Comments on Marburg EI Meeting 27.9.07
There was a meeting at Marburg in Queensland yesterday evening at which about 250 people attended. This event was put on by Peter and Penny Toft, which in itself is interesting, as one would have hoped that any number of organisations might have put the meeting on, rather than two individuals. The meeting was designed for people who currently have infected horses.
Two private vets told the meeting what was happening from their point of view with advice about how to deal with EI.
The DPI sent along a vet from Taroom who had offered his services to the DPI for a month, talk about a cop, out poor fellow. The DPI failed to send anyone who was actually involved in the day to day details, maybe because they understood that there is very considerable disquiet about the way they are dealing with this in Queensland.
We, for instance have twelve horses infected, reported it to some fellow on the DPI's 13 number on Sunday since when we have heard zero. We do not know if we are in quarantine, we have not been sent the much touted information package and everyone in our district (Fernvale) has infected horses. In short it is an absolute shambles caused by a total lack of communication, and beaurocratic evasion based on the privacy laws which have been entirely counterproductive in fighting this outbreak.
Two politicians,one State one Federal, experts at converting dog poo into cheese soufflés, were also there. We were promised meetings with everyone both State and National, re-examination of funding criteria, acute sympathy, help to set up a new organisation-- etc etc etc
The press was there in force, with I think three or four TV stations.
Several stories of acute hardship from the floor, virtually none covered by the current funding arrangements.
Seems to me that everyone involved in this debacle needs to keep a very detailed diary of what they are doing and spending, because if the subsequent enquiry finds negligence there will be a class action and details are really important.
As I write this the diesel delivery truck has driven up, ignored the sign on our gate, driven into our infected property and will now no doubt deliver to many other places today, not clever.
So what needs to be done is to keep the momentum going by setting up some organisation that represents the "Performance and Pleasure" horse industry and gives us some voice nationally. It is important, I think, not to call our industry the "pleasure horse" industry as that implies no loss of income and that the participants have horses entirely for pleasure which in most cases is not correct.
Toby Crockett
Two private vets told the meeting what was happening from their point of view with advice about how to deal with EI.
The DPI sent along a vet from Taroom who had offered his services to the DPI for a month, talk about a cop, out poor fellow. The DPI failed to send anyone who was actually involved in the day to day details, maybe because they understood that there is very considerable disquiet about the way they are dealing with this in Queensland.
We, for instance have twelve horses infected, reported it to some fellow on the DPI's 13 number on Sunday since when we have heard zero. We do not know if we are in quarantine, we have not been sent the much touted information package and everyone in our district (Fernvale) has infected horses. In short it is an absolute shambles caused by a total lack of communication, and beaurocratic evasion based on the privacy laws which have been entirely counterproductive in fighting this outbreak.
Two politicians,one State one Federal, experts at converting dog poo into cheese soufflés, were also there. We were promised meetings with everyone both State and National, re-examination of funding criteria, acute sympathy, help to set up a new organisation-- etc etc etc
The press was there in force, with I think three or four TV stations.
Several stories of acute hardship from the floor, virtually none covered by the current funding arrangements.
Seems to me that everyone involved in this debacle needs to keep a very detailed diary of what they are doing and spending, because if the subsequent enquiry finds negligence there will be a class action and details are really important.
As I write this the diesel delivery truck has driven up, ignored the sign on our gate, driven into our infected property and will now no doubt deliver to many other places today, not clever.
So what needs to be done is to keep the momentum going by setting up some organisation that represents the "Performance and Pleasure" horse industry and gives us some voice nationally. It is important, I think, not to call our industry the "pleasure horse" industry as that implies no loss of income and that the participants have horses entirely for pleasure which in most cases is not correct.
Toby Crockett
posted by sammond at
9:13 am
2 Comments:
hi everyone i was at the meeting last night at marberg and i have rang the Austraila Quarter Horse Ass and i was told to put it all in writing, my past experances are all the mail gets lost or it thats to long to open or reply to the mail, so gould you please email the aqha with this letter thats a Quarter horse Owner from fernvale
Toby I agree but we already have an organisation that can represent us nationally, The Australian Horse Industry Council or on a state level the Queensland Horse Council.
Michelle Dawson
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