and questions were raised as to what functions the Director of Veterinary Hygiene fulfilled. This is not appropriate in such circumstances. We need to ensure that our officers come together to protect the interests and biosecurity of this nation and that there is no confusion as to what roles certain people perform in the ACT. I believe that this is an entirely sensible amendment.
Mr Speaker, I would now like to move to clause 20 of the bill, which will authorise the exchange of information between jurisdictions relating to the detection, prevention and controls of outbreaks of endemic and exotic animal diseases in the ACT and other jurisdictions in Australia. We are all aware of the Commonwealth Privacy Act, which prevents such exchanges of information from taking place unless it is absolutely
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