Australia - Pork industry wins quarantine court battle

The credibility of the Import Risk Analysis process is in tatters today after the Federal Court vindicated the pork industry's concerns over the inadequacy of Australia’s quarantine protocols. Justice Murray Wilcox ruled in the Federal Court today that the decision made by the Director of Animal and Plant Quarantine on 10 May 2004 to adopt Biosecurity Australia’s Import Risk Analysis for imported pigmeat to be so unreasonable that no reasonable person could have made it. Australian Pork Limited chairman, Nigel Smith, says Justice Wilcox’s decision is a fantastic result for the industry, which has been fighting to preserve the clean, green health status of Australia’s pig herd under the IRA processes for the last seven years. “The outcome of this case is important not just for Australian pork producers, but to all agricultural industries in this country," Mr Smith said. "It also upholds APL’s contention that the IRA process was fundamentally flawed and could in no way be supported by science. “This case has been all about keeping out devastating, exotic diseases like Post Weaning Multisystemic Wasting Syndrome, which we do not have in this country. “The Judge has agreed with our concerns and found the policy adopted by the Director of Quarantine meant an outbreak of PMWS within ten years was a ‘virtual certainty’,” Mr Smth said. Mr Justice Wilcox was damning of the Director of Quarantine’s decision in stating that an assessment that such a risk is ‘acceptably low’ seems bizarre. "Intuitively, one feels, there must be something wrong with the Panel’s assessment of risk,” Justice Wilcox said. He went on to state that in relation to determining appropriate quarantine measures for PMWS that the necessary scientific research has not been done. "The Panel had no material whatever upon which it could base a judgment," he said. "The ultimate opinion formed by the Panel was unjustifiable”. Mr Smith called on Biosecurity Australia to, in close consultation with APL, undertake the necessary research into effective measures referred to by Mr Justice Wilcox to protect Australia from PMWS.