Security blamed for horse flu havoc

THE equine flu virus that devastated the Australian horse industry had escaped from the Eastern Creek Quarantine Centre, and poor practices at the centre had caused the escape, the Equine Flu Inquiry has been told.

In his submission to the inquiry yesterday on its last day of sitting, counsel assisting, Tony Meagher, told Commissioner Ian Callinan, QC, that not even rudimentary biosecurity procedures were present at the facility in August last year when the virus escaped.

However, Mr Meagher has been contradicted by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, which said that no mechanism had been established for "the assumed escape of the virus from the [quarantine centre]" therefore it did not follow that deficiencies in the centre's biosecurity procedures was responsible for the outbreak.

Mr Meagher said that if the virus escaped because of slack procedures adopted by veterinarians attending the horses at the Eastern Creek centre, it was quite wrong for the department to say that officers of Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service were entitled to rely on the professionalism of the veterinarians.

"They take the notion of shared responsibility to mean that they have no obligation whatsoever with respect to what happened within the quarantine facility," he said.

The inquiry has heard evidence there were persistent breaches of requirements at the centre relating to showering, changing clothes and cleaning equipment in the period before August 17, 2007, when the first horse fell ill.

Mr Meagher said the department continued to assert it was sufficient to rely on others to perform functions, particularly without supervision.

Ian Harvey, for the state of NSW, said the Government's position was that the inquiry had exposed "a number of systemic failures in the development, documentation and quarantine practice" that had contributed to the outbreak.

The Government called for a co-ordinated national approach, encompassing all states, territories and the Commonwealth.