ONLY A CLOWN WOULD ALLOW EI INTO ALBURY

An update on the Protest at the Albury Wodonga Equestrian Centre (AWEC) Meeting, Saturday 17 November

As the owner of Horseland Albury, like many other business owners and horse enthusiasts, am very concerned about what is going on in the fight against EI, even more so when I received an email from the AWEC secretary, Thursday morning inviting me to attend a meeting at the Equestrian Centre to discuss the use of the centre as a quarantine station.

The news was also plastered across the front page of the local paper, confirming that the decision to use Albury’s wonderful facility as a quarantine station had indeed been made, and that a meeting was to be held at 12 noon on Saturday to discuss the contract.

Confusion abounds as it does not seem clear what sort of meeting this is, however I received an email, and am not a member of the centre, so of course it must be a public meeting. I contacted the secretary to ask a few questions and she said that this is what the meeting was for, and that I should attend.

So attend I did, I promoted it as a protest and along with me, over 100 or others turned up at this meeting.

Upon the realisation that this meeting was not what the president, Mr Ross Spalding, had anticipated, he begun by claiming that the meeting was intended for committee members only to discuss the quarantine station, which he announced had not been finalised. He then read out the contract. He stated, because it was only a committee meeting and there were so many people in attendance, that he would allow questions at the end of the meeting from financial members only, and (if there was time) questions from others.

Before attending the meeting however, I did my homework, some of the following bits of information are quite interesting:

· I contacted the DPI NSW Chief Veterinary Officer Dr Bruce Christy and the Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer, Dr Ian Ross, who gave me a 99.9% assurance that the centre will not be used as it is not an ideal location and due to the public interest.
· NSW DPI’s Kathy Drury-Cline, who contacted me when she was working tirelessly to house horses in the Albury area that were stranded at Condobolin, came up against a brick wall when she approached the AWEC. It seems at the time, the committee of the AWEC was quite OK with the agistment of horses from Condoblin, however the president, Mr Ross Spalding refused and it was reported by the secretary that he “Would not budge” on this issue.
· The Victorian DPI has stated that the contract cannot be signed until a public meeting has been held;
· The Victorian DPI was unaware that the STABLES at the AWEC did not have automatic watering systems, and that the stables themselves are small, dark and VERY, VERY HOT. The stables at the AWEC were not designed for use over an extended period.

The meeting itself proved not very useful, as only selected questions were answered and the more technical ones such as:

· How can a 100 metre exclusion zone be acceptable, compared to the usual 8 km buffer zone, as adopted right across NSW?
· What sort of horses will be allowed through this quarantine process at a estimated $4,000 per horse (some were wondering just what sort of market this is aimed at, it does not sound like it is within the average domestic horse owner’s means)
· How are they going to manage the bio-security process?
· Why can’t it be held well away from a large regional area, on a cattle or sheep property?
· Who is liable if things go wrong, and EI does find its way to Albury?
· Don’t you think that this topic is beyond the jurisdiction of the AWEC committee, should it not be open to public discussion?
· When will you hold a public meeting?

These questions were not answered. The president claimed that he does not yet have enough information to answer them, yet the notice of centre closure has already been forwarded advising that horses will commence their stay at the centre from the beginning of December.

Amidst this atmosphere, was a young pony clubber from Police Youth Pony Club who made a tearful plea to Mr Spalding, asking to be heard. She just wants to go to pony club, without having a quarantine station right next door. (PYC pony club leases land from the AWEC, and was not formally notified of the Quarantine Station).

I would like to again state that I WAS invited to this meeting by the secretary, and along with me, over 100 other attendees had to sit it the sun in 35 degree heat, whilst the committee sat under the shade of the verandah on chairs. All along the large clubroom behind them remained empty.

Due to the fact that the committee claim they do not need to hold a public meeting, I have taken it upon myself to organise one. It will be at Horseland, Albury, 7:00pm Thursday November 22. Bookings are essential.

Come on Albury, what is going on??

Marg Barwood,
Horseland Albury