EI outbreak impossible, industry told in letter

BARELY two years before equine influenza paralysed Australia's horse industry and hobbled this year's Melbourne Cup, the Federal Government gave a written assurance Australia's quarantine protocols were so stringent that an outbreak of the disease "could not occur".
In a letter to the Australian Racing Board (ARB) in May 2005, then agriculture minister Warren Truss dismissed concerns about a growing risk of EI getting into Australia because of moves to replace staff in the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service with private personnel.

The letter, uncovered by an Age investigation into the causes of the outbreak, emerged just days before next week's running of the first Melbourne Cup in memory without NSW and Queensland horses and the resumption next week of the federal inquiry into the entry of the disease into Australia.

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