Horse Disease Response Levy Bill

Federal Agriculture Minister Tony Burke

Nicola Turner, EFA National Office, Friday, 22 February 2008

Yesterday, Federal Agriculture Minister Tony Burke introduced a Horse Disease Response Levy Bill to the House of Representatives. This legislation is required so that the horse industry can fund its share of obligations in responding to a national emergency disease outbreak affecting the industry.

Under the Emergency Animal Disease Response Agreement (EADRA), the Commonwealth has agreed to underwrite an industry’s share of nationally agreed emergency response programs and for these costs to be recovered, with the industry’s agreement, through a statutory levy.

Therefore, depending on the findings of the Callinan inquiry, the levy may be imposed to enable the industry to repay its share of the debt incurred from the Equine Influenza crisis.

Debate will take place at the next Parliamentary sittings in March.

“If the levy is implemented, it will feel like a ‘double-whammy’ to many horse owners”, said EFA CEO Franz Venhaus. “Should the Callinan Inquiry find that the Commonwealth Government did not maintain adequate measures to prevent an outbreak of Equine Influenza, we would expect the Government to pay for the total cost of fighting it.”

He also advised that there was currently a review taking place that may see the re-categorisation of Equine Influenza under EADRA to a higher category. The present category obligates the horse industry to pay for 80 per cent of the cost. “It is obvious that the people who determined this level of cost-sharing vastly underestimated the impact the outbreak has had on the industry and the significant national socio-economic consequences generally”, he said.