McGauran offered racing job

THE looming appointment of Peter McGauran as chief executive of Thoroughbred Breeders Australia was yesterday attacked as a "backhander deal" for the former federal agriculture minister allegedly favouring the racing and breeding industry during last year's equine influenza outbreak.

Queensland Performance and Pleasure Horse Association president Peter Toft said the appointment, expected to be announced today, was "grossly inappropriate" after the Howard government awarded greater assistance to the racing industry and vaccinated its horses before other performance and pleasure horses.

Thoroughbred Breeders Australia rejects it has shown Mr McGauran any favouritism.

Mr Toft, who runs a multi-million-dollar Arabian horse export business, said the 100,000 owners he represented during the outbreak were still trying to recover despite "being ignored" by Mr McGauran. "McGauran did a pathetic job as far as we are concerned," he said.

"The majority of our section of the industry would see this as a backhander deal. The racing and breeding parts of the industry had the restrictions on their movements relaxed a lot quicker than ours and they were vaccinated first."

The decision initially to direct the use of horse flu vaccinations to racehorses was criticised at the time and flew in the face of veterinarians wanting to innoculate horses on the edge of buffer zones around the infected areas in NSW and Queensland.

One senior government veterinarian yesterday told The Australian the Howard government had gone against advice to vaccinate "paddock" horses. "It would have been better to vaccinate horses near the infected zones, because the flu was being spread as horses in these paddocks came into contact across fences," the veterinarian said.

"The disease was more easily contained at the racetracks because they were locked down in their stables."

Mr McGauran yesterday confirmed he was likely to be appointed to Thoroughbred Breeders Australia and said the organisation was not a recipient of the $217 million assistance package he approved for the horse industry.

"My conscience is clear on this," Mr McGauran said. "I have an expertise in the area and the body I hope to join was not a recipient of any government funding."

Members of the association were beneficiaries of the assistance package.

Thoroughbred Breeders Australia chairman John Messara, one of Australia's most successful breeders, yesterday declined to confirm Mr McGauran as the incoming chief executive.

Mr Messara scoffed at the allegation that Mr McGauran's mooted appointed was a result of his alleged favouritism of the breeding side of the industry.

"He didn't help us, he helped the racing industry by keeping them in the job," he said.

"It is not a backhander deal, we went through a process of interviewing high-quality candidates and we think we have a very suitable person for the job.

"Nothing was done (during the outbreak) that was outside the guidelines set by the DPIs (departments of primary industries) and the federal government. It is ridiculous to suggest breeders and racing were favoured. We put some proposals forward that were approved, but most were rejected."