SENATE - Parliament of Australia · BAILEY, Mr Stephen Barry, ... KAHN, Dr Sarah Ann, ... private, you may apply to do so and the committee will consider your request

COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA

SENATERURAL AND REGIONAL AFFAIRS AND TRANSPORT LEGISLATION

COMMITTEE

Reference: Importation to Australia of cooked chicken meat

CANBERRA

Monday, 30 September 1996

OFFICIAL HANSARD REPORT

CANBERRA

SENATERURAL AND REGIONAL AFFAIRS AND TRANSPORT LEGISLATION COMMITTEE

Members:

Senator Crane (Chair)

Senator Calvert Senator McGauranSenator Bob Collins Senator WoodleySenator Conroy

Participating members

Senator Abetz Senator HarradineSenator Boswell Senator Ian MacdonaldSenator Brown Senator Sandy MacdonaldSenator Brownhill Senator MargettsSenator Chapman Senator SchachtSenator Cook Senator TamblingSenator Eggleston Senator TierneySenator Ferris Senator West

Matter referred for inquiry into and report on:

The administration and management by the Australian Qua-rantine and Inspection Service and the Department of PrimaryIndustries and Energy of all aspects of the importation ofcooked chicken meat into Australia.

WITNESSES

BAILEY, Mr Stephen Barry, Principal Executive Officer, Imported FoodInspection Program, Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service,Edmund Barton Building, Parkes, Australian Capital Territory 2600 . . . . 212

DOYLE, Dr Kevin Adrian, Australia Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer, AustralianQuarantine and Inspection Service, Edmund Barton Building, Parkes,

Australian Capital Territory 2600 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

GASCOINE, Mr Digby Frank, Director, Development and Evaluation Divi-sion, Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service, Edmund BartonBuilding, Parkes, Australian Capital Territory 2600 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

HEARN, Dr Simon Eric, First Assistant Secretary, Corporate Policy Division,Department of Primary Industries and Energy, Edmund Barton Build-ing, Barton, Australian Capital Territory 2600 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

HICKEY, Mr Paul William, Executive Director, Australian Quarantine andInspection Service, Edmund Barton Building, Parkes, AustralianCapital Territory 2600 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

HIRD, Miss Joan Margaret, Director, GATT Projects, Department of ForeignAffairs and Trade, Parkes Place, Parkes, Australian Capital Territory2600 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

JEWELL, Mr Paul, Acting Executive Director, Wildlife Management, Austral-ian Nature Conservation Agency, Nature Conservation House, 153 EmuBank, Belconnen, Australian Capital Territory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

KAHN, Dr Sarah Ann, Assistant Director, Animal Quarantine Policy Branch,Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service, Edmund Barton Build-ing, Parkes, Australian Capital Territory 2600 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

MAYNES, Dr Gerald Michael, Director, Population Assessment Unit, Austral-ian Nature Conservation Agency, Nature Conservation House, 153 EmuBank, Belconnen, Australian Capital Territory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

McGRANE, Mr Timothy Bernard, Desk Officer, Agriculture Trade PolicySection, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Parkes Place,Parkes, Australian Capital Territory 2600 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

STEVENSON, Ms Gay Frances, Acting Assistant Secretary, Economic PolicyBranch, Corporate Policy Division, Department of Primary Industries,and Energy, Barton, Australian Capital Territory 2600 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

TIGHE, Mr Paul Joseph, Assistant Secretary, Agriculture and ResourcesBranch, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Parkes Place,Parkes, Australian Capital Territory 2600 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

SENATERURAL AND REGIONAL AFFAIRS AND TRANSPORT LEGISLATION

COMMITTEE

Importation to Australia of cooked chicken meat

CANBERRA

Monday, 30 September 1996

Present

Senator Crane (Chair)

Senator Bob Collins Senator McGauran

Senator Heffernan

The committee met at 8.34 a.m.

Senator Crane took the chair.

211

RRA&T 212 SENATE—Legislation Monday, 30 September 1996

BAILEY, Mr Stephen Barry, Principal Executive Officer, Imported Food InspectionProgram, Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service, Edmund Barton Building,Parkes, Australian Capital Territory 2600

DOYLE, Dr Kevin Adrian, Australia Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer, AustralianQuarantine and Inspection Service, Edmund Barton Building, Parkes, AustralianCapital Territory 2600

GASCOINE, Mr Digby Frank, Director, Development and Evaluation Division,Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service, Edmund Barton Building, Parkes,Australian Capital Territory 2600

HICKEY, Mr Paul William, Executive Director, Australian Quarantine and Inspec-tion Service, Edmund Barton Building, Parkes, Australian Capital Territory 2600

KAHN, Dr Sarah Ann, Assistant Director, Animal Quarantine Policy Branch,Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service, Edmund Barton Building, Parkes,Australian Capital Territory 2600

CHAIR —On 22 August 1996, the Senate referred the following matter to thelegislation committee for inquiry and report by 10 October 1996—namely, the administra-tion and management by the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service and theDepartment of Primary Industries and Energy of all aspects of the importation of cookedchicken meat into Australia.

Today we will hear further evidence from the Commonwealth agencies responsiblefor advising the government on the quarantine, economic, trade and wildlife protectionaspects of any decision to allow importation of cooked chicken meat. The committee hasheld two public hearings on the reference to date—the first on 28 August and the secondon 13 September. The committee has authorised the recordings, broadcasting and re-broadcasting of these proceedings in accordance with the rules contained in the order ofthe Senate of 23 August 1990 concerning the broadcasting of committee proceedings.

Before we commence taking evidence, let me place on record that all witnesses areprotected by parliamentary privilege with respect to submissions made to the committeeand evidence given before it. Parliamentary privilege means that special rights andimmunities are attached to parliament or its members and others necessary for thedischarge of functions of the parliament without obstruction and without fear of prosecu-tion. Any act by any person which operates to the disadvantage of a witness on account ofevidence given by him or her before the Senate or any committee of the Senate is treatedas a breach of privilege.

The committee prefers all evidence to be given in public, but should you at anystage wish to give your evidence, part of your evidence or answers to specific questions in

RURAL AND REGIONAL AFFAIRS AND TRANSPORT

Monday, 30 September 1996 SENATE—Legislation RRA&T 213

private, you may apply to do so and the committee will consider your request.

Agency and departmental officers should note that they will not be required toanswer questions which seek opinions on matters of policy, reasons for certain policydecisions or the advice it may have tendered in the formulation of policy. If necessary, thecommittee will allow officers reasonable opportunity to refer questions to superior officersor to their minister.

I now invite you to make an opening statement. At the conclusion of your remarks,I will invite members of the committee to submit questions to you. I understand, fromwhat you have already told us, Mr Hickey, that you have a fairly lengthy statement whichgoes to the substance of evidence that we took at Maitland and previously here inCanberra.

Mr Hickey —That is correct.

CHAIR —If we could hear that from you and, as soon as possible, get a writtencopy of that evidence, we would certainly appreciate it.

Mr Hickey —We will follow this up with a written document tomorrow. I wouldlike to address the issues that have been raised under two broad headings. The first ofthose will be matters that have been put to this committee as being, in some way, newtechnical information that AQIS had not considered through the course of its riskassessment processes. Let me say at the outset that, in short, there has been no newinformation put to this committee which has not been previously addressed publicly byAQIS and by other scientific organisations in the consultative processes that have gone onin relation to chicken meat access over the course of six years.

Secondly, I would like to briefly address the manner in which matters now raisedhave been put to this committee, which I believe undermines the reputation of AQIS as anorganisation, potentially to Australia’s longer term cost, I might say, and, more important-ly, which impugns the reputation of individual AQIS officers.

On the technical matters, I will address 18 issues which we foreshadowed inwriting to the committee secretariat. The first of those is the allegation that DrAlexander’s test results were used as the sole basis for AQIS’s 1995 approval forimportation. This allegation is incorrect. Early in the risk analysis process, AQIS identifiedrelevant scientific references under consideration. AQIS’s 1991 discussion paper and 1994position paper cite relevant literature, including eight and five studies on thermal inactiva-tion of newcastle disease virus, NDV, and infectious bursal disease virus, IBDV, respec-tively—a total of 13 studies.

It seems to me, from the evidence that has been given, that people either are notaware of or are ignoring the contents of the 1991 and 1994 AQIS papers which were



issued publicly. With your permission, I would like to table those before the committee.

CHAIR —Thank you.

Mr Hickey —Dr Alexander’s study was cited in both AQIS papers. The conclu-sions of his study were more conservative than some other researchers and AQIS decidedto use his data as a basis for development of quarantine protocols on that basis.

Following the conclusions of the 1991 paper, which were that quarantine risksassociated with the importation of chicken meat could be addressed by cooking the meat,AQIS commissioned the Bureau of Resource Sciences to review relevant scientificinformation and to advise AQIS accordingly.

The BRS report, compiled by Dr Geoff Gard, included a comprehensive literaturereview, a determination of whether there was sufficient information to determine a thermalprocessing standard and a recommendation on a thermal process appropriate to cookedchicken meat. This report cited 27 separate scientific references.

AQIS published the BRS report in full in its 1994 position paper. In this report, DrGard reviewed Dr Alexander’s study and commented on the issues Dr Alexander nomi-nates as his primary concerns in his recent letter to Mr Baldwin. Dr Gard noted that DrAlexander’s results do not have more general application ‘unless D values’—that is,decimal reduction values—‘are developed for temperatures other than those studied byAlexander’. AQIS proceeded to calculate additional D values using Alexander’s data andemploying internationally accepted methods for calculating thermal processing standards.

Other studies, both published and unpublished, were used to confirm the technicalvalidity of AQIS’s approach. The thermal process proposed by AQIS would reliablyachieve at least a 6D—that is, a million-fold—reduction in the starting population ofIBDV. A similar level of efficacy is commonly adopted in processes which aim to preventrisks associated with the potential presence of food poisoning organisms in foods, forexample, in the case of refrigerated extended shelf life foods which are treated to destroypotentially lethal listeria, salmonellae and clostridium botulinum type E.

The second claim is Mr Baldwin’s claim that Dr Alexander discredits keyassumptions in AQIS’s determinations. Contrary to this assertion, Dr Alexander’scomments are consistent with AQIS’s approach in several respects. Dr Alexanderacknowledges that the prevention of NDV introduction is the major consideration and thatthe quarantine objectives should be to maintain Australia’s freedom from this diseaseagent. AQIS agrees with this proposition.

AQIS used IBDV as a reference organism in recognition of the virus’s considerableresistance to thermal inactivation. Dr Alexander states:



It is always preferable to have data from experiments run in parallel under identical conditions, butin their absence the evidence available, both that quoted above and published work, suggests thatunder comparable conditions IBVD would prove to be considerably more resistant to heat thanNDV.

This is consistent with AQIS’s approach. As long ago as 1991, AQIS recognised thatAlexander’s work provided a sound and conservative basis to build upon. Included in the1991 discussion paper were Dr Alexander’s report together with copies of correspondencebetween Dr Alexander and a Mr L.G. With of General Foods Poultry Limited, NewZealand. This correspondence includes a discussion of the same concerns expressed in theletter to Mr Baldwin.

Contrary to Mr Baldwin’s assertions, it is clear that AQIS was aware of, andindeed made public, considerations relevant to the use of Dr Alexander’s data. There wasno necessity to contact Dr Alexander personally given the extent of further reviewundertaken by AQIS and the BRS. Dr Alexander’s subsequent comments in response toMr Baldwin raised no substantive new material.

In 1994 Dr Forman, consultant for the Australian Egg Industries Association, raisedconcerns about aspects of AQIS’s interpretation of Dr Alexander’s data in relation to aproposal by AQIS to permit importation of spray dried egg powder. AQIS obtained advicefrom an independent statistician who confirmed the scientific validity of AQIS’s approach.In meetings with AQIS, Dr Forman and the AEIA subsequently agreed that the AQISprotocol provided an adequate level of quarantine protection and that they had no furthertechnical issues to raise regarding the proposed importation.

In relation to the third assertion that has been made, in his letter to Mr Baldwin, DrAlexander outlined a concern that extrapolation of his data to other temperatures was nottested by experimental work. Dr Alexander studied the effect on IBDV of treatment attemperatures of 70 and 80 degrees C. AQIS has proposed processing parameters at 70, 72,74, 76, 78 and 80 degrees C based on the calculation of D values at these temperatures, asrecommended by Dr Gard in the BRS study. The proposed temperatures fall only withinthe experimental 70 to 80 degrees C range studied by Dr Alexander.

AQIS did not extrapolate beyond the range of temperatures studied by Dr Alexan-der, but rather interposed time and temperature values to determine a range of acceptablethermal processes. This is consistent with Dr Alexander’s statement in his February 1989letter to Mr With that:

. . . the starting level affects the inactivation of virus, but once you have a curve you can assess thelikely level of contamination and extrapolate from there.

AQIS also considered other thermal inactivation studies, including the work of Fahey ofthe CSIRO in 1988 who showed that a 2D reduction—that is, a 99 per cent destruction—of IBDV particles was obtained at 72 degrees C and 76 degrees C for 30 seconds and a



3D reduction—that is, a 99.9 per cent destruction—at 82 degrees C. In 1988 Mackenzie ofInghams and Spradbrow of the University of Queensland reported along the followinglines:

IBDV appears to be killed in chicken nugget meat in high concentrations after processing at atemperature of 75 degrees C for 5 mins, 80 degrees C for 1-5 mins, and 85 degrees C for 1-5 mins.

Faragher, in 1972, reported that no infectivity due to IBDV remained after treatment at 70degrees C or 80 degrees C for 30 minutes. AQIS has carefully considered data producedby Spradbrow, MacKenzie and Fahey to confirm our assessment of the thermolability ofIBDV. AQIS’s proposed heat processing parameters are far more stringent than thosereported as inactivating IBDV in the CSIRO and University of Queensland experiments.

In relation to the fourth assertion that has been made, Dr Alexander states:

Probability of survival of infectivity after heat treatment is dependent on the starting infectivity level.This should be taken into account when defining acceptable treatment processes.

This comment on the relevance of starting levels of infectivity in determining how muchvirus is likely to be present at the end of thermal processing was raised in copies of DrAlexander’s correspondence included in AQIS’s 1991 discussion paper. It was alsospecifically acknowledged in the BRS review attached to AQIS’s 1994 position paper.

AQIS’s recommendations take into account the level of contamination—that is, thevirus population—likely to be present at the time the chickens are slaughtered. AQISconsiders that a thermal process which will achieve a 6D—that is, a million-fold reductionof that population—would provide a high level of quarantine security when combined withother proposed quarantine requirements, such as the need for birds to be subject to officialinspection before and after slaughter to confirm that they are clinically healthy and,therefore, unlikely to have high levels of virus in their muscle tissues at the time ofslaughter. Dr Gard of the BRS, commenting on the results obtained by Alexander,confirmed that the experimental work would be:

. . . representative of the rate of thermoinactivation of field strains of IBDV in contaminated meat.

Dr Alexander, commenting on work done by MacKenzie and Spradbrow, indicates that hedoubts chicken nugget would differ significantly from homogenised bursa, the subject ofhis experiment, in terms of the protective effect of the medium for IBDV. The startinginfectivity level is a crucial consideration when extrapolating data from an experimentalsituation. The levels of virus used by Dr Alexander were high relative to likely levels in avaccinated, clinically healthy but nonetheless infected chicken that may pass inspection atthe time of slaughter.

Although Dr Gard states in the BRS report that there is little direct literature on theinformation sought by AQIS, he acknowledges that much early literature dealt with issues



relevant to the review, including tissue distribution and physicochemical stability of thevirus. Dr Gard states that chicken meat likely to contain relatively low levels of IBDV aslymphatic tissue, especially the bursa, is the primary target for this virus rather thanmuscle. Dr Gard also commented that specific research to investigate the levels of IBDvirus in chicken meat was not warranted.

Dr Gard states that the level of IBD contamination studied by Alexander, whichwas in excess of 10,000 virus particles per millilitre of homogenate—he used 10 to the4.6—is higher than might be expected in chicken meat collected from an acutely infectedbird or meat contaminated during processing with faeces or bursal material. AQISconsiders that Dr Alexander’s work effectively presents a worse case scenario and thequarantine requirements would provide more than adequate safeguards in a real lifesituation.

Additionally, Dr Gard comments that virus contamination on the surface of meat asa result of faecal contamination, for example, because it is on the surface, would besubjected to significantly longer heat treatment than meat at the core. Thus, any such viruswould be even more rapidly inactivated.

Advice from the Australian Animal Health Laboratory, AAHL, is consistent withDr Gard’s analysis. AAHL advises that properly vaccinated birds secrete less virus, whichwould make it even less likely that clinically normal vaccinated birds, which maynonetheless be infected with virus, would carry significant amounts of virus in theirmuscles. AAHL confirms that muscle is not a target tissue for IBDV and NDV. In otherwords, the virus tends to concentrate in other areas of the body.

In relation to the fifth assertion, Dr Alexander expresses concern that his predic-tions regarding probability of survival of infectivity were taken by AQIS as a recommen-dation of acceptable treatment. AQIS has not treated Dr Alexander’s estimates ofprobability of survival as generic indicators or recommendations regarding acceptablequarantine risk. AQIS has evaluated the safeguards which processing at certain time ortemperature parameters would be expected to provide. Thermal processing, in accordancewith the stringent time temperature parameters proposed by AQIS, would effectivelydestroy IBDV. The proposed processes would be extremely effective in destroying NDV,noting that cooking at 70 degrees C for only two to three minutes would reliably achieve a12D—that is, a trillion-fold—reduction in the population of NDV initially present in themeat.

AQIS has taken careful account of the limitations of applying laboratory data to thefield situation. Alexander’s work, and that of several other researchers, has been independ-ently reviewed by the BRS. AQIS has followed the BRS recommendations and takenadvice from AAHL and other state veterinary offices. The quarantine requirementsproposed by AQIS incorporate a very large safety margin.



The sixth assertion relates to the statement by Mr Baldwin that AQIS has assumedthat IBDV and NDV are similar. This assertion is absolute nonsense. AQIS has neverexplicitly or implicitly suggested that the two viruses are similar. In both the 1991discussion paper and the 1994 position paper, AQIS clearly states that IBDV is the mostheat resistant pathogen of chickens and processing parameters should be based on theminimum required to inactivate IBDV, as this approach provides a very wide safetymargin in relation to other less heat resistant pathogens—the most serious of which in thiscontext would be NDV. This has been confirmed by published data, AAHL and BRSadvice and is restated by Alexander in his letter to Mr Baldwin where he comments that‘under comparable conditions IBDV would prove to be considerably more resistant to heatthan NDV’.

The seventh assertion is that there is a lack of tests specifically designed to detectNDV in cooked chicken meat. While specific studies on inactivation of NDV in chickenmeat have not been conducted, AQIS considers that it is not necessary to commission suchresearch as there is sufficient literature to guide us. AAHL confirms this assessment. DrAlexander, in his letter to Mr Baldwin, stated:

In my opinion extrapolation of the results in the laboratory to the field situation is probably validprovided careful assessment of exact process and conditions of processing have been carried out.

AQIS has information on which to base such an assessment. Additionally, AQIS willinspect chicken plants in Thailand to confirm the conditions under which processing isconducted.

The eighth assertion is that a difference in media will have an important influenceon inactivation. This point relates to the fact that viruses may be protected to some extentfrom the lethal effects of thermal treatments by the presence of high concentrations ofproteins in the suspending medium. AQIS has reviewed scientific literature on heatinactivation of NVD in different media and has taken any protective effects fully intoaccount in determining the effectiveness of the proposed quarantine treatments.

MacKenzie and Spradbrow conducted an experiment in 1988 to support anapplication to export chicken meat to New Zealand. MacKenzie argued that this workshowed that IBDV can be killed in chicken nugget meat mixture in high concentrations attemperatures of 75 degrees C for eight minutes, and 80 degrees C and 85 degrees C forone to five minutes. Alexander, in reviewing this work, commented that he doubted if thenugget mixture was significantly different from homogenised bursa, the material used inhis experiment, in terms of its protective effect on IBDV.

The ninth assertion is that tests for NDV have not been done in chicken meat withparticular reference to vaccinated birds harbouring virulent virus without exhibiting clinicaldisease. As previously stated, the muscle of chicken is not a target tissue for IBDV orNDV. Gard’s paper states that ‘the frequent failure to detect virus in some tissues while



virus can be recovered from others is indicative of the low titres of IBD viraemia’.Additionally, clinically normal vaccinated but nonetheless infected birds would beexpected to have relatively low levels of virus in their bodies as compared to clinicallyaffected or diseased birds. Therefore, the treatment would be as or more effective inreducing the level of any virus which may be present to negligible levels.

AQIS acknowledges that vaccinated, clinically normal chickens may harbour NDVin their bodies. The key consideration is that any virus present would be very rapidlyinactivated, with 12D or trillion-fold reduction in virus population at 70 degrees C withintwo to three minutes of treatment, if treated in accordance with the proposed quarantinerequirements.

The 10th assertion relates to Dr MacKenzie’s technical evidence to the committeeregarding heat treatments.

CHAIR —Is the Dr MacKenzie you are talking about the same person who gave usevidence at Maitland?

Mr Hickey —That is correct. Dr MacKenzie reported in 1988, as I have outlined,that:

IBVD appears to be killed in chicken nugget meat in high concentrations . . . at atemperature of 75degrees C for 5 mins . . .

AQIS made reference to this work in both the 1994 position paper and the 1991 discus-sion paper. Yet Dr MacKenzie asserted, in evidence to the Senate enquiry at Maitland, thatAQIS:

. . . had based the whole quarantine assessment on the work of Alexander.

This is clearly incorrect given any reasonable review of published AQIS documents. DrMacKenzie has also apparently used the results of her abovementioned 1988 research tosupport an application by the Inghams company to export cooked chicken nuggets andchicken smallgoods to New Zealand. Yet Dr MacKenzie appears not to accept the efficacyof AQIS’s proposed protocol, although it is far more stringent than the time or tempera-ture parameters that apparently it was proposed that New Zealand authorities accept. Inother words, 70 degrees C for five minutes for exports to New Zealand is okay, but 70degrees C for 95 minutes for imports is not.

Dr MacKenzie also stated in evidence to the Senate enquiry that not many peopleknow that Australia has a mild strain of NDV, which is heat resistant at 56 degrees C fornine hours. This strain difference should be considered when formulating quarantinerequirements. AQIS published this fact on page 12 of the 1991 discussion paper and hastaken full account of this information. We are not proposing to admit product cooked at



56 degrees C. AAHL and the BRS have confirmed that the core temperature or cookingtimes proposed by AQIS protocols would inactivate NDV, if present in chicken muscle,with an extremely large margin of safety.

The 11th assertion is on timed temperature parameters. Did the poultry industryagree that pathogens of concern would be inactivated? In evidence at Maitland, industrynow appear to have asserted that they have not agreed to AQIS’s proposed cooking timeand temperatures. As stated in the AQIS quarantine policy circular memorandum 1996-32,AQIS has agreement from a range of organisations on the fundamental science underpin-ning the proposed protocol. At the committee’s request, we have provided copies ofcorrespondence from the organisations that were listed in that circular memorandum. Youmay read those for your own purposes.

The letter from Dr Fairbrother of 5 July 1996 following the meeting between AQISand industry on 24 June 1996 states:

The only matter in which there was agreement was the cooking times/ temperatures in the draftprotocol were adequate to destroy the avian viruses of concern.

The point that has consistently been made, however, by those respondents, and a point thatwe have acknowledged, is that the conditions that have to be imposed to ensure that thosetime-temperature parameters are delivered on are as important as the time-temperatureparameters themselves. That is a point that we have not disputed.

The 12th assertion is on variations and oven temperatures and temperatureverification requirements. AQIS has proposed the following requirements: ovens will haveto be fitted with appropriate automatic time and temperature recording devices, known asthermographs; records of processing of all consignments intended for export to Australiamust be kept for at least two years and must be made available to AQIS on re-quest.Additionally, industry undertook to provide further technical advice on state-of-the-art methods for verifying consistent delivery of heat in commercial ovens at the meetingwith AQIS on 24 July. I understand that at this point no advice has yet been received.

The 13th point is a request for an explanation of the Australia New Zealand FoodAuthority definition of a high risk food. ANZFA advise that they classify imported foodsinto three categories, reflecting the risk management appropriate to maintain safeguards tohuman health. These categories are: firstly, ‘risk’ foods which are sampled at the rate ofone in four shipments; secondly, active surveillance foods which are sampled at the rate ofone in 10; and, thirdly, random surveillance foods where five per cent of these foods arerandomly inspected, sampled and tested.

Cooked chicken meat is one of many foods which may harbour microbial agents ofpotential human health concern and is therefore considered high risk on that count. Otherfoods in this category include water, seafood and dairy products. ANZFA has classified



cooked chicken meat similarly to other cooked ready-to-eat foods. Similar sample and testcriteria apply in the case of cooked frozen and cooked chilled crustacea imported intoAustralia.

ANZFA have advised that the classification of a food as high risk is not in itselfsufficient reason to restrict imports provided that any health risk can be managed. ANZFAhas yet to make a final determination on the human health risk cooked chicken meatimports present, pending finalisation of quarantine conditions.

The 14th assertion is alleged pressure on AQIS by chicken retailers with overseasconnections to permit imports. Senator Woodley asked Dr Fairbrother, Executive Directorof the Australian Chicken Meat Federation, whether he was aware of any evidence whichwould suggest that chicken retailers might be putting pressure on AQIS and the govern-ment to allow imported chicken meat. Dr Fairbrother responded:

. . . actually we have asked that question of people in government and, of course, that is commercialin confidence, so we cannot be told that.

AQIS commenced its import risk analysis on chicken meat in response to requests fromthe governments of the USA, Thailand and Denmark. AQIS has also been approached byrepresentatives of several different companies concerning the feasibility of importingcooked chicken meat. AQIS has released correspondence in response to a request underthe Freedom of Information Act. AQIS has also received requests intermittently from therepresentative of another company for information on the status of the cooked chickenmeat risk assessment process.

There have been no contacts by representatives of potential importers which couldin any way be characterised as inconsistent with the normal pattern of interactions betweenAQIS and parties interested in obtaining access for commodities into Australia. There hasbeen no undue pressure on AQIS by chicken retailers with overseas connections.

The 15th assertion is the alleged inability through FOI to access information on thescience of the risk assessment process. In his evidence to the committee, Mr J.C.Wilkinson, President of the NSW Chicken Growers Association said:

There is no transparency in dealings with AQIS . . . there is no way that you can get information. Ifyou go under FOI you find that that has stopped. Under a particular section in the FOI Act that saysthat you cannot get scientific opinion expressed by a scientist in relation to an AQIS decision. Nowwe have been through this exercise and we have been knocked back on a number of occasions fromgetting that information. So there is no way that you can confirm what AQIS have said, in fact, istrue . . .

AQIS has responded to several requests under the Freedom of Information Act in relationto possible importation of cooked chicken meat. On three requests received since February1995, all information requested has been released, except where material was withheld



under section 43 of the FOI Act concerning protection of commercially sensitive informa-tion. There is no section in the FOI Act which specifically restricts release of scientificopinion expressed by a scientist and the publication of the papers that I have referred to initself is an expression of the views of scientists other than AQIS in relation to thesematters.

The 16th assertion is an allegation by Ms Gis Marven, President of the AustralianChicken Meat Federation, that AQIS first acknowledged the importance of post-processingcontamination only on 28 August 1996. This claim is nonsense. The significance inquarantine terms of post-processing contamination was clearly reflected in AQIS materialpublished in 1991 and 1994.

The 17th assertion is that various comments were made about Thailand’s importrequirements for Australia, specifically certification of disease freedom. At the Maitlandmeeting, industry raised the fact that Australia, in order to export to Thailand:

. . . requires us to send them a health certificate saying we are free of the diseases they havespecified—

whereas AQIS will not be requiring a similar statement. AQIS believes that Thailandimposes the same requirements in relation to imports of fresh and cooked poultry meat,including certification as to country freedom from fowl plague for 12 months beforeslaughter and up to the time of export. This requirement could be satisfied by Australiaand falls well short of the extensive conditions industry has recommended AQIS apply tocooked chicken meat imports from Thailand.

Industry has previously raised the same issue in regard to exports to Japan andKorea. In the case of exports to Japan, the following certification is provided:

Australia has been free from Fowl Plague during the past 90 days before the date of departure. Nocases of newcastle disease, Fowl Cholera, or other diseases which the Government of Australiarecognises as malignant poultry diseases have been diagnosed within a radius of up to 50 km fromthe premises of origin of the birds during the preceding 90 days.

It needs to be noted that the import requirements of Korea and Japan apply to fresh aswell as to cooked chicken meat. AQIS advise that these requirements bear no relationshipto what is justifiable on technical quarantine grounds for import into Australia of cookedproduct only, which is what we are now looking at. AQIS considers that it is not neces-sary to impose additional poultry health certification in respect of cooked chicken meatbecause the cooking process would effectively eliminate quarantine risks potentiallyassociated with the presence of avian viruses in meat. AQIS considers the certificationproposed in the quarantine requirements adequately addresses quarantine issues incombination with other elements of the proposed conditions. AQIS’s position is supportedby the BRS and the Commonwealth Chief Veterinary Officer.



The 18th assertion is Australia’s alleged inability to export to the USA onquarantine grounds. Australia is not currently listed by FSIS as a country approved for theexport of chicken meat to the USA. However, this is an administrative matter and couldbe addressed by the means which follow. Australia would need to implement inspectioncontrols equivalent to the requirements of the US Poultry Meat Inspection Act, whichapplies to poultry processors in the United States. The act stipulates, inter alia, thatchickens must be subject to ante- and post-mortem veterinary inspection by governmentofficials—a requirement the Australian poultry processing industry is not prepared toaccept.

AQIS is currently negotiating US acceptance of alternative approaches to on-lineinspection, including, for example, quality assurance based systems in respect of red meat.Potentially, this could be extended to poultry meat at a later date. AQIS has been workingclosely with the chicken industry to develop a case for access for Australian chickenproducts to the Japanese market without official ante- and post-mortem inspection.

Mr Chairman, that concludes that part of my response to the technical matters thathave been raised with this committee. I want to finish, however, with a brief comment, if Imay, on the manner in which matters have been pursued with this committee. AQIS hasan excellent international reputation. It is a reputation that is essential to the $10 billion ofagricultural and food exports that we certify annually, and it needs to be preserved on thataccount. But I am concerned that it is being eroded by public statements which seek toimpugn the reputation of the organisation and, worse, individual officers.

These public statements emanate from industry and recently from members of thisparliament. The pattern that seems to be emerging is that, if you cannot argue the sciencebehind AQIS’s position, you attack the organisation or individual AQIS officers. I haveread the transcript of your Maitland hearings. You can see this pattern in a number of thestatements made to you. It is a pattern that has also appeared recently in relation tocomments, particularly from industry groups, about other significant import access requeststhat AQIS currently has under consideration.

In particular, I am most disturbed at the statements made by Mr Baldwin. In myview, they represent the worst example that I have seen of this unfortunate trend towardspersonal criticism that I see emerging. In saying this, Mr Chairman, I am not in any wayseeking to argue that AQIS ought to be exempt from legitimate scrutiny of both industryand this parliament in respect of the processes that it carries out and the decisions that itcomes to. Rather, I am asking that those considerations have full regard to the facts as wehave presented them, always in public discussion papers and always available eitherthrough proceedings within this parliament or through requests under the FOI Act, and noton the basis of personal criticism of AQIS officers who are discharging their responsibili-ties as public servants and who have no capacity whatsoever to respond to personal attackson them.



The evidence that we have been publishing since 1991 on this matter and which Ihave referred to today shows that the allegations made by Mr Baldwin in his pressstatement and in his subsequent statements to your committee are factually incorrect. It isunfortunate, in my view, that the establishment of this committee has acted as a lightningrod attracting this sort of criticism of AQIS. I believe it should be a lesson taken wellwhen we consider future processes for handling scientific and technical quarantine issues.

I expect that the Nairn committee will make recommendations on this issue ofprocess. I think it will be one of the most crucial issues that will need to be addressed bythe government and by this parliament in response to that independent scientific review.We are happy to have the performance of AQIS judged in that context; I am not happy tohave the performance of individual AQIS officers judged by a press release. Thank you,Mr Chairman.

CHAIR —Thank you, Mr Hickey. Could I just, for my part, state at this time thatprior to the hearings I was aware that the letter from Dr Alexander was going to bepresented to the committee, but I was not aware of the call for your or Sarah Kahn’sresignation. I subsequently did speak to Mr Baldwin and suggested to him that he wasvery unwise in terms of that, because he had taken his focus off what this committee andthese hearings are about. I just wanted to put that on the public record to let you knowwhere I stand as far as this is concerned. I am sure the rest of the committee would be ofthat opinion, but they can speak for themselves. At the end of the day, we have to makeour recommendations—not a decision in terms of what goes through parliament—on thescientific information assessment.

I thank you for that. If it has done nothing else, it has put a lot of issues onto thetable which we can now deal with in a sensible and proper manner. Who would like tolead with questions?

Senator HEFFERNAN—Given all of what you have just said this morning—being new to the committee, I have to say that I found that very interesting—do you thinkthat the Australian public should have full confidence in AQIS? Can you guarantee thatunder what you are proposing there is nil risk of the introduction of these diseases intoAustralia?

Mr Hickey —The answer to the first part of the question, Senator, is yes. Theanswer to the second part of your question is that there is no such thing as nil risk in anyaspect of life, including in the quarantine world. That has been recognised by governmentsand by committees of this parliament in published reports and policy statements over theyears.

Senator HEFFERNAN—Would you agree that the ultimate opportunity tominimise the risk would be to import cooked chicken meat from countries who are diseasefree?



Mr Hickey —On all of the evidence that we have presented, the cooking conditionsthat have been set will inactivate the viruses of concern.

Senator HEFFERNAN—But would you agree that the surest way to do it is toimport it from only disease-free countries?

Mr Hickey —In our view, the cooking process inactivates the viruses of concern.

Senator HEFFERNAN—Through you, Mr Chairman, my concern is that, havingsat through a committee the other day in which I heard about lupin seed that was broughtinto Australia through quarantine service inspections, we have now got a disease inWestern Australia that is going to wipe out lupin crops. I just wonder about how sure wecan be that what you are saying will be in fact put in place. How do we know? Being aperson from the bush, having had a lot to do with abattoirs and exports of our product andknowing all the games and lurks that people get up to, are you going to have people overin these factories where these people are preparing this product for us? Or will there bepeople there from our side of the fence to ensure that they do not get up to the samelurks?

Mr Hickey —What has been proposed is that there will be a pre-inspection ofprocessing facilities in Thailand. In respect of Denmark and the United States, we willaccept the certification of the relevant authorities in those countries, subject to our beingable to undertake checks from time to time on the adequacy of that system. That isprecisely the system that other countries apply to products exported from this country, forexample, ready-made exports.

CHAIR —Can I just deal with a couple of technical matters and then I will go toSenator Collins because we all have a lot of questions to ask. When you say that thetreatment will reduce the presence, as I understand it, of the virus by a trillion-fold, itsounds impressive. What does it really mean? Does that still leave a trillion there or anumber there? Does that kill them or not?

Mr Hickey —It comes back to the point that Alexander has made and which hasbeen discussed in the AQIS papers about the starting level of virus contamination thatmight be present in the product. Alexander started with an experimental situation usingvirus concentration of 10 to the power of 4.6, which is in excess of 10,000 virus particlesper millilitre of homogenate.

Those levels are higher than would be expected to be found in chicken muscle, andthat is based on evidence that is cited in the documents that I have referred to. It is higherthan the number of viruses that would be expected to be found in clinically healthy birdswhich may have been vaccinated and which may nevertheless be carrying the live virus.So there is a gradation, if you like, from the starting point of the experiments through tothe level of virus that might be found in the muscle tissue of clinically healthy birds that



have been vaccinated and may be masking the virus.

In our view, the time temperature parameters applied provide very conservativelevels of safeguard for newcastle disease virus because it in turn is substantially less heatresistant than IBDV, on which the time temperature parameters are based. There are of theorder of five or six elements of conservatism built into the time-temperature parameters asthey might be applied to newcastle disease virus. So, firstly, you have a situation wherethe starting concentration of virus would be low, relative to either diseased birds or toexperimental situations and, secondly, you have time-temperature parameters that areaimed at deactivating a virus which is far more heat resistant than newcastle disease virus.

CHAIR —What about in sinews and bone?

Dr Kahn —I perhaps could make a comment on that. We are talking about de-boned product and sinews, which, for the purpose of this exercise, you would treat as perother soft tissue or as per muscle tissue.

I think the key thing with any of this sort of scientific work is that you do not getabsolute guarantees. You will not find that many of the scientists will say that if you treata product through such and such a process you are going to absolutely inactivate any virusthat may be present. They talk about it in terms of how many decimal reductions in thepopulation you are likely to achieve.

Nonetheless, if you do look at the data that is available you can draw some soundassumptions on the relatively low level of virus that is likely to be present in chicken meator chicken muscle. You can then take into account some additional safeguard such as thefact that the birds are clinically healthy at the time of slaughter. Again, you could notquantify and say what that certification as to clinical health means in absolute terms as tothe quantity of virus that may or may not be circulating in the body. But in a qualitativeway it is giving you a good safeguard in the sense that a clinically healthy bird definitelyhas lower virus levels, if any is present at all, as compared to an acutely sick bird. Byhaving an official inspection under veterinary control, you are putting an additionalsafeguard into the thing. It is not an absolute safeguard, but is giving you a goodqualitative safeguard.

Beyond that, you cook the meat and of course we have heard quite a bit about theefficacy of those proposed cooking parameters. Bear in mind, beyond that point, in orderfor that meat to have any chance at all of transferring anything to birds in Australia it hasgot to be fed to the birds. You know, it has got to come in here, it has got to elude beingconsumed by a human, it has got to get into a situation where it can be consumed by birdsin sufficient quantity that if any virus were present there would be sufficient there toestablish an infection.

Then you get into a further scientific parameter, if you like, which is the infective



dose of virus that birds need to consume by mouth in order for an infection to betransmitted, and bear in mind that newcastle disease virus is quite readily inactivated byultraviolet—by sunlight. If you are talking about scenarios where meat scraps are lyingaround on rubbish dumps and this sort of thing, bear in mind that literature on the diseasein question, newcastle disease virus, indicates, I think, that within about 30 minutes insunlight, the virus is inactivated.

Again, you will not find that scientists will say that is an absolute, that youdefinitely could not have any virus left at all after 30 minutes, but it is another qualitativepart of the process that has to be taken into account in figuring the quarantine risk inoverall terms. And by any standards, in comparison with other work that we do inestablishing import protocols for a range of animals and animal products, this is a verysound and very conservative protocol.

CHAIR —But it is correct though that we have already had an outbreak ofnewcastle disease here as a result of birds eating chicken meat. We have been given thatevidence, but I just want to lead from that—

Senator BOB COLLINS—That is the one of the 1930s, is it not?

Mr Hickey —I think, Mr Chairman, the cases in the 1930s relate to birds eatingoffal.

Dr Kahn —And also from acutely sick birds.

CHAIR —That is not the evidence we were given, I believe. The chicken meat wasthrown overboard from the ships, as I understand it.

Senator BOB COLLINS—That is right. The one example which is consistentlygiven is the 1930s outbreak of the disease which allegedly was due to chicken meat beingthrown over the side of a ship.

CHAIR —What I really wanted to follow on with is the question of the relativityof the muscle tissue. You have already said to us and others have said to us that it is alow carrier of the virus—and they are my words, not yours—but we were told bypeople—I think it was in Maitland; I read it in one of the submissions but I am not surewhich now—that one of the problems was the de-boning process. The reason I asked thequestion with regard to the sinews and the small bones is that it is very difficult in fact toget the sinews and the bone out of the muscle tissue when you bone, particularly off thelegs and the thighs, and a lot of that is left in there. The question was raised, with regardto the fact that you require significantly more heat treatment to deal with the presence ofvirus in the bone and in the sinews. That is what I was coming to.

Senator BOB COLLINS—That is true. It is related to fragments of bone and



sinew being almost impossible to completely remove from cooked chicken meat entirely.

Dr Kahn —Again, with respect, this is a bit of a red herring because when you talkabout the need for de-boning there is a theoretical argument about penetration of heat indifferent media and there is an argument that, if you have muscle tissue that has a certainconductivity, the heat will penetrate at a certain rate; and if you have bones, particularly inthe case of where you are dealing with, say, a whole carcass, there would be a differentrate of penetration of heat into the bone tissue.

If we were talking about processes which were right on the borderline where onlya very small shortfall in the heat penetration to the bone, as opposed to the muscle, wasgoing to make all the difference between there being an effective process and an ineffec-tive process, then perhaps that would be a significant consideration. But the fact of thematter here is that these processes are so conservative in the way that we have approachedthe calculations and the way we have interpreted the experimental data that there is amanyfold safeguard just by virtue of the fact that they are extremely stringent processes.Bear in mind that Dr MacKenzie, for example, quoted five minutes at 75 degrees as beingsufficient to inactivate IBDV where AQIS’s protocol calls for 30 minutes at 76 degrees.

In practice, this whole argument about bones or meat, really becomes quiteredundant because of the extreme stringency of these cooking parameters. I have seen noevidence that has been presented that would suggest there is going to be any practicaldifference in fact if the bones were left in. We have gone with the de-boning because weare always looking for the extra conservatism and the extra level of safeguard, but to startworrying about small fragments of bone or remnants of sinew is really not a practicalconsideration.

Senator BOB COLLINS—But leaving the fragments aside, Dr Kahn, can I askyou to confirm what you have just said. I am stating the obvious, but I am sure youappreciate the fact that members of the committee are not microbiologists and do not havethe scientific background that you have. You will just have to deal with us as ignorantpeople in that sense. What I just heard you say was that because of the ultra-conservativeprotocol that has been provided—that is, 76 degrees at 30 minutes—it would make noappreciable difference if the product was not de-boned.

Dr Kahn —That is my view.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Do you have scientific data on which to base thatassertion. From what I have read, I have to say, as someone who is not a microbiologist,that astonishes me.

Dr Kahn —As I said, the fact is that when you approach these things you are notreliant on one factor alone to give your total safeguard.



Senator BOB COLLINS—I understand that.

Dr Kahn —De-boning is one aspect, clinical health at the time of slaughter isanother. The cooking parameters themselves are just one of the many steps in the processof the controls on post processing contamination. The de-boning is one additional aspect.While we cannot state in an absolute way that de-boning of the meat is an essential, it isclear to me that in the various steps we have taken into account the fact that even if youare going to have any sort of residual infectivity in meat, you still have to get that productand feed it to birds in sufficient quantities that you are conveying an infectious dose to thebirds and you establish disease in Australian birds.

Senator BOB COLLINS—With respect, Dr Kahn, that is true but it is notrelevant to what you just said.

CHAIR —That is not the question.

Senator BOB COLLINS—What you just said—that is, that you are happy, thatthat is your position—is on the record. What you just said was that you were satisfied thatin terms of—and we are not talking about the post-processing risk chain; I am not familiarwith that in terms of it actually getting into a chicken—killing the organism, the pathogenitself, it would effectively make no difference if the chicken was not de-boned at allbecause the 75 at five removed it in nuggets and the 76 for 30, which is what is beingproposed by AQIS, would be sufficient to de-activate the organism even in de-bonedchicken. That is what you said.

Dr Kahn —Yes. I think the best way I can probably clarify my statement is thatwe do not have any specific data which would say that there is a need to de-bone the meatbecause this is the additional quantum of safety that it will provide. But we do not thinkthat it is critical and we cannot quantify it as being a critical part of that overall quarantineprotocol.

CHAIR —Inherent in your answer is the fact that, if the bone is given the sametreatment as the meat, it will kill the virus in the bone?

Dr Kahn —That is right, because it is the effect of the heat on the virus particles.

CHAIR —Therefore, from a scientific point of view, which is what I have beentrying to deal with, de-boning of the chicken is a nonsense.

Dr Kahn —I would not characterise it as a nonsense. I would say it is probably notan essential aspect of the quarantine protocol, but we have it in there as an additionalsafeguard.

CHAIR —It either kills it or it does not kill it.



Dr Kahn —Given the length of time, and the fact that we are talking about coretemperatures, the temperature at the core of the meat as opposed to the surface, and giventhe length of time that the meat has to be cooked for, it is very unlikely that even if thevirus were in the very centre of a leg bone it is not going to be exposed to an adequateinactivation. You can go into theoretical arguments about the different protectiveness ofdifferent media, such as the bone marrow as opposed to muscle tissue, and you can gointo theoretical arguments about how quickly heat penetrates muscle as opposed to bonetissue. But they are really theoretical arguments, and they do not go to the practicality andthe heart of the quarantine safeguards that we have.

CHAIR —I do not think what I am presenting to you is a theoretical argument. Ican equate it with the practice on our property of dipping our sheep. We are concernedwith whether or not it kills the lice. You have just told us that it would make no differ-ence if the bone was left in, which is contrary to what I believe we have been told or whatI have read. I will have to check the record, but I believe others have said that it isessential you get every last sliver of bone.

Mr Hickey —Mr Chairman, could I interpose at this point. Dr Kahn has said thatthat is her personal view, and she has explained to Senator Collins the context in whichshe was trying to put that statement. The key issue is that the AQIS protocol deals withde-boned meat. If we were proposing—and no-one has advocated this—that we ought tobe allowing the import of bone in cooked chicken meat, then we would have to publish adocument which covered all of the scientific and technical aspects of that. We would haveto satisfy ourselves that the virus was not present at the core, around the bone, in the boneor on the bone. We would have to go through the various scientific literature surroundingthat issue, but we are not proposing that and we have not proposed that.

CHAIR —That is not my point. We have been given evidence or information,whatever you want to call it, which says that it is almost impossible to get the sinew andall the bone out of the meat in the de-boning process. The process to kill viruses in themeat has been contradicted by what Dr Kahn has just said to us, and I accept that. We arecomparing that against other evidence that has been given to us that it would not kill it.Therefore, if it is established or accepted that it is almost impossible to get the sinews andthe bone out of the muscle in the de-boning process, we need to know that, if there isvirus in that bone or sinew, the process will kill it.

Dr Doyle—The question was raised about sinews and bones that might be left in. Ithink the bottom line is that newcastle disease, for instance, replicates and multiplies inwhat have been referred to as target organs, the soft tissue organs inside the body. It isthen basically carried by the bloodstream to other parts of the body. Sinew and bone itself,as distinct from the marrow of the bone, have very poor blood supply and you wouldexpect to find very little virus in those tissues. I think the real reason for de-boning is thefact that there appears to be in the literature little information in relation to the amount ofvirus you might find in the marrow of the bone.



Senator BOB COLLINS—That was why I was somewhat surprised by thestatement Dr Kahn made.

Dr Doyle—In relation to bone which might be inadvertently left in, or sinew, theactual piece of spicular bone that you might bone has a very poor blood supply and—

Senator BOB COLLINS—Because it has no vascular system.

Dr Doyle—Precisely.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Exactly.

CHAIR —Has any actual work been done on chicken meat after it has undergonethis cooking process?

Dr Kahn —Yes, Dr MacKenzie’s work looked at chicken nugget meat specifically.There are a number of other references, the citations that Paul mentioned, which appear inthe discussion paper and position paper on inactivation of newcastle disease virus in arange of different media such as egg media and other products. Much has been made ofthis notion about needing more experimental work. Certainly the view of the scientificcommunity—and I refer really to advice from the Animal Health Laboratory and theBureau of Resource Sciences—is that there is plenty of information available to drawquite sound conclusions on newcastle disease virus inactivation.

CHAIR —That was not my question. My question was: has chicken meat actuallybeen tested after cooking?

Dr Kahn —Dr MacKenzie did that.

CHAIR —Has anyone else done any work on that?

Dr Kahn —I am not aware of other work which has been done on a commercialoven scenario. There is work which has been done in a laboratory or experimentalsituation. But MacKenzie’s work is certainly the work I am aware of which has looked atmeat products and pursuing the case for market access—looking at the practical quarantineissues.

Senator BOB COLLINS—So Dr Alexander’s assertion which he made in theletter, which was tabled, and in which he states that ‘as far as he can tell no work hasbeen done on the inactivation of ND virus in chicken meat’ is wrong? It may simply bebecause he has not seen any published material, but that is the flat assertion he has madein that letter, which you are now contradicting.

Mr Hickey —That is correct. The work that I referred to involved Dr MacKenzie



from Inghams and Dr Spradbrow from the University of Queensland in 1988. That maynot have been published at the time. It may not have been published in sources that DrAlexander had access to, but that is the work that is referred to in the earlier discussionpapers that we have released.

Dr Kahn —There is certainly other relevant work. We have a review from 1970where four authors have studied inactivation of newcastle disease virus under a range oftimes and temperatures and in different media. Dr Alexander is talking about work doneunder more commercial conditions—such as the work of Paul Farrago and Fay ofCSIRO—and which looks at the processing of meat or products.

Senator BOB COLLINS—The point I am making, and the point that the chairmanmade before, is that all of us non-experts—and I concede that it is particularly difficultwhen you are in the hot seat and wallowing around in a sea of highly scientific andtechnical information and you have no background on it; you are not a microbiologist—know, and I say this for the benefit of us mugs on this side of the table, and you canunderstand the relevance of this, particularly because it is contemporaneous, that thequality of Dr Alexander’s work has been quoted at length, and rightly, in AQIS documentsas being a substantive body of evidence that is available that is affecting AQIS’s deci-sions. You can then understand, can you not, that when you have a piece of correspond-ence from a person who is quoted authoritatively in the AQIS documents which states that‘as far as I can tell no work has been done on the heat inactivation of ND virus in chickenmeat’ it has an impact on people who are not microbiologists?

Dr Kahn —I think you have to bear in mind that it is coming from the purelaboratory perspective when a man of that sort writes.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I understand that, but that is a little different from whatDr Hickey is talking about. I am certainly familiar with scientists and their publications.Scientists tend—at least the responsible ones—to publish or perish in the academic world.This work was done in 1988. This letter has only recently been written, and this person,who is certainly an expert in the field, was not aware of any specific work done onnewcastle disease in chicken meat when in fact it appears that that is not correct.

Mr Hickey —Let me correct myself. The work that MacKenzie and Spradbrow didwas in relation to the IBD virus in chicken nuggets. Extrapolating from the statements—that have been confirmed or disputed by no-one in this whole process—that IBD virus ismore heat resistant than ND virus, we have come to that conclusion.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I understand that, but can you understand the struggleon this side?

Mr Hickey —Yes.



Senator BOB COLLINS—I would like to clarify the record, because I do notparticularly want to go through this process a second time. I do not want another inquiryand I am sure no-one else does either. The fact is that the statement made in that letterthat no work has been done on the heat inactivation of ND virus in chicken meat iscorrect, is it not?

Mr Hickey —Yes.

CHAIR —I want to follow through on this, and I want to come to the evidence thatDr Bains gave in Maitland because I do not believe you addressed that particular aspect ofit. I have to make the observation—and I do this as a practising farmer—that there are somany examples of theory presented to us in so many areas, but when you put them intopractical field conditions they fail. They have fallen over. I happen to mention the dippingone, which is a classic one. It works perfectly in a laboratory but does not go too well outin the paddock because the lice survive.

Mr Hickey —Mr Chairman, could I return to the question of the 1930 outbreaks. Iam quoting from a book entitledExotic Diseases of Animals: A Field Guide FromAustralian Veterinariansby Gerring, Forman and Nunn in relation to newcastle disease. Itsays:

Valogenic newcastle disease has occurred twice in Australia—in 1930 and 1932. Both outbreakswere in Victoria and were concentrated in the suburbs of Melbourne. The first is believed to haveresulted from swill-feeding of ships’ garbage containing viscera of infected birds. On both occasions,the disease was successfully eradicated by a slaughter policy.

What that does not deal with is the second outbreak that is referred to in 1932, and ifthere is any information available to us about that we will provide it to the committee.

CHAIR —We have been given evidence that said it was pieces of chicken meat.

Senator BOB COLLINS—That appears to be substantially correct.

CHAIR —I do not know whether you have theHansardthere, so perhaps you needto take this question on notice. It relates to what Dr Kahn said regarding whether sunlightkills the virus very quickly. I will quickly read this part:

But the real issue is that in all vaccinated flocks there is a real chance that you have these virusesprevalent. Why I bring this point out here today is as follows. You can look at the survival of theseviruses in the chicken tissues, before we think about the procedures of how we are going to sterilise,and read the published information. For example, in bone marrow after a storage time at atemperature of 34 to 35 degrees, the virus survived 134 to 196 days. From bone marrow and skin,after a storage temperature of minus four degrees fahrenheit, the virus was recovered 300 daysafterwards; from skin, at 34 to 35 degrees fahrenheit, after 98 days to 160 days. I will go throughthe list here.



Then he talks about lungs in live chickens, saying that the virus can be recovered after 90days, and from poultry carcasses frozen after more than 700 days, et cetera.

I am sure you would have observed that. That caused me a lot of concern becauseit suggested that, at least in certain parts of the chicken carcass anyhow, there wascertainly a very long lifeline in terms of the virus and anything that might be thrown overas scraps or whatever might happen—post-contamination. Have you got any comment tomake on that aspect of it because I do not think—and I could be corrected here—that youaddressed that in your presentation?

Dr Kahn —I am not sure what the question is here. Is your concern that virus maybe present in the bone marrow? Or for how long?

CHAIR —I am quoting from Dr Bains on page 156 of theHansard.He wentthrough a whole range of how the virus could survive under certain conditions in certainparts of the anatomy of the chook at 34 to 35 degrees, at frozen temperatures, et cetera.My comment is, firstly, on the accuracy of those aspects of it, because you have certainlydisputed or put into question some of the evidence that Dr MacKenzie gave us, and,secondly, whether or not in terms of the process we are talking about, it covers allparticulars, regarding that evidence given to us by Dr Bains.

Mr Hickey —We do not have a copy of the proof version so we will just besatisfied we are reading from the same document.

CHAIR —Can you take that on notice?

Senator BOB COLLINS—Page 156 from theHansard, Friday the 13th.

Mr Hickey —This starts with the statement:

. . . bone marrow, after a storage time at a temperature of 34 to 35 degrees, the virus survived 134to 196 days.

CHAIR —That is correct.

Mr Hickey —Then it goes on to deal with bone marrow and skin, lungs, frozenpoultry carcasses.

Senator BOB COLLINS—But this is uncooked?

Mr Hickey —Yes. All at very low Fahrenheit temperatures.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Freezing. I mean brisk, cool.



Mr Hickey —Yes. I am not quite sure of the relevance to the cooked chicken meatparameters that have been set.

Senator BOB COLLINS—With respect to you, I do not understand that either.

CHAIR —If it has no relevance, that is what I want you to say.

Mr Hickey —It has no relevance to cooking parameters.

Mr Gascoine—Mr Chairman, just one point of clarification on that section of theevidence. We did note that there is a reference in Dr Bains’s evidence, as theHansardhasit, to the storage of liver and spleen at a temperature of 70 degrees Celsius for 28 days.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Is that also on page 155?

Mr Gascoine—It is in the latter part of the text that the chairman read out earlierso I guess it is on the same page of the proof copy.

CHAIR —It is page 157.

Mr Gascoine—I am sorry, it is on the top of 157, first paragraph.

Mr Hickey —I suspect the word ‘minus’ is missing out of our version because itgoes on to talk about carcasses frozen at minus 20 degrees Celsius for 800 days.

Senator BOB COLLINS—That is right. It might be a typographical error.

Mr Hickey —The whole context is about cool storage of carcasses and otherproducts of chickens. It is not relevant to cooked meat.

Mr Gascoine—It might be useful for the committee to obtain clarification of thatpoint from Dr Bains, Mr Chairman.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Yes. I think that might be an error.

Mr Hickey —This would be consistent with the statement in that same book that Ireferenced just a while ago that says newcastle disease:

. . . is inactivated by direct sunlight within 30 minutes, but in cool weather—

and this would be relevant to the cool storage issues here—

can retain infectivity in faeces and contaminated poultry sheds for up to 21 days.



So there is no inconsistency with the information that BRS and other scientists, who are inpart the authors of this book, have been using and the information that is provided there.Again, it is the question of any relevance to the cooking processes that is the issue.

CHAIR —This is once again from not being a scientist or microbiologist. He gaveus this as evidence and went through a whole host of figures. I am trying to establishwhether it has any relevance whatsoever to the issue before us now.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I want to start off with a few questions relating to thescientific and technical issues. The first round of consultations, which are all summarisedin appendix B of the 1991 discussion paper, generated a number of negative responsesfrom state authorities. Western Australia, for example, said:

The poultry disease status of Thailand would preclude the development of safe protocols forimportation of either fresh, frozen or cooked product.

South Australia said in response:

In Thailand, VVND and AI are endemic, fresh frozen and cooked meat not supported.

The Northern Territory said, and I quote again from the discussion paper:

Importation from Thailand unacceptable but will be guided by AQIS analysis.

Mr Chairman, I asked for copies of the original submissions. I do not know if they havebeen provided yet to the committee. Have they? There may simply have not been time tohave done that. We asked for them last week.

Mr Hickey —We believe they were sent up on Friday, Senator, so they must behere. In relation to that, that 1991 paper was when AQIS was looking at fresh frozen andcooked product. The comments that came back to AQIS at that time pointed us in thedirection of considering cooked product only as a focus for our concentration on the firstset of issues. That was then followed by the release of the discussion paper in 1994 whichfocused on cooked product. The responses to that discussion paper might be more relevantto further consideration of the issues.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Yes, and I am about to do that, Mr Hickey. But I didwant to refer—and this is the great unwashed you are talking to here—to the fact that yousaid they pointed AQIS in the direction of cooked product. But the quotes from WesternAustralia and South Australia specifically preclude cooked product as well, which is why Iquoted them. It was not simply uncooked product.

The Western Australian response was—and it is fairly categorical—the poultrydisease status of the flock in Thailand would preclude the development of safe protocolsfor cooked product. South Australia said the same thing:



In Thailand, VVND and AI are endemic, fresh frozen and cooked meat not supported.

I asked those questions—and I want to get on to New South Wales shortly—because ofthe date. Since 1991, have the relevant authorities in Western Australia and SouthAustralia, who ruled out flatly the importation of cooked product from Thailand in 1991,changed their position?

Dr Kahn —Certainly, at that stage, the general thrust was to oppose uncookedmeat, and a number of commentators differentiated between uncooked and cookedproduct.

Senator BOB COLLINS—A number did. I have only quoted the ones that didnot.

Dr Kahn —I would have to go back to the commentary that they have providedsubsequently in response to the 1994 paper and more recently the circular memorandum,just to specifically check the comments that Western Australia, South Australia and—

Senator BOB COLLINS—Dr Kahn, that is what I want you to do.

Mr Hickey —We will come back to you on notice.

Senator BOB COLLINS—All right. You could take on notice whether WesternAustralia and South Australia have changed their position on cooked meat since 1991.Bringing it more up to date, what was and is the position with the New South WalesDepartment of Agriculture on the same issue? A letter that was sent to you, Dr Kahn, bythe New South Wales Department of Agriculture on 5 September 1994 says in the firstparagraph—I will let Dr Kahn answer.

Mr Hickey —Before Dr Kahn answers that, in relation to South Australia, a lettersigned by the Chief Quarantine Officer, Animals, in South Australia on 8 July 1994 says:

South Australia supports the import of cooked chicken meat from the USA, Thailand and Denmarkunder the conditions as outlined in Appendix C of circular memorandum CQO (A) 78/94 of 2 June1994.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Terrific.

Mr Hickey —We will follow up the other—

Senator BOB COLLINS—So you will confirm Western Australia?

Mr Hickey —Yes.

Senator BOB COLLINS—What about New South Wales? The final paragraph of



the 1994 letter from New South Wales says:

In summary NSW endorses the importation of cooked chicken meat from the USA and Denmarksubject to the conditions outlined but considers that further examination of the Thai proposal isrequired.

To save the time of the committee, I have not quoted the detailed concerns that the letterraises about cooked chicken meat from Thailand. What I wanted to ask you is: is theSeptember 1994 letter to you from New South Wales still the position of the New SouthWales Department of Agriculture?

Mr Hickey —I believe there has been more recent correspondence from New SouthWales, Senator, perhaps from the minister in New South Wales, and I think we shouldtake that on notice and come back to you. Could I go back to the Western Australianposition?

CHAIR —Before you go to that, unfortunately it seems like getting some of thisinformation is a bit like drawing teeth because I particularly asked for these letters on thepositions with regard to what is in your position paper in these 1994 letters. Not only didit take a significant length of time to get them—and I know these things do take time—but if you have got other correspondence which in effect alters or changes or confirms theposition of the various states can you let the committee have those so that we have got up-to-date information rather than quoting from a position that has obviously changed?

Mr Hickey —I understood that these had been provided, Mr Chair.

CHAIR —These are all 1994 letters. You have just told us now that you believeyou have further information from the states following 1994, or did I mishear you?

Mr Hickey —Again, we understood they had been provided, but if they have not, Iapologise. We will get together with the secretariat and work out exactly what has beenprovided and if there is any more recent, relevant information we will make it available toyou.

CHAIR —I have got 1994 letters. I do not appear to have one from WesternAustralia.

Senator BOB COLLINS—There is in fact one from Western Australia.

Mr Hickey —There is one from Western Australia, I believe.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Yes, it is in the file.

Mr Hickey —It is from J. Johnston, SVO, Quarantine, dated 12 October 1994, and



it says:

Western Australia considers that the draft protocols detailed in the document would allow theimportation of cooked chicken meat with an acceptable or no risk to the disease status of theAustralian poultry industry or the human population (zoonoses).

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you—I felt it important to consult with our experts in this area.

With respect to the New South Wales situation and anything that has been provided since1994, we will have to go back to our files and let you have them.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Thank you very much.

Mr Hickey —We will need to get one of our officers together with the secretariatto work out exactly what has been provided and what may still need to be furtherprovided, and we will do that immediately.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Thank you.

Senator HEFFERNAN—Would it be possible to include in that the logic thatwent with those states’ change of mind? Could you tell us why they changed their mind?

Mr Hickey —Not from our end, Senator. If you needed to know that, you wouldhave to address that to the states concerned.

Senator HEFFERNAN—Obviously, I think we do.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Okay, thanks.

CHAIR —Certainly, on that point, if there is a change of position, we can easilywrite to the relevant state authorities and ask them.

Senator BOB COLLINS—That is right, we can. I wanted to ask some questionsabout a response from the Australian Veterinary Association dated 27 July 1994. Thatsubmission expressed concern about, among other things, the level of quality assurancethat was going to be applied to the processing of the products, the standards and theintegrity of animal disease surveillance in Thailand—I might say I think it is fair to saythey expressed serious reservations about that—and the use of therapeutic agents in theexporting countries that are not permitted in Australia. In relation to therapeutic agentsand, given the current significant community and medical concerns surrounding the use ofantibiotics and of course growth promotants, my assumption was that we will require, inthe importation of this product from Thailand, full detail of the use, withdrawal periodsand so on for any of these products that have been used in respect of the chickens. Is thatcorrect?



Dr Kahn —You are talking of drug use and residues in meat?

Senator BOB COLLINS—Antibiotics, growth promotants, whatever. Again, I amasking you to provide me with information on this. I am aware that there are a number ofthese agents that are not permitted to be used in Australia which may in fact be used inThailand: what I was asking you is whether the protocols that we are establishing requireinformation to be provided to us—I am not talking about newcastle disease now—aboutthe use of any of these antibiotics or growth promotants or food additives or whatever thatare used in the chickens in Thailand that we are importing. Is that part of the protocol?

Dr Kahn —We have stated how we are handling that in the circular memorandum96/32. We draw the distinction in the memorandum between quarantine issues and publichealth or food safety issues. Obviously, on quarantine, AQIS is responsible for developingpolicy and implementing it. On the food safety and public health side, we work with theAustralia New Zealand Food Authority and they give us, as it were, policy advice. In thecase of drug use and antibiotics, residues, and so forth, we do have information on the useof drugs and other substances in the countries proposing to export to Australia and wehave advice from ANZFA as to the sampling regime that should be adopted, in otherwords, testing for residues of antibacterials and so forth.

We do not intend to tell the exporting country what products they may or may notuse. That really is a responsibility of their governments, having regard to their own animalhealth situation and husbandry practices and the types of chemical products that areavailable for use, but we would require on the export certification that the exportingcountry certifies that the product meets their own national requirements for monitoring andsurveillance and compliance with residue tolerances.

Senator HEFFERNAN—Would that not be at odds with Europe’s attitude to theimportation of our beef where we have to declare that we have not used certain steroids, etcetera? Why would we not adopt the same attitude for people who are importing meat intoour country?

Mr Hickey —The ban on the use of HGPs that is imposed by Europe on meatproducts from Australia and also from other countries is currently under challenge in theWTO by the United States joined by the Australian government. So we do not acceptthe—

Senator HEFFERNAN—But that does not mean to say they will win. It is aprotocol that has been imposed.

Mr Hickey —It is a protocol that has been imposed that we do not believe has anyproper scientific and technical basis and it would look at odds with the case that we areattempting to put to the WTO on beef and beef products in to Europe if we were then toturn around and impose a similar ban ourselves on meat products from other countries.



Senator HEFFERNAN—That objection is based on the fact that they are naturalhormones that they are objecting to over there, and it could be seen as just a way ofkeeping us out. What we are talking about here is all sorts of drugs, et cetera. I wouldhave thought that we were babes in the woods if we cannot come to terms with the factthat we do not want to eat chicken meat here that has got God knows what in it. Therehas to be some protocol imposed on which drugs can be used. As it is now, for instance,in our domestic market you cannot drench sheep three weeks out from when you sellthem. Surely to God we are going to impose some sort of restriction on what people canfeed to their chickens before they are slaughtered over there.

Mr Hickey —Dr Kahn has already said that we will be testing imported chickenmeat for residues of various drugs and chemicals, in part based on considerations ofquarantine concern and in part on the advice of ANZFA based on concerns with humanhealth.

Senator HEFFERNAN—But I would have thought that that is still a strategy thatinvolves a risk because of the very fact that it is just testing every 10,000th chicken. I amunaware of where the chickens will be coming from—whether they are outsourced,whether there are contractors providing to a central factory. God knows what the risks are.Surely, as Europe adopted the attitude of ‘none at all or don’t bring it here’, that would bea worthy consideration by us?

Mr Hickey —It is not a matter of testing every 10,000th chicken; it is a matter oftesting the relevant number of consignments that are coming into this country.

Senator HEFFERNAN—Whatever. Play with words.

Mr Hickey —No it is not playing with words, with respect, because we operateunder the imported foods program—and Mr Bailey can describe the processes to you ifyou like—under policies set by the ANZFA, and they are policies designed to protect thehuman health of Australian citizens. So I do not think we can just take them lightly andcall them a play with words; they are the policies that are set by governments, which weare required to administer under the Imported Food Control Act. Mr Bailey can tell youwhat processes we have been through with ANZFA if that would be relevant.

Senator HEFFERNAN—So it does not bother you, as a consumer of KentuckyFried or whatever, if some of these exporting countries use drugs that are banned inAustralia in their product as long as it does not show up in the test? It does not botheryou?

Mr Hickey —I am guided as the officer responsible for administration of theImported Food Control Act by policy decisions taken by the government reflected throughstatements passed to us by the ANZFA.



Senator BOB COLLINS—Because they are not quarantine issues.

Mr Gascoine—It is also true, Senator, that we use drugs in Australia on ouranimals which are banned for use in other countries but we expect other countries to takeour product. At the present time, for example, we are seeking to have the United Statesestablish a tolerance for an acaricide—a tickacide—called acatack, so that we can continueto use this product in Australia and export that product to the United States.

The principle we are trying to follow here is that, if a drug is registered for use onthe basis that if certain conditions are followed it is safe, then on that basis it ought to besafe for consumers in other countries. That is the principle we follow with our exports.

Senator McGAURAN—What is that drug used on—the drug you were justreferring to before?

Mr Gascoine—Cattle.

Senator McGAURAN—Cattle. For what purpose?

Mr Gascoine—It is a tickacide. To kill ticks.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Dr Kahn, in respect of antibiotics and growthpromotants and things like that, do you know—I will not press you if you do not—ifthings like that disappear in the cooking process?

Dr Kahn —I do not think that you could rely on that being the case. Foodprocessing of one form or another may have some effect on residues, if present, but I donot think that you would take that as a starting point where you would assume thatcooking would cause them to disappear or be reduced.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Thanks. I think Mr Hickey may have already answeredthis question but I need an answer for the record. In that same letter the AVA actuallyproposed that we should require that the use of therapeutic agents should in fact beprohibited in source flocks. Can you respond to that? Mr Hickey had said just a fewmoments ago that we are currently arguing a case, along with the United States, againstthe ban on growth promotants in the EU, so that may well be the AQIS position on ablanket ban on these agents in Thailand, I do not know.

Mr Hickey —It would not be a matter of a blanket ban, Senator; it would be amatter of the risk that was generated potentially by any particular therapeutic good. Andthe assessments that we would make would be on the quarantine aspects of that, and theassessments that ANZFA would make would be on the human health aspects—

Senator BOB COLLINS—Correct, which brings me to my next specific question.



Having said that—and I assumed that would be the answer—are there any concerns froma quarantine perspective and, to your knowledge, are there any concerns at the NFA levelas to any of the therapeutic agents which are currently used in Thailand on chickens fromeither a quarantine or a human health perspective?

Dr Kahn —From the quarantine perspective, really the key issue is the introductionof exotic, unwanted pest and disease into Australia via a product. A residue does notreally fall into that category.

Senator BOB COLLINS—No. I acknowledge that the question is specifically amatter for the NFA. Mr Bailey is here and he may know. That is the reason I am puttingthe question. He may not know, but I acknowledge that it is specifically a matter for theNFA in terms of growth promotants and antibiotics. Is anyone aware as to whether theNFA has any concerns—or whatever its new name is—in respect of any of the therapeuticagents that are currently put into chickens in feed or injected or whatever, from a humanhealth perspective?

Mr Bailey —I can tell you, Senator, that ANZFA has not been provided with thespecific detail of what would in fact be used in the countries that have made the applica-tion for the importation. However, in the preliminary determination they have made ofrisk, they have taken into account the microbiological and chemical concerns and haveindicated to us that they would want to know more about the agricultural and veterinarychemicals that are used. And they can then frame the inspection regime that they wouldask us to implement based on that knowledge. So there is some further work that willneed to be done on the specific uses of chemicals, agricultural and veterinary.

Senator BOB COLLINS—So far as the human health aspects are concerned?

Mr Bailey —As far as the human health aspects are concerned. Yes.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Thanks, Mr Bailey. The AVA also states in its letter—and again on the face of it I find this a very hard position to argue against, in terms ofwhat else I have read—that the Thai authorities have acknowledged that they do not knowthe status of AI in their country, nor the status of pullorum disease or SE in theircommercial flocks. And of course SE is a pathogen of particular concern to human beings.I think it is one of the nastiest—correct me if I am wrong—in terms of potential foodpoisoning that is around. Is it the understanding of AQIS that that is the position as far asthe Thai authorities are concerned?

Dr Kahn —Our starting point in looking at cooked meat is that we may well bedealing with a worst case scenario in terms of the disease situation in the country oforigin. So we have looked at the range of pathogens of poultry that could be of concern tous that may or may not be present in Thailand. We are sort of taking an assumption thatthey may be and that is why we have identified the cooking conditions proposed, because



none of the pathogens listed here would be more resistant to heating than IBD virus.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Fine. The particular point of course that the AVA wasmaking in that letter was that the diseases as far as the AVA are concerned are notdifficult to monitor and therefore it questions—and I quote the AVA:

. . . the credentials of the Thai authorities to provide assurances that their standards meet Australianrequirements.

I think the point the AVA was making in that letter was that because these things from theAVA’s perspective would be so easy to monitor in terms of information about a majorindustry they do place some question mark on the ability of the Thai authorities generallyto provide us with assurances that we can rely on. What is the view of AQIS about that?

Dr Kahn —I think that to really start telling the Thais what they should and shouldnot do about animal health is a peculiar position for Australia to be in because we take itquite amiss when other countries tell us what we should or should not do on issues suchas mulesing sheep, for example.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Do we take it amiss?

Dr Kahn —What I am just saying is—

Senator BOB COLLINS—I always thought we took it seriously.

Dr Kahn —The implication in this is that, because Australia goes in and controlssomething like pullorum and the Thais have not done that or have not done it totallyeffectively, there is a problem right across the board in that country. I think that if we aretalking about specific—

Senator BOB COLLINS—But what about SE?

Dr Kahn —Again it is really up to the Thais as to what sort of animal healthcontrols they put into place. If you are a country that has foot-and-mouth disease forexample, maybe you are putting all your veterinary infrastructure into that particularproblem at the moment. The point that we are getting back to—

Senator BOB COLLINS—But is SE not one of the known pathogens that causesserious food poisoning in human beings?

Dr Kahn —Yes, and it occurs in other countries around the world.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I am aware of that.



Dr Kahn —And it is not necessarily all that effectively controlled.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Are you saying, then, that the regime—in fact youhave just said it—that the Thai authorities may or may not apply in respect of monitoringthe incidence of SE in Thailand should not be of interest to Australia?

Dr Kahn —The important thing with all of these pathogens is that the cookingprocess is going to inactivate them.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Sure.

Dr Kahn —The other point is that we obviously must have confidence in thecertification that the veterinary authorities are going to provide in the event that we get tothat point.

Senator BOB COLLINS—That is the very point the AVA was making.

Dr Kahn —What I am saying is that if they do not control enteriditis or pullorum Ido not think that you can draw from that a broad assumption as to the validity of healthcertification that they can provide.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Fine. The letter also says that vaccination against NDVprevents mortality but not necessarily infection. Is that correct?

Dr Kahn —That is correct, yes.

Senator BOB COLLINS—So there is a possibility of cross-contamination withthis disease during processing?

Dr Kahn —Yes. I would say that is a remote possibility, bearing in mind thediscussion we went through earlier about vaccinated birds. Clinically normal birds, whichnonetheless may be infected, would be expected to have very low levels of virus if viruswere present in the body. But you cannot rule out that possibility altogether.

Mr Hickey —That is an issue that we have acknowledged and discussed in thestatement that we have made today and in the documents that have previously beenpublished.

Dr Kahn —And, again, neither the vaccines used nor live virus, wild field virus,that may be present is going to be any more resistant to heating than would be adequatelycatered for by our proposed quarantine conditions.

Senator BOB COLLINS—What about cross-contamination from packaging? Iknow that has been addressed as well.



Mr Hickey —That was addressed as well in the sense that if that cross-contamination occurs on the surface of the meat the surface temperatures and times will,of course, be higher than the core time-temperature parameters that we have already set.That potential was recognised by Dr Gard in the BRS paper published in 1994.

Senator BOB COLLINS—By the way, I understand from evidence that has beengiven to the committee—and we are having I think DFAT back on this matter to perhapsclarify some of the things that were said to us earlier in this regard—that, in respect of theUnited States, there is currently a complete ban, as I understand it, on the importation ofchicken meat from Australia because we do not have in-line bird by bird inspections. Isthat correct?

Mr Hickey —At the moment, as I said, the FSIS, the Food Safety InspectionService of the United States, does not have—you are correct—Australia registered. And upuntil the WTO agreement was concluded, that would have required that we have aninspection system in Australia equal to theirs in every respect. That is the situation that isapplied, for example, with respect to red meat exports to the United States.

With the passage of the WTO agreement through into the legislation of respectivecountries, the United States has legislated to remove the words ‘equal to’ and replace themwith the word ‘equivalent’. The discussion that we are currently having with relevantauthorities in the United States, Canada and New Zealand at this time is what ‘equivalent’means in terms of countries being able to adopt different processes that lead to similaroutcomes in terms of food safety concerns.

We are currently developing trials to be implemented in five Australian red meatabattoirs which provide for different systems of inspection which we would regard asproducing equivalent outcomes which have been presented to the United States authoritiesand which we are currently in discussion with them about. So we are looking at alternativesystems in the red meat industry which would clearly also have application in the chickenmeat industry.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Thailand does have in-line inspection of chickens, doesit not?

Dr Kahn —Yes, they export to Japan, for example, which has a similar require-ment to the Americans.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Yes. I read the details, of course, of the processes thatare required to satisfy that in-line requirement. I know you have recently been to Thailand,and I assume you got a look at a chicken factory. You may not have, but I never have.But the question I wanted to ask you is, although they may have this, whether in fact itworks in practice—and it may well work perfectly. But I must say I would love to see itin operation because the in-line per bird inspection requires the inspectors to palpate the



livers and, I think, other organs such as heart and spleen as well—examine all internalsurfaces. There is even—this was highlighted at Newcastle and that really interested me—where necessary, a taste inspection as well. I just had this mental vision of an inspectorwith a mouth full of raw chicken meat chewing away while he was palpating livers right,left and centre as birds flashed past him, two every second.

CHAIR —At 8,000 an hour.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Correct. The question is a serious one. This in-lineinspection thing—the requirement—is in place in Thailand, but does it in fact operate likethat in real terms?

Dr Kahn —I have not actually visited a chicken farm because when I went toThailand last month I thought it best not to show my face in any chicken farms, as amatter of fact, as I did not know what construction might have been placed on it.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Was that just a private visit?

Dr Kahn —Basically, yes, it was not on behalf of AQIS.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Who was it on behalf of?

Mr Hickey —Senator, is there some concern about Dr Kahn’s visit to Thailand?

Senator BOB COLLINS—Yes, there is. Mr Hickey, I do not think it will come asany surprise to you to know that, in the current context, considering Dr Kahn’s position,the fact that she has been to Thailand, even though she probably only visited the airport,has clearly been raised as a concern, and I simply made a polite inquiry and was told thatit was ‘a private visit’.

Mr Hickey —Would you like to tell us what the concern was and who it wasraised by so we can deal with it now?

Senator BOB COLLINS—Yes, the concern at this committee, Mr Hickey, isbeing raised by me, now.

Mr Hickey —And the concern is?

Senator BOB COLLINS—The concern simply was: what was the purpose of DrKahn’s private visit to Thailand? If it was a holiday, I will ask no further questions aboutit. An assertion has been made to me that it was in fact connected with the chickenindustry.

Mr Hickey —Dr Kahn has now been for two years on a program, which involves



Commonwealth, state and industry people, called the Australian rural leadership program,which has as part of it an overseas trip to Asian countries to familiarise the participants onthat program with the culture and the industry context in those countries. It is a standardpart of a program that has now been offered for quite a number of years. In fact, I thinkDr Kahn is on the third—

Dr Kahn —Second.

Mr Hickey —Second group. There was also a third group currently going on theprogram and it is a stock standard part of that development program.

Senator BOB COLLINS—That is fine, Mr Hickey. There is really no need to beso prickly about this. Maybe I can cut this short by saying—

Mr Hickey —No, the reason—

Senator BOB COLLINS—Was anything Dr Kahn did in Thailand relevant to thematter we are discussing at this committee, that is, the importation of cooked chickenmeat?

Dr Kahn —No, not at all.

Mr Hickey —Dr Kahn can answer that, and the answer is no. But the reason I ama bit prickly is that—because this is part of the concern that I expressed early on in thepiece—part of the apparent defence against proposals put by AQIS is to address issues toindividual officers. And I do have concerns about that and I do get a bit prickly about thatbecause I think somebody from time to time needs to have and express confidence in theintegrity of the officers who deal with those issues. I apologise for being prickly but—

Senator BOB COLLINS—Mr Hickey, I just want to respond to that. I have somesympathy with that view but I am not entirely sympathetic to it. I did not in fact intend torespond to your opening statement at all during these hearings but, with respect—and Ihave great respect for you Mr Hickey—I do disagree, perhaps just in terms of emphasis,on that particular aspect of the opening statement that you made. I understand yourconcern, rightly, as the director of the organisation to rightly protect the legitimate, privateconcerns of individual officers. But I do not agree that when, in the real world, seniorofficers of AQIS are in fact in decision making positions in AQIS, their activities shouldbe a matter of disinterest—in the truest sense of the word—to matters under investigation.AQIS is certainly a corporate body but that corporate body is made up of individualbodies. When those individual bodies are senior officers who are in direct decision makingroles—important decision making roles within AQIS—I do not think, with respect, MrHickey, that it is illegitimate to properly raise matters of concern.

I am happy to have the matter that has been raised with me rebutted, which is why



I am raising it. And my purpose in raising this, Mr Hickey, is not to attack any individualofficers at AQIS. I would never do that. My concern is to rebut, on the record, assertionsthat are being made all over the place that are now in a position to be rebutted. Theassertion that has been made to me—and probably wrongly—is that Dr Kahn’s visit toThailand was paid for by the Thai chicken industry. I am sure that is not correct. Is it?

Mr Hickey —It is not correct.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Thank you. And Dr Kahn’s visit to Thailand was notrelevant—and this is what I want on the record for Dr Kahn’s sake, frankly, as much asanyone else’s; and you have answered the question, Dr Kahn, I think—to AQIS’s decisionmaking process in respect of the importation of cooked chicken meat. Is that correct?

Dr Kahn —That is correct.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Thank you. I think it is important that was clarified.

Short adjournment

CHAIR —The issue that I want to pursue now is that of the process of approval.You remember, Mr Hickey, that at the last meeting we attempted to clarify who had theultimate responsibility for improving the import proposals. You said:

The formal position is that the decision under the Quarantine Act is a decision for the director ofquarantine or his delegate. The minister, of course, has responsibility under the administrativearrangements for the administration and operations of the Quarantine Act and for the conduct of hisdepartment.

You said that it was unclear whether the minister has any power to intervene in the finaldecision about approving the imports or whether there were any avenues available forreviewing such decisions. The question that I want to ask relates to the fact that in theevidence you told the committee that the position that AQIS signed off 15 months agowas the scientific and technical view that the time and temperature parameters would besufficient to destroy or inactivate the viruses of concern. And I think you have reinforcedthat today. My first question with regard to this is: was this essentially the final decisionthat removed any quarantine obstacles to importing chicken?

Mr Hickey —It was a decision on the efficacy of the time and temperatureparameters and their capacity to inactivate viruses, quarantine viruses, of concern. Withthat there always had to be a set of conditions that would be applied under any approvalthat was granted, which at that stage was still only in draft form and which subsequentlyhas been circulated for comment and discussion with industry through the working partythat has been referred to in evidence.

I think previously you have asked the question about whether those conditions are



as important from a quarantine point of view as were the fundamental time and tempera-ture parameters themselves, and I have said that they are because they are the conditionswhich would have to be satisfied by the importing country.

The point that we have consistently made is that we are satisfied on the time andtemperature parameters and we are seeking to resolve and finalise the detail of theconditions. And in doing that, whilst they are decisions for AQIS, the point that hasalways been recognised, the fundamental point of government administration, is that theminister has the authority to ask to be satisfied that the decision that AQIS is going totake is consistent with government policy and that there has been a proper process ofconsideration of all relevant issues in the lead-up to that decision being taken. And thathas been, as I say, a fundamental precept of government administration that AQIS hasalways recognised, notwithstanding that legislation itself confers the primary authority forthe actual decision itself on the director of quarantine.

CHAIR —So, as far as those protocols or rules are concerned, who makes the finaldecision as to whether or not they are acceptable? Does that actually come back to theminister’s responsibility?

Mr Hickey —AQIS would impose those conditions as a condition of a permit toimport the product.

CHAIR —You would impose them. But who actually says, ‘Right. Now these aresatisfactory,’ and then you go to the next stage of imposing them? Is that finally signedoff by the minister, or is that signed off by AQIS itself?

Mr Gascoine—The situation is, Senator, that the decision is made ultimately bythe director of quarantine or his delegates who are officers of the Australian QuarantineInspection Service. AQIS issues the permits, signs the permits and has the responsibilityfor that decision.

Senator HEFFERNAN—Would it be the same guys who okayed the protocol forthe lupin import?

Mr Hickey —No.

Senator HEFFERNAN—Who were they?

Mr Hickey —We are talking about considerations of animal quarantine here. Thelupins were a matter of plant quarantine.

Senator HEFFERNAN—But the equivalent in a different part of the department?

Mr Hickey —Yes.



Senator HEFFERNAN—Different people but the same rank?

Mr Hickey —Yes.

CHAIR —In terms of this process, on what basis or authority, if the minister werenot satisfied, could he say no? Or can he not?

Senator BOB COLLINS—That would be up to him.

Mr Hickey —Exactly.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I am sure Mr Hickey is not in a position to be insidethe head of the minister.

Mr Hickey —The minister receives advice from AQIS. He is entitled to considerthat advice, as I say, against parameters of consistency with government policy andadequacy of process up to the point of the decision being made. If he were to be notsatisfied with that, then I am sure he would communicate his dissatisfaction through thesecretary of the department or direct to me about that.

CHAIR —In terms of the position which was agreed to have been signed off 15months ago, what remaining processes are required, or what has to be done further toactually physically allow the import of cooked chicken meat into Australia?

Mr Hickey —Going back 15 months—and this is still the case—it was a matter offinalising the detailed conditions to be applied which would satisfy us that the time andtemperature parameters overcame the diseases of concern and, in order to arrive at thosedetailed conditions, there had to be a proper process of discussion with industry on all ofthe issues involved. That was the case 15 months ago.

It is the case now through the working party that the minister agreed be estab-lished, which has met twice on these issues. But at a point at which we are satisfied thatno new information is available and that an adequate process of consultation has takenplace we would come to a formal view and advise the minister on that, at the same timeadvising him of the extent of the consultations that have taken place and also advising himif there were any contrary views to the views that we held about detailed aspects of thoseconditions.

CHAIR —And precisely at this point in time in that process, how far down thetrack are you in coming to a conclusion?

Mr Hickey —The second meeting of the working group to consider the detailedconditions that might be applied met on the day after our last hearing—I think about 28 or29 August. Following that meeting, a document was prepared by AQIS which was



circulated to the industry participants at that meeting. I understand that the industryparticipants have replied, advising that, because of issues about the availability of keypersonnel, it will not be until about, I think, 7 October that they would be in a position torespond to the document that we had provided. At that point, we would be in a position tojudge where the differences of view lie between us in relation to the detailed conditions,and I expect that at that point we would advise the minister on the next course of action.But until we see the response from industry, I am not really in a position to judge thatfinally.

CHAIR —You said it is 7 October that you expect that?

Mr Hickey —Yes.

CHAIR —Thank you.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I think, Mr Chairman, that Mr Hickey’s answers haveabsolutely, probably for the fifth or sixth time, laid to rest the nonsense that has beenasserted in some quarters that ‘the former minister approved the importation of cookedchicken meat 15 months ago’ as the former minister has pointed out on a number ofoccasions. Were that assertion to be correct, we would now be up to our ears in importedchicken meat and clearly we are not. If I could just continue—

CHAIR —I think the former minister did sign off, did he not?

Senator BOB COLLINS—I knew where the questions were coming from.

CHAIR —Did he not?

Senator BOB COLLINS—He did not, Mr Chairman. And in fact, I would inviteyou, Mr Chairman, to table any documentation to this committee that indicates he mayhave. I know from the horse’s mouth that he did not.

CHAIR —Send me the copies of the letters.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I think that has been nailed down here this morning inthe last five minutes. I would like to continue, if I could. For the completeness of therecord, I canvassed this morning earlier and in Western Australia—and it has now beenclarified—there is documentation dated 1994 that approves the importation of cookedchicken meat. The one outstanding one in terms of the evidence earlier this morning isNew South Wales. Just for the completeness of the record, the last one was the Tasmaniandepartment, and the response that we have got on file here is probably a little less thanoverwhelming from Tasmania. You can take this on notice, Mr Hickey, if you have notgot the answer now. It says:



In accordance with your memorandum, this endorsement of the draft protocol is not to be taken asapproval for the importation of cooked chicken meat. It is confirmation that the draft protocol is anadequate expression of means to minimise the risks detailed in the position paper.

My questions are: were there any further consultations with the Tasmanian authoritiessubsequent to that response? Are you in a position to provide the committee with thatinformation now? If not, I am happy for you to take it on notice.

Mr Hickey —We will take that on notice.

Dr Kahn —Certainly, we can provide all comments on the circulated memorandumthat we have received back from organisations, and we can provide that pretty wellstraightaway.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Just in that regard, I find the BRS response curious, tosay the least, considering that it is coming from the Bureau of Resource Sciences. It is atechnical, scientific response which, I must say, had it been sent to me, I would havefound less than adequate. I want to know whether it was followed up. It is dated 29 July1994, headed ‘AQIS Position Paper On The Importation Of Cooked Chicken Meat FromUSA, Thailand and Denmark’ and it says:

BRS expressed its views on the quarantine safety of this proposal when this topic was raised in anearlier Discussion Paper. That is that chicken meat cooked and processed under approved conditionscan be allowed.

But the thing finishes with this statement:

The draft conditions at the back of the Position Paper seem adequate.

I just find that very curious coming from a science organisation. It falls a long way shortof being a precise, scientific statement. I mean, the conditions are either adequate or theyare not. I want to know whether AQIS followed up that minute, which seems to fall along way short of what would be required from the BRS in terms of clearing thoseconditions. Can anyone respond to that?

Mr Gascoine—Senator, I think it is probably for the BRS to offer an interpretationof what they mean by ‘conditions . . . seem adequate’ but I think that—

Senator BOB COLLINS—I am sorry, Mr Gascoine, I agree, and I am going totake this up with the BRS. What I am asking is this: was this very waffly and imprecisestatement of theirs, ‘seem adequate’, of concern to AQIS? That was my question. And didAQIS follow it up with the BRS?

Mr Gascoine—One comment that should be made, Senator, is that the conditionswhich were outlined by AQIS for the importation of cooked chicken meat involve a



number of issues on which the BRS’s views had not been sought and on which theywould not necessarily expect to be competent.

Senator BOB COLLINS—In that case, why did they comment on them at all?

Mr Gascoine—The BRS was invited to provide advice to AQIS on the scientificissues specifically, but perhaps it would be best to direct the question on to the BRS andobtain their interpretation of their remark.

Mr Hickey —This response in 1994, of course will have been superseded by thedevelopment of the revised conditions which were issued in the June 1996 AQIS circular,Senator. And the BRS’s position on that, along with that of all other authorities, we haveundertaken to provide to you. I suspect that will provide a more contemporary view ofwhat their position is.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Thank you, I will read that, Mr Hickey, when itarrives. In the report on the situation in Thailand prepared by David Wilson, which was inthe 1991 discussion paper, he referred to the fact that, if NDV is diagnosed by a companyvet, it may not be reported to the Thai Department of Livestock Development unless thereis ‘an outbreak’. That is what it said. What happens if there is merely a production losswith low mortality? Does that mean that it is then open to the company in Thailand tohandle that problem internally without actually reporting it to the Thai authorities? Thereason I ask the question is that, as far as I am aware, the official position is that NDVmust be reported to the Thai DLD.

Dr Kahn —The situation is, though, that you can have different strains of NDVcirculating, and certainly if you have mild lentogenic strains present in the flock you maywell not report. But the emphasis is where you are having outbreaks of serious illness dueto NDV and certainly I guess the expectation is there that it would be reported. Havingsaid that, if you are vaccinating birds and routinely maintaining the flocks in an immunestate, you are hopefully going to prevent those outbreaks from occurring.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Is there a situation in Thailand—again, I was justtrying to get to what an outbreak would be—where you can actually have the presence ofthe disease detected by the company and it would not be required of them to report it tothe Thai authorities?

Mr Hickey —I think we would have to take that on notice, Senator. The otherpoint that I would add to that is that in respect of Thailand it has always been the positionthat any final approval to be given for permits for imports from Thailand are subject to anAQIS review of the Thai processing industry, at which a lot of the information that iscontained in these older reports of course would have to be updated.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Thank you. I would be happy for you to take that on



notice. But as part of that report also—and these were the bits and pieces of it thatconcern me—I quote again:

I emphasise that Australia’s main concern related to the possibility of contamination of poultryproducts with avian pathogens. In this regard, the reliance of DLD, that is, the Thai department, onthe poultry companies for information on disease outbreaks et cetera was of concern, as was the lackof information on the Thai avian disease situation in general.

That is in the context of the reference that he makes to the presence of a DLD veterinarianat each processing plant, as is required under the draft protocols. But despite the fact thatthat is provided for, Wilson still expressed concerns about disease management generally.And the reason that I want this responded to is that he was concerned about the referencethat the plants in Thailand were approved for export to Japan, some EC countries and alsomet USDA standards. He said that AQIS’s primary concern was not public health, whichis correct, but avian health status and that those countries do not have the same concernswith regard to avian disease risk that Australia has.

It is obvious that he was making the point—and this is getting outside the humanhealth side of it—that the fact that the countries named—and we have heard plenty aboutthat—accept this production is not necessarily of any real relevance to the Australiansituation because those countries do not have the same concern about avian problems thatAustralia should probably have.

Dr Kahn —The key consideration here, though, is that those countries importuncooked meat, and the comments that Dr Wilson makes there really go more to thequestion of whether Australia should be permitting importation of uncooked meat. Clearly,we have gone down a very conservative path by not only requiring that the meat, if we aregoing to import it, will be cooked meat but that it will be cooked to a very stringentstandard.

If you are looking at uncooked meat imports, more emphasis is on quality ofveterinary services and the capacity of those services to certify as to the health status ofthe poultry from which the meat is being derived. If you are cooking the meat at 70degrees for 95 minutes, you are dealing with a very different commodity in quarantineterms than raw meat.

Mr Hickey —The context of our 1991 paper—and therefore of Dr Wilson’s visit toThailand—was the assessment of the full range of chicken products, cooked and un-cooked. And you can see that by reference to his report, following the discussion partwhich you have been quoting from, where he then goes on to say, presumably in the lightof all the foregoing, that he identified the different types of poultry products as presentingdifferent disease risks including, at the end of that, fresh frozen product presenting thehighest disease risk. And many of the comments that he has made would certainly berelevant to any consideration of import of that product.



Senator BOB COLLINS—Has any officer from AQIS been to Thailand since DrWilson, specifically in relation to the importation of cooked chicken, or was that the lastvisit?

Mr Hickey —No, there has been a visit—

Dr Kahn —We have not had any visits specifically on the quarantine or the importof chicken meat issue—specifically, no.

Mr Hickey —But there have been AQIS officers who have been in Thailand fordiscussion—Mr Bailey might be able to elaborate on this—who have visited some plantswhilst they have been there. But the question of the timing of the AQIS review that hasbeen foreshadowed has been a sensitive one in terms of any signals it might send, as youhave rightly been alluding to. And there have been no such official visits, but Mr Baileycan give you some information.

Mr Bailey —Thanks, Paul. I know that Brad Page, who was recently in Thailandon a study tour relating to the uptake of quality assurance programs, met with theDepartment of Livestock Development. And I also met with them when I was in Thailandon other business in May of this year, but neither Brad nor I have been involved in anyway in this import risk assessment of cooked chicken meat from a quarantine perspective.My involvement has essentially been that the Department of Livestock Development hassought an accreditation with us as a food safety certifying body in the event that there is afavourable outcome to this import risk assessment and, during the course of the discus-sions I had with them, they invited me to visit one of the plants and form my own viewon the process flows and the quality assurance controls they had in place. But that was notin the context of this quarantine risk assessment but rather on the food safety side ofthings.

CHAIR —Have you had any invitations from any of the processors through thegovernment to actually go to Thailand and inspect any of their works and have a look atwhat processes and things they have in place?

Mr Hickey —The Thai government has extended an invitation to us and has soughtadvice from us on the likely timing of any review visit, but I am not aware that we havehad any approaches direct from any Thai processing industries. If any of the officers herehave, they can say so.

Dr Kahn —No, it has really been, as Mr Hickey says, on a government togovernment basis. We have certainly been invited and specific plants have been nominatedfor inspection, but that has come to us from the Thai government.

CHAIR —Could you have a look at your records and just give the information tothe committee as to what actual invitations have been issued, et cetera?



Mr Hickey —Is there specific information that you are seeking from us, Senator,that might help?

CHAIR —It has been suggested to me that invitations have been issued to AQIS togo and inspect plants—I understand, through the government—to have a look and seewhat they have got in place and it is suggested that those have not been taken up. What Iam trying to do is establish whether or not that is correct.

Mr Hickey —I am confirming that it is the case that invitations have been extendedto us from the Thai government and at this point they have not been taken up.

CHAIR —Can you get us the details of those: what the content of the invitation is;is it to have discussions; is it to look at works; is it to look at their quarantine arrange-ments; to go onto farms? We would like details on what the invitations involve.

Mr Hickey —We can provide you with those.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Dr Kahn, is AQIS aware of any new heat-resistantstrains of IBD and NDV that have emerged since 1988?

Dr Kahn —I am not sure that anything has emerged since 1988. There havecertainly been references to more heat-resistant strains of NDV, and in fact references tomore heat-resistant strains are contained in AQIS’s published papers. We have also soughtadvice from the Animal Health Laboratory at Geelong, and their advice has tended toreconfirm that we have paid adequate attention to this possibility of more heat-resistantstrains.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Thank you. Can I just turn now to the letter from DrTweddle, who is head of the FDU. I might say that the reason I raise this is it that seems,from my representations, that one of the central concerns of the industry is the ongoinglevel of compliance. The letter says:

Concern is mainly compliance related—that there is a question whether the exporting manufacturerand premises will comply long-term with the specifications of the new protocol.

And the last point made in that response from the Foreign Diseases Unit is a recommenda-tion that AQIS institute random auditing of the exporting premises to be carried out byvisiting DPI vets—I assume in the way that the United States inspectors audit ourmeatworks. What is AQIS’s response to these recommendations from the unit, andspecifically the one about random checks by Australian vets?

Mr Hickey —The process, for example, that is used by the USDA in targetingAustralian meat plants for review in part relies on the random audit of the US registeredplants but also in part relies on feedback from their own port of entry testing arrangements



for product identified by establishment. We would use essentially the same procedures,Senator, if there were concerns coming through the imported foods inspection programtesting arrangements. For example, if particular establishments were sending product thatshowed signs of deterioration on arrival in Australia which in some way suggested anypotential for post-processing contamination, then that plant obviously would be targetedfor some sort of review activity.

So there would be a random element to it, but there would also be an element to itinformed by whatever information was available to us. Just as, for example, othercountries also respond to USDA reviews of our meat plants, if we had any informationfrom any other authorities of other countries that imported product from Thailand thatcame to us, we would use that as the basis for informing which plants might be subject toreview.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I have just got one further question on that. Are yousaying, Mr Hickey, that AQIS does not propose to institute random audits in that USDAfashion unless there is concern triggered by test results from the product landed here inAustralia?

Mr Hickey —No, I am saying that there would be random audits undertaken fromtime to time but in targeting the particular plants we would have particular regard to anyinformation that indicated there might be specific problems that had to be addressed.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I just wanted to clear that up because my understand-ing of what you just said was that it would be conditional.

Mr Hickey —No.

Senator BOB COLLINS—But the audits will in fact happen anyway?

Mr Hickey —The provision in the proposed conditions that we have circulatedsay—and the importing country authorities obviously would have to acknowledge these—that ‘establishments exporting cooked chicken meat to Australia may be inspected oraudited by AQIS at any time to confirm compliance with quarantine requirements’.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Yes, I know what it says, and the relevant word inthere is ‘may’. What I wanted to know is: is it part of the arrangement that AQIS intendsto carry out random audits? And the other question that hangs off the back of that is: doesAQIS know at this point in time whether a proposal to actually carry out the audits—notmay do it but will do it—is going to receive the approval of the Thai authorities?

Mr Hickey —The answer to the first question is yes. The answer to the secondquestion is also yes because the Thai authorities have invited us to undertake a review ofeach of the individual plants that would then be registered for export to Australia.



Senator BOB COLLINS—But also for subsequent random reviews?

Mr Hickey —I do not know that there has been any specific response to that.

Senator BOB COLLINS—The reason that I asked the question is that we have aprotocol, an arrangement, with the United States whereby they, as a matter of courtesy, forexample, advise us in advance of the particular works they intend to visit. But as Iunderstood it, there is actually no absolute requirement that that courtesy be extended.Indeed, after a less than satisfactory inspection of meatworks in Australia that I can recall,the direct suggestion was made that in future the USDA may move to conduct randomchecks with no forewarning. And what I was getting at is that we are a captive audienceto that in the sense that if we want to maintain our vital billion dollar a year market to theUS we are not in a position to resist that. What I am saying is: are we going to be inexactly the same position vis-a-vis the Thai chicken industry in the sense that we caneffectively press a requirement for random checks of these works in order to satisfy theconcerns of, among others, the Foreign Diseases Unit of the department in respect of thelong-term compliance with the conditions imposed?

Mr Hickey —The answer is yes. We will seek to adopt exactly the same principlesthat apply. They are not just applied to us by the United States but other markets as well,as you know.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Thank you.

Mr Gascoine—The audit regime that we apply to other countries when they wantto send stuff to Australia under certification is an audit regime based on our assessment ofthe probability of things going wrong. So in part the audit regime applied to Thailand willdepend on what we see when we go to Thailand and when we talk to the people in thedepartment and go through all of their stuff in detail. Then we will be able to make anassessment of what kind of audit regime we need at the outset. Then subsequently theaudit regime is logically adjusted on the basis of any evidence that comes to our attentionthat all may not be in accord with the way we understood it to be.

Senator HEFFERNAN—You answered the question I was going to ask, but I willask a further one. We have heard a lot this morning about the eradication but not thecomplete eradication of the risk of newcastle disease entering Australia with cooked meatthrough heat processing of the actual product. What consideration have you given to thepackaging of the product where this disease can actually attach itself to the packaging—cardboard cartons, et cetera—and be brought into Australia? Are we going to treat thepackaging?

Dr Kahn —The key consideration there is, as with any cooked meat product, forpublic health and food safety reasons there has to be a very high standard of hygiene—andthis is generally delivered by quality control methods as well as government involvement



or inspection involvement—in the areas where you are handling and packaging cookedmeat. If there is any opportunity for contamination to get onto the surface of cooked meatas a ready to eat product then potentially that product is going to be consumed bysomebody without further cooking the meat. So in any plant that is processing a cookedmeat product such as this cooked chicken meat there has to be very strict attention to thehygiene and, as I say, usually strict quality controls in the areas where they handle andpackage the final product.

The opportunity for contamination of packaging materials again has really got toarise through, say, faecal contamination or buccal fragments or something of this naturecontaminating packaging materials, and there has been an emphasis throughout thisprocess by AQIS on strict controls and strict prevention of post-processing contamination.And that goes to the question of the packaging material used as well.

Senator HEFFERNAN—But how will you actually test the packaging?

Dr Kahn —We will not be testing the packaging.

Senator HEFFERNAN—So if it is contaminated and gets past the qualityassurance procedures, you will not know whether it is contaminated or not?

Dr Kahn —In a sense, I suppose when you raise the issue of testing, we areproposing to test for contamination by organisms like salmonella and campylobacterwhich, if present on the meat—the cooked meat—would be an indicator that some faecalcontamination had occurred post-processing. As with any country that is dealing againwith a cooked, ready to eat meat product you expect there to be a zero contamination ratefrom these faecal organisms. If those tests revealed that there was, in fact, faecal contami-nation, then the product would be rejected; it would not be accepted as being fit forhuman consumption—in the same way that an Australian cooked ready to eat meatproduct would similarly be rejected if there was evidence of faecal contamination on thesurface. So that gives you an indication of whether contamination is occurring, eventhough we are not specifically testing for newcastle disease virus.

Senator HEFFERNAN—So what you are saying is that there is no way to test thepackaging other than to have quality assurance procedures. If I walk out into the yard withgumboots on in one of these factories and come back where they are packaging the stuffand I drop something off my boots and it gets into the packaging, you are not going toknow?

Dr Kahn —If the plant allowed somebody wearing gumboots to come in from thefarm and walk into a cooked meat area—

Senator HEFFERNAN—That is not the point I am trying to make, though. If thathappened—and I guess I would be very surprised if occasionally it does not happen



despite all the quality assurances—there is no way that we can actually test the packagingunder what you are proposing?

Mr Hickey —I think the point that Dr Kahn is making is that, as with any reviewof our meat plants, say, by USDA reviewers, there are reviews of the stores in whichpackaging material is held to ensure that there is no obvious fallout or contamination inthere. They check for adequate rodent protection, protection from flies and insects and thelike. Equally, in the review that is to be done of the Thai plants, we would look forevidence of adequate control of packaging materials. But to extend that to the point oftesting for these viruses on that material, the answer is no.

Mr Gascoine—Senator, as well, I think we would have to acknowledge that ifthere is some probability, however small, that there might be contamination on packag-ing—and, as Mr Hickey said earlier, there is no question of zero risk—there would stillremain the question of what the probability is of that contamination transferring some kindof disease of concern to the relevant species in Australia. So we need to think our way allthe way through the chain to arrive at some kind of understanding of what risk ispresented by the possibility of contamination on packaging. We have to look at all of theelements, not just one of the elements.

Senator HEFFERNAN—But is there a paper that demonstrates that you havedone that?

Mr Gascoine—I do not believe there is a paper on that subject, Senator, butcertainly in our consideration of the risks associated with imported chicken meat we haveconsidered the various pathways by which pest or disease would enter Australia, including,potentially, on contaminated packaging.

CHAIR —Can I follow up on what Senator Heffernan has been asking there. Ibelieve we were told in Maitland with regard to the initial importation of cooked chickenmeat into Australia that each boat load or aircraft consignment would be tested, then itwould go to one in five, then it would go to one in 20. Is that correct?

Mr Hickey —I will just get Mr Bailey to run through the steps for you, MrChairman.

CHAIR —I am sorry if some of these things came up in that paper you hadbeforehand. It was a long paper and there are obviously some additional questions that wewill put to you.

Mr Hickey —No, I understand. Mr Bailey has got that information.

Mr Bailey —The frequency of inspection is in fact determined by the risk assess-ment of the products as determined by the National Food Authority. For a risk food—and



bear in mind that the indications are that cooked chicken meat will be deemed a riskfood—

Senator BOB COLLINS—It seems to be the case in South Australia.

Mr Bailey —The inspection frequency would commence at one in one. Everyconsignment from every individual supplier would be tested and would continue to betested until there were five consecutive pass results. If there is a failure, the sequencecommences again. There must be five consecutive. When that milestone is reached there isa relaxation in the frequency of inspection back to one in four for that supplier—and I amtalking here about individual suppliers—and the frequency is maintained at one in fouruntil there are a further 20 consecutive cleared consignments and there can then be afurther relaxation.

That frequency is for uncertified risk food from anywhere in the world—uncertifiedrisk food. There is provision within the Imported Food Control Act for AQIS to accredit aforeign government food inspection agency for the purposes of certifying goods beforethey depart as a risk food, and the act provides for us to put in place an audit regime toverify the accuracy of the statements that are provided by the certifying body. The actsays that that frequency shall be no less than one in 20 shipments—five per cent. But ashas been indicated earlier, we have the facility within the act to determine the auditfrequency based on the performance of the certifying body.

Senator HEFFERNAN—Can I ask a follow-up question to that? Who do youimagine a supplier is? Is a supplier a label or a plant?

Mr Bailey —No, we go back to plant. And certainly, for risk foods where we havegot a process such as we have got here, we can take it back to plant level and we maintaina profile on every plant. But obviously where you are consolidating goods such aspeanuts, for example, and they are being brought in from various areas, we take it back toat least the person who was the exporter—the identifiable exporter—and if we have aproblem we then try and have that filtered back out to the individual suppliers or growingareas.

CHAIR —What is a consignment?

Mr Bailey —Again, the act provides for the size of a sample to be determined onthe size of the consignment and we break that right down to batches, and batches aretypically a single day’s production. But a consignment in terms of the definition in the actis a line entry into the customs import system. So in some cases it might be, for example,five containers but for the purposes of drawing a sample we then break that down intohow many batches are covered by the line entry—the import entry.

CHAIR —Let me try and get this into layman’s terms that I understand. We were



told, for example, at Maitland that meat was going from Australia into South Africa—Ithink it was meat, but I would have to go back and actually check the record—and thatevery tonne was tested. This seems to be a lot tougher regime for us getting meat intoSouth Africa than for what we are getting into Australia. I know what a tonne of meat is,but when you say, ‘for every line’, is that a container, or is it five containers? Is it atonne, or is it 10 tonnes; a semi-trailer load, or an aircraft load?

Mr Bailey —If somebody brought in a container of cooked chicken meat, thatperson would have to declare to us how many days’ production were covered in thatcontainer. We would then determine the sample that would need to be drawn, based onthose individual batches in the container. If the person brought in a container which hadonly a single day’s production, from a human health point of view, we would say, ‘Ifthere is a contaminant in this, it will be uniform throughout the load.’ We would thendraw a single sample.

Mr Hickey —The practice certainly varies internationally. It depends on the riskassessment processes of each of the countries involved. As another example, at the heightof the concerns about CFZ in Australian product, Japan was asking us to draw one sampleper 300 cartons of meat. There is not necessarily a prescribed international standard thatneeds to be followed here; it depends on the risk assessment processes of the countryitself. And like any requirements on us these days, under WTO procedures there has to besome adequate technical explanation as to the intensity of the sampling regime.

Senator HEFFERNAN—The sampling regime you envisage is in Australia, is itnot? It is not back over there?

Mr Bailey —If we were not to accredit the Department of Livestock Developmentas a certifying body, yes, that would be the case. We would sample the product on arrival.If we accredit them, we will take their certificates as the basis for facilitating the entry,but we would carry out verification checks here at a lower frequency.

Senator HEFFERNAN—I would have thought that it would make sense to test itover there, supervised by one of our guys.

CHAIR —If it has a certificate over there, what does that verification process hereconstitute?

Mr Bailey —Perhaps I need to go back one step. The process of accreditation is avery detailed process and, typically, we need to evaluate the competency and the infra-structure of the agency that is seeking an accreditation. We would need to know thelegislative basis on which they exist; the qualifications of the inspectors that they employ;the nature and frequency of inspection they undertake; the extent to which their industryhas adopted quality control of quality assurance measures and some other inspectiontechniques that are internationally recognised, and the process of accreditation of their



laboratories. So we go through that process in a very detailed way before we accredit. Andthen the verification checks that we carry out here are largely to ensure that there is abroad consistency between what they tell us and what we find. And if there is not, thenthe alarm bells go off and we have a basis to go back and say that something appears tobe breaking down in the system.

Senator HEFFERNAN—Are you saying though that you could actually be lessthan 100 per cent with your accreditation at the point of processing, but still get intoAustralia by passing a test at the wharf here?

Mr Bailey —That is happening now with any number of other foods. But remem-ber, I am responding to your question in relation to the human health aspects, not inrelation to the quarantine side. I can tell you that before the Imported Food Inspection Actwas passed in 1993, there was risk food, as now determined, coming in here without anychecks. And we have now sought to compensate for that by a range of testing measures ofthe final product on arrival. But as far as we can, we accredit competent food inspectionagencies overseas to certify pre-shipment.

Senator HEFFERNAN—Would you agree though, in best practice, that in anideal situation you should have the accreditation over there and the double-check here aswell?

Mr Bailey —Absolutely. And that is provided for in the act.

Senator HEFFERNAN—Are we going to provide for that in this process? Aren’twe shooting for best practice—or just maybe?

Mr Bailey —We are, in fact, considering a submission from the Thai Departmentof Livestock Development to certify pre-shipment. We are going through that process Ihave described to you of evaluating all of the information they have provided to us whichwould underpin the certificates they would provide. There have been cases with somesubmissions from some countries where we have felt that there was not a basis to accreditand we have continued our testing of risk foods on arrival at this end.

Senator HEFFERNAN—The difficulty I have if we do not do that is that anycountries that we attempt to export to that I have been involved with tell us to go to hellunless we get our accreditation right.

Mr Bailey —The term ‘principle of equivalence’ has been used here again thismorning. We need to be satisfied that we can have confidence in the documentationcoming to us, and obviously the importing countries that Australia is supplying to makethe same judgment about AQIS, or whatever other body claims to be in a position toprovide certification of compliance with their food safety or food standards requirements.



CHAIR —If I understand your answer to the question correctly, you have said thatin terms of the Australian leg, if you like, of the testing process it is done for humanhealth purposes. Is that also done in terms of testing for any of these viruses and new-castle disease? Is that included in the test in this lead-in process?

Mr Bailey —Perhaps I can refer that question back to Dr Kahn. But clearly, at thebarrier, our food inspectors share that point with their quarantine colleagues and they needto be satisfied that there is a valid import permit in existence and that, between theimported foods inspectors and the quarantine inspectors, they have satisfied themselvesthat the protocols have been complied with.

CHAIR —Let me make the question very, very simple if I can. When the firstcontainer load arrives here—and let’s say it is a container load with one day’s meat inthere; you have not got to split it up into five—will that be tested to assess whether or notthere is newcastle disease or any of these other viruses that have been referred to by anumber of witnesses?

Dr Kahn —It is not proposed to test for poultry viruses. We have had discussionson a few occasions with industry and scientific organisations on the possibilities that couldbe used for testing. There is a number of difficulties with testing at the point of impact totry and establish whether meat is completely free from a range of pathogens of possibleinterest. Certainly the considered opinion from AQIS and from the scientists we haveconsulted with is that, for a number of reasons, it is not appropriate, it is not especiallyfeasible, it would be very costly and it would not shed a great deal of additional informa-tion on the status of the meat coming in. So we are not proposing to test. We can expandon the details for that if you wish.

CHAIR —So from the time the chicken meat is treated for newcastle disease atwherever the works may be, there is no further test from that time to when it is consumedas to whether or not it may or may not be carrying, or have, post-contamination?

Dr Kahn —It will not be tested for avian viruses. It will be tested for organismswhich are of public health concern which, as I said earlier—

CHAIR —Yes, I know; I have got that clear. This has certainly cleared upsomething for me because I have been under the impression, until this point in time, thatthat regime I talked about—the one in five or the one in four as it was clarified to be—applied to the viruses that are of concern to the chicken meat industry.

If I can now move to another subject, Senator Collins has covered a number of theletters—and we do not have time to go through them all today—but the one from PeterBoard of 28 September 1994 also relates to some of Dr Alexander’s work. It says:

In my opinion AQIS should postpone any decision on the importation of pasteurised chicken meat



products until the heat resistance of all strains of IBD viruses are measured in a range of chickenproducts. It would be a reckless act to base the heat processes for imported chicken meat productson Dr Alexander’s heat resistance data even though I am sure his measurements are sound.

Mr Hickey in his opening statement related to some other sources that you referred to interms of this above and beyond Dr Alexander, but the problem—and I think SenatorCollins drew this out—that lay people like myself, and I am speaking for myself, have incoming to grips with this is that, in view of the concerns that have been expressed, and DrHickey’s earlier answer to the fact that there have been actually no tests done on chickenmeat, is why AQIS in doing this assessment did not go that further step which wouldabsolutely clarify it once and for all. Why were the heat treatment tests not carried out onchicken meat to clarify it? In view of the concerns that have been expressed through therange of letters that we have read now and changing positions and I guess conflictingevidence that has been put before us, why didn’t you authorise that process and get it doneto clear it up once and for all? Secondly, what would be the cost if in fact you wentthrough that process? Has any assessment been done on that? To give you a lead, I amtold it could be done for £100,000, which is roughly $A200,000, which to me seems aninfinitesimal amount of money when you look at the whole question.

Mr Hickey —Senator, in general terms, and I am speaking as Mr Hickey, not DrHickey—

CHAIR —Sorry. Did I lift your status?

Mr Hickey —In general terms, we need to go back to the fundamental question,and that is the elements of conservatism that have been built onto the work that DrAlexander has done and confirm with whatever other information has been published thatI have referred to in the various citations that have been given in the earlier papers, andthe universal agreement amongst scientists that IBDV represents the most heat-resistantdisease of concern in this context.

The question of the differing heat resistance of various strains of IBD wasdiscussed in the BRS paper certainly, if not in the earlier paper, and the proposition thatevery conceivable strain would need to be tested would require, in our case, presumablythe use of the high security laboratory at AAHL, and agreement with various industryrepresentatives in this country that we should import the live virus into this country for thepurpose of doing those tests. Inevitably, in any discussion on these scientific matters,people can raise a doubt in the minds of people such as myself and yourself, untilscientific experiments are conducted to the nth degree. When they have been done, there isthen the question not only of difference between strains and their resistance to varioustests, but also of ‘Can you reliably extrapolate laboratory test outcomes into a fieldsituation?’

In other words, what I am saying is that there is not a simple answer to the



question you are asking if you were seeking to satisfy every conceivable concern thatmight be addressed through a potential testing regime. The advice that we have fromAAHL is that testing for viruses of chicken meat in high security laboratories wouldcertainly be a very expensive process. I do not know that we actually have specific figureson that, but Dr Kahn might like to elaborate on the issue of variation between strains.

Dr Kahn —I think that there are two issues here. The thing that Board is pursuingin his paper is that specific scientific experiments should be done to validate or furtherverify some of the data that AQIS is using. There is also the question that has been raisedfrom time to time about the usefulness in testing meat as it is actually imported to verifythat under the commercial conditions that the treatment is preventing any sort of viruscontamination.

Those really are two different questions. In either case, what Mr Hickey says isquite correct: if you are trying to track down definitive and absolute advice you need to doquite large experiments and they need to be done under very stringent conditions. Eventhen you are still going to get differences of scientific opinion and interpretation which isthe sort of thing that we are hearing about today really; the fact that scientists, likeeconomists, can come up with different constructions on the result of any report or datathat you care to look at.

There is good, broad agreement that Alexander’s work provides a sound basis fordeveloping a quarantine protocol. I am talking of the fundamental scientific work here, Iam not implying that there is broad agreement on such matters as the practical implemen-tation of the protocols.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Dr Khan, you have succeeded in terrifying me withequating scientific analysis with economic analysis, I have to say!

Dr Kahn —To go on and try to track down absolutes which would be beyonddispute by scientists in terms of efficacy of heat treatment processes and also this questionof how repeatable and how reliable commercial processes will be, that would be anextremely long-term and costly thing to try to undertake. Certainly, our advice from theBRS is that there is no necessity to do that, and that advice is confirmed by the AnimalHealth Laboratory.

CHAIR —Nonetheless, in terms of the commercial introduction of chicken meat—and that is what we are talking about—and no testing being done on that, it just seems tome that the logical step in terms of these viruses, bearing in mind that we are fundamen-tally free, would be to actually carry out the tests on chicken meat. Why does it have tobe done in Australia? As I understand it, Alexander’s work on egg yolk was done in theUnited Kingdom, not in Australia.

Dr Kahn —To have confidence, though, that you knew the status in quarantine



terms of a container load of chicken meat, to have any statistical validity, you would needto test a very large quantity of product. If one were to go and draw one or three or sixsamples from an entire container load of meat, you would immediately have scientificarguments that your samples were simply not representative of that quantity of product. Iwould just put that in as a single example of the practical difficulties. Although it doessound easy to say that we will simply test the meat, a considerable quantity of sampleswould need to be tested. You might find that some scientists would argue for 300 samplesper container of meat.

CHAIR —In terms of that and the work that Alexander did on egg yolk, surely hegot some egg yolk that was known to be contaminated and tested that. Would not theprocess be to get some chicken meat that you know is contaminated by these viruses anddo the heat test on that?

Dr Kahn —Some of that work has already been done, and it is still a disputedmatter. I suppose it is questionable that if more work were done that would address all thepoints of disputation. I am suggesting that perhaps it would not, because it would beanother scientific study and there would be arguments about the merits of the experimentaldesign, the statistical validity and whether all possible strains were addressed. These sortsof issues would still be the subject of healthy debate.

CHAIR —Let me ask again. We were told earlier in the day in a correction to aquestion by Mr Hickey that, in fact, it had not been tested on chicken meat.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Not for newcastle disease.

Mr Hickey —Not for newcastle disease. Again, I come back to a point which isnot being disputed: IBD virus is the most heat resistant of the diseases of concern thathave been identified; and the fact is that there has been work, other than Dr Alexander’s,done in relation to the heat resistance of IBD virus in various other forms.

CHAIR —One of these plants is going to be put in there to apply the heat processto chicken meat which, if this process goes through, will commercially come to Australia;and we have been told that it will kill off the virus to a level where it will be a minimalrisk, if not killed off totally. That is what we have been told. I presume these cookingplants are around the world somewhere, so why can’t you go somewhere and just have itdone, and then test the meat and come back and report to us prior to the protocols? Thiswas 1994, when it was suggested that this be done. It seems to me to be a very logicalstep in the process.

Dr Kahn —Bringing it back to this whole issue about newcastle disease, as DrAlexander has stated in correspondence, the key thing for these quarantine conditions is toprevent the entry of newcastle disease.



CHAIR —We all agree on that.

Dr Kahn —Yes. Really, though, there is no veterinary virologist of any sort ofrepute and standing who is currently doubting that these proposed time and temperatureparameters are not safe in terms of the inactivation of newcastle disease virus. Again, Ispeak of the fundamental science here, not of the practical implementation of the proto-cols. There is really no serious scientific dispute or concern that these conditions willreliably inactivate newcastle disease virus with a very wide range of safety.

CHAIR —I will finish on this, but we will all have to go back and look at theactualHansardof what was given to us. We had three scientists at Maitland who spoke.Also, in terms of the letter from Dr Alexander and the one from Peter Board which says‘Dr Alexander and I have similar concerns about the way that AQIS have interpreted hisdata’—and the extrapolation—that point is made quite clear in Alexander’s letter, in myunderstanding of the English language.

Senator HEFFERNAN—Going back to my original proposition about the increasein risk of importing chicken meat from a country that is knowingly well infected withnewcastle disease, as opposed to a country that is not infected, I find it illogical that theonly way we are going to know if the cooking procedures and processes have not workedis when we have had an outbreak of the disease in Australia, given that we are not goingto test it when it gets here. Surely the price to pay, given that you people are insisting thatwe can import this stuff from a country that is heavily infected with the disease, is to atleast let the Australian people have the comfort of the fact that, when it gets here, it willbe tested for the disease.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I think that that is a political rather than a scientificquestion.

Senator HEFFERNAN—Can I push it one bit further, then? I asked about this outin the corridor a while ago, and there is a practical sense to this, and there is a cost tothis. You people supervised the importation of the lupin seed that is now infected with adisease that is going to destroy the Western Australian lupin crop, and you now say it isup to the states to contain it in the west and that it is not your job. You have let it in, butit is someone else’s problem now. Are we going to have the same thing with chickenmeat, if we get newcastle disease here? Why would we not test the thing before we let iton to the market?

Mr Hickey —For handling exotic pest and disease incursions of both animals andplants, there are established procedures that do involve state governments, because thereare interstate as well as national quarantine issues at stake.

Senator HEFFERNAN—Do you think that is a worthwhile answer, though, giventhe fact that we are trying to minimise the risk of getting disease into Australia? Do you



think that is a worthwhile answer to a lupin farmer over in Western Australia?

Mr Hickey —We come back to the advice that we are required to give, consistentwith government policy. We have outlined that now over a period of six years. We havesought confirmation of our judgment in relation to this matter from other independentsources of advice, including state governments, the BRS, the Australian VeterinaryAssociation, and the Australian Animal Health Laboratory. We are not conducting thiswhole assessment behind closed doors.

We have spent enormous amounts of time in this parliament and in meetings withthe various groups and in phone discussions with various groups on this matter, and at theend of the day there has not been fundamental disagreement about the basic science. Therehas been concern about the applicability of the conditions that would have to be deliveredon to guarantee that science. That is the fundamental point we have come to.

Senator HEFFERNAN—But do you not think that consideration should be givenby you people to reassess what is a fair thing in this issue and perhaps give seriousconsideration to the test of the product, here or when it leaves the wharf over there, to seewhether the cooking process actually worked? The only way we are going to know if ithas failed under what you are proposing is when we have got the disease here.

Mr Hickey —You are raising questions about the consistency of the level of riskthat needs to be applied. I will refer the question to the minister and he can address yourconcerns.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Just for the advice of the committee, I have actuallygot quite a few more questions and that assessment that I gave is going to be a bit outseeing as I have not asked one for half an hour. I think Mr Hickey has hit the nail firmlyon the head with his last answer.

If I could just explain, when I said political, I accept the scientific basis on whichDr Kahn has made that assessment. I understand the reason why and that is why I said itwas a political question in that sense and I think Mr Hickey has nailed it. I have the samedifficulty that you have, and the Chairman has, and we have all got it. It may be up to theminister.

I think I could probably safely say, Mr Hickey, at this stage that even though itmight be in pure scientific terms a mug conclusion, and you have probably already got thedrift of this this morning, you can possibly expect a recommendation from this committeethat a lump of cooked chicken meat should be tested for newcastle disease. I think that isprobably a fairly safe thing to say. That is why I think I said your answer was spot on inthe sense that AQIS have satisfied themselves in terms of the scientific material that thisother virus is in fact considerably more heat resistant.



It is a political question in the industry. I understand it—and perhaps the represen-tatives of the industry at some stage might want to respond to it—but if you are a chickengrower in the Hunter Valley it is difficult if you want belt and braces on this to under-stand why at, I would have thought, reasonable expense there could have been sometesting done on chicken meat, similar to that that will actually be imported into Australia,which has been deliberately infected.

I do not think it has to be done in Australia, so I do not think the question of livevirus is one that necessarily has to follow. Speaking for myself, even though it might notmake much scientific sense, I would probably anticipate that would be one of therecommendations of the committee. In that sense, Mr Hickey is absolutely right. It is opento the minister, of course, to suggest and he could have suggested at some stage that thisbe done.

Can I just clean up some questions? There has been a lot of concentration here thismorning on inspections in Thailand. Just for the record, is it intended to inspect plants ineither the USA or Denmark?

CHAIR —Can I just make a point here? I am not stopping you, but we have hadAQIS here for a long time. We will let this run through, and then we may have to getback again or talk to you again about it. Is everyone happy about that?

Senator BOB COLLINS—I will keep boxing on until you take an executivedecision.

Mr Hickey —This is an important point. We are currently in the process ofnegotiating a veterinary agreement with the European Union which governs the conditionsunder which our products export to the European Union. We are under threat that from 1January next year very substantial restrictions will be put on our product in terms of pointof entry testing, like many of the things that have been discussed here today which we areseeking to have not applied. Dr Kahn and Mr Gascoine will be involved in negotiations inBrussels on those matters over the course of the next week and a half. In other words, wewould not be available to come back here to talk on any technical matters. I could speakto you on general matters if that were necessary but I flag that as a potential problem forus. It is simply not possible to defer those discussions, unfortunately.

CHAIR —I understand that.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I am conscious of that too, Mr Chairman. I do notthink it is reasonable to keep calling people back. I would like to finish it today. If itmeans the very minor sacrifice and, in my own personal case, positive contribution of nothaving lunch at all, I would be very happy to box on through the lunch hour.

Mr Hickey —So would I.



Senator BOB COLLINS—Fine. Could you answer the question, Mr Hickey, as towhether any inspections are proposed in either Denmark or the United States?

Mr Hickey —We are not proposing to do initial preregistration reviews of the kindthat are proposed for Thailand but we will be undertaking random surveys of exportingplants.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Thank you. I have got some questions on the 1994position paper. On page 6 of the report it states that a consultant for the AustralianChicken Growers Council commented in detail about the inadequacy of using the heatinactivation measurements made by Dr Alexander as the basis for the heat treatmentparameters proposed by AQIS and, in the summary of comments from the respondentssection which is contained on page 16 of that report, it states:

Consultant 2 describes the use of Alexander’s data as a basis for specifying minimum cookingtreatments as unjustified and possibly dangerous. Requirements do not include a safety margin toallow for physical variables inherent in commercial operations.

The reason I wanted to raise that is that there was evidence given at Maitland from anofficer from Inghams in respect of significant variations in temperatures within the state-of-the-art ovens, as he described them, that are used by Inghams. From memory—correctme if I am wrong—he said that they routinely detect temperature variations of up to eightdegrees Centigrade in the same oven, depending on what spot you are testing and what theconditions are.

The question I want to ask Dr Kahn is: in respect of that evidence given fromInghams, which I do not question, and in respect of the concerns that have been raisedearlier by consultants to the industry on this very issue, is AQIS confident that theconservatism of the temperature and time parameters that you have set will easily take intoaccount variations in the practical operation of cooking chicken meat that were laid downin Maitland?

Dr Kahn —Certainly the industries raised these issues with us at the meeting wehad in July of the technical working group that would look at the practical implementationof the protocols. AQIS’s proposal as per the circular memorandum 96/32 is that the ovenshave to be fitted with thermographs which automatically record the time and temperaturethat the product has been cooked at and that thermograph records must be kept for at leasttwo years in respect of any consignment for export or exported to Australia.

The industry did indicate that they would give us advice out of the Inghams plantsas to appropriate means of calibrating these sorts of recording devices with the actualtemperature delivered. We are still awaiting that information but we did agree thatwhatever information they would bring up we would look at and if appropriate we coulduse that as a guideline or as a reference of some sort when we advise foreign plants of thestandards we must meet. Where that rests at this stage is that we are still awaiting that



information coming forward from industry and we have agreed to look at it.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Fine, but you would agree, and it surprised me as anon-oven operator, that eight degrees Centigrade is a significant temperature variation interms of how crucial these times are? You would agree that it is a very important issue,would you not?

Dr Kahn —Yes, it is an important issue.

Senator BOB COLLINS—You could have a thermograph on the oven whichsimply, of course, indicates whatever temperature the sensor was at but the evidence thatwas given was that within the same oven you can have particular point variations of up toeight degrees Centigrade in the actual temperatures.

Dr Kahn —In commercial cooking operations of whatever sort it is pretty wellknown that you can have colder spots in an overall heat chamber and the normal way youwould approach that is by having some system to calibrate. You would work out whereyour coldest spot was, locate probes there and then be able to calibrate that against therecord that you were getting. We are quite happy to look at detailed industry advice on thebest way to do that.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Yes, but this is not some minor marginal issue thatsimply has to be cleaned up afterwards. It is absolutely central to maintaining theprotocols for a particular internal temperature at a particular time, is it not?

Dr Kahn —Yes. We are talking about core temperatures of meat as well, ratherthan oven temperatures.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Thank you. So it is a core issue, not a non-core issue?

Dr Kahn —That is right, yes.

Senator BOB COLLINS—In respect to that report that I have just quoted, AQISsought advice from the BRS and I have got that advice here. That was contained atappendix A of the May 1994 AQIS paper. The first paragraph under the heading ‘Com-ments on terms of reference in relation to literature review’ said:

Unfortunately, the literature contains little of the direct information sought by AQIS.

Rather than asking these questions separately—if you want to come back then by allmeans do—because of the time constraints I might encompass all of the concerns I hadabout particular responses in this BRS document that has been quoted a number of timesthis morning.



There was that quote on page 9:

Unfortunately, the literature contains little of the direct information sought by AQIS.

On page 11 of the same report under the sub-heading ‘Review of published data on theheat stability of various strains of IBD virus and its thermal stability in chicken meat asdistinct from cultural broth’, that is the thing we are all getting at, the laboratory and thefield, the report states:

The times provided by Alexander (1988) in the AQIS Discussion Paper for the probability ofinfectivity . . .

and then it goes on with the technical data:

. . . refer to the initial level of virus used in the trial, and do not have more general application. Therates of inactivation calculated seem the best available but the inactivation times of the twotemperatures used need to take into account starting levels of contamination.

You can refresh my memory but I thought much earlier this morning you did canvass thequestion of the starting levels of contamination that are used as a significant qualificationin this BRS report. Is that correct?

Mr Hickey —I refer to the BRS report on page 11 where it says:

The IBD virus titre used by Alexander was in the order of 104.6 50% chicken infective doses permillilitre of homogenate. This is about a 10-fold lower titre than would usually be expected fromhomogenised bursae, based on published data, but is possibly 1000-fold higher than might beexpected from chicken meat collected from a viraemic bird or contaminated during processing withfaeces or bursal fragments.

What it did not go on to say but which is also generally agreed amongst the scientificgroups is that the concentration of virus in a viraemic bird, a diseased bird, or contami-nated directly with faeces or bursal fragments in turn would be higher than that likely tobe found in a vaccinated clinically normal but nevertheless virus carrying bird.

When I talk about gradations in the sort of risk factor, what you are doing thereobviously is working down from Alexander’s starting point of 104.6 to a situation where ifthe conditions that we apply including only clinical birds being part of the processingsystem, you would be getting to very much lower starting concentrations of the virus.

One other point has been drawn to my attention which I think we also should add,and that is that on page 9 of the paper relevant to your reference—correctly—in the BRSreport to the literature containing little of the direct information sought by AQIS, the BRSgoes on to say:



Much of the early literature on IBD dealt with issues pertinent to this review; tissue distribution,pathogenesis and physicochemical stability of the causative virus.

I am sure you would agree this is a balanced review of all of the issues that had to beconsidered.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I do agree. In terms of the discussion we have had heretoday, the key term of reference is No. 4, and that is:

Advise whether sufficient information is available to determine a thermal processing standard toremove any quarantine risk associated with the importation of chicken meat and, if so, the thermalprocess that is appropriate.

It then goes on to say—and this, again, for a lay person is obviously of concern—that:

It is not possible to unequivocally state the temperature conditions to which chicken meat besubjected in order to remove any IBD quarantine risk. Accurate data are not available on:

. virus levels in chicken meat

. the infective oral dose.

Dr Kahn —I think that goes to the point that we were discussing earlier about thedifficulty in getting absolute data and in having scientists state that there is ‘absolutely norisk’ or ‘every chance’, or to get absolute statements is quite difficult. But Dr Gard goeson to say that there is a good basis for establishing quarantine requirements for imports.

Senator BOB COLLINS—That is right, but then in the following paragraph theconcerns of a lay reader are raised. We have had IBD all along, and I am not arguing it.We have the IBD virus in activation used as the absolute parameter for determining theseissues. The BRS report says that it is not possible to unequivocally state that these thingswould remove any quarantine risk, but it then goes on to say:

Table 7, page 23, of the AQIS Discussion Paper, extrapolates the inactivation rates for 72, 75 and77°C, but inactivation data at these temperatures, or knowledge of the mechanism of IBDthermoinactivation, are not available for this extrapolation to be made.

Which, to the lay reader, seems to say that it was not open to AQIS to make thisextrapolation scientifically. Is that a correct interpretation of what has been said here?

Dr Kahn —In fact, I would also draw your attention to the advice from DrAlexander, where he says that it is appropriate to extrapolate, providing you have takeninto account all the relevant considerations. In work done subsequent to this 1994 paper,AQIS has calculated values and has interpolated, but not extrapolated outside of that rangefrom 70 to 80 degrees, and we have proposed time temperature parameters that fall at 72,



74, 76 and 78 degrees, but that is within the range of temperatures studied by Alexander.The validity of that work has been confirmed by an independent statistician, and also bythe biometricians at the bureau. So we can provide additional information.

Senator BOB COLLINS—That is fine. I was aware of the apparent conflictbetween what this paragraph said and what Alexander said, which is why I raised it. Fromwhat you have just said to me in terms of subsequent work and so on, are you saying thenthat the statement made here by the BRS is wrong? They say that the extrapolation cannotbe made; you are saying, rightly, that Alexander said it could, and you have subsequentlydone it. Does that mean that this statement is not correct, or at least that you disagree withit?

Dr Kahn —I think we are coming back again to the sort of requirements thatscientists have when they seek to make absolute statements or to be absolutely authorita-tive in something. As we have proposed all along, there are time-temperature parametersand there are a range of other conditions that support the final quarantine protocol.Certainly, the additional work that has been done looking at these time-temperatureparameters between 70 and 80 degrees has been supported by the bureau.

Senator BOB COLLINS—All right. On page 23, the discussion paper says thatthe technical case to allow the importation of cooked poultry meat from the USA,Thailand and Denmark is strong if it can be demonstrated that pathogens of concern arereliably inactivated and a variety of conditions stipulated by AQIS, including post-processing contamination, are in place to minimise disease risks. The paper then goes onto spell out those conditions: the meat has been treated at the following minimum coretemperatures for the period of time stated, and it lists those—70 degrees for 90 minutesand up to 80 degrees for 15 minutes; the chicken meat originated from the exportingcountry; the chickens came from farms approved by AQIS; the chickens were processed inAQIS approved plants; the meat was derived from healthy chickens free from clinicaldisease; clinical ND and AI had not occurred in the farms for the past six months; and theveterinary authority from the country concerned to provide plant inspection certificationpertaining to the general hygiene and post-processing handling and storage.

The draft protocol that was attached to the May 1994 position paper makes noreference to AQIS approval of farms from which the chickens are sourced. In relation tothe approval processes for processing plants, the protocol provides for AQIS or anauthority in the exporting country, and there is no reference to the position paper require-ment that ND and AI be absent from farms for a period of six months. I am just wonder-ing if you could explain why those original requirements were not pursued?

Mr Hickey —The 1991 position paper, as I have said a number of times now, wasdeveloped in the context of applications for the import of various kinds of chicken meatproducts, cooked and uncooked, fresh, frozen et cetera. The paper that was developed atthat time, and as you have observed from the report of the veterinary officer who had been



in Thailand at the time, was seeking to address the range of potential imported productsthat might be coming into this country. After the 1991 review, the decision was taken tofocus only on cooked chicken meat—a very conscious decision that was taken in the lightof the responses that had been given to the 1991 paper.

We have been working under a clear understanding that there was virtuallyuniversal agreement to the efficacy of the time-temperature parameters that were pre-scribed and, on my reading of the July letter from the industry, had that confirmed asrecently as a month or so ago. In the light of there being agreement on that fundamentalprecept, that the time-temperature parameters would reliably inactivate the diseases ofconcern, the draft conditions were devised. As I said in my opening statement, it seemsthat some people are seeking to re-open the question of the reliability of the fundamentalscientific parameters.

We have had all of the information that has been provided to this committeethrough the public hearings provided again to the BRS and AAHL and asked them toconfirm whether there was any new information which would cause them to revise theirjudgments. The advice is that there is not and that the judgments still stand. So we havedeveloped a set of conditions that operate from that fundamental precept, that is, that thetime-temperature parameters will deactivate the viruses of concern. That, fundamentally, isthe reason for the shift in emphasis from 1991, when we were dealing with all possibleproducts, to now, when we are dealing only with cooked chicken meat.

Senator BOB COLLINS—In the 1994 document, under section 2d, you specifythat the product must be derived from premises under the supervision of the veterinaryauthority of the country of export. In the 1996 version, under section 2e, this requirementhas been changed—the change may have no real effect and I just wanted to test that—toread that officials of the veterinary authority of the country of export must be present inthe plants, rather than under the supervision of the veterinary authority from the country ofexport. Is there any particular reason for that change?

Mr Hickey —It simply requires the full-time presence on the plant of a veterinaryofficer, whereas ‘under the supervision of’ may mean some sort of intermittent or drop-intype basis.

Senator BOB COLLINS—So your interpretation, and I would have to say itwould be the same as mine, is that in real terms the requirement has been tightened tosome degree.

Mr Hickey —Yes.

Dr Kahn —It has also been rewritten a little bit. You need to read that and alsoread the certification requirements because, for example, on this issue of ante mortem andpost mortem inspection, that states ‘under official veterinary supervision’. So the intent of



the thing is that officials are in the plants at all times when processing for export toAustralia, and then such things as ante and post mortem inspection must take place underveterinary supervision as well.

Senator BOB COLLINS—The reason I am asking these questions is that, goingback to that report from Dr Wilson, in that report he advised that DLD, that the Thaidepartment vets were present, but that the actual reporting of disease—we canvassed this alittle earlier—was a matter for the company veterinarians. For that reason I was concernedabout the difference between ‘presence’ and ‘supervision’. That is the reason I raised thosequestions, because of that differentiation he made. In the 1994 version, for example, underthe heading ‘Certification’ it states, ‘A certificate issued by a government veterinaryofficer.’ But in the 1996 version under the same heading it states, ‘A certificate in Englishendorsed by an official veterinarian of the exporting country,’ which is also a change.

Dr Kahn —I think that really just relates that the years have moved on and we areusing slightly different terminology, but the key thing is the certification that has to beprovided. It does not actually appear in the circular memorandum quite exactly but, asdrawn to our attention by the industry and as confirmed and written up in a draft reportwhich is now with industry for their comment or response, the veterinary certification isgoing to be to the effect that the chickens have passed ante mortem and post morteminspection and were clinically healthy at the time of slaughter, so it comes back to thesame thing.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I was hoping it would. There is one statement, DrKahn, that has been attributed to you, and I know you would be familiar with this becauseit has been contained in press statements and so on, that perhaps it would be useful toclarify: the industry believes, of course, that the general locality from which chickens aredrawn should be certified as free from disease. This was a feature of the conditions thatwere laid down in the 1991 paper. Mr Hickey has quite clearly stated the reason that haschanged is that there was uncooked meat included in those original proposals and that isnow not being considered. It has been suggested that the imposition of such a conditionnow would—you are being quoted as saying—result in Thailand as a source of theproduct being excluded and that that was an unsatisfactory outcome. Of course, this is apolitical question not a scientific one. The interpretation that has been placed on that wasthat your concerns seemed to be not so much that that was a condition that should orshould not be imposed from a scientific point of view, but that the result of imposing itwould be that there would be no chicken meat able to be imported from Thailand. Thismay be a misinterpretation of what you said, but is it possible for you to clear that up?

Dr Kahn —I will try. I think the key thing in that discussion is what is required forquarantine purposes. If we get in place the sorts of protocols that we are proposing, thenclearly it is not necessary for quarantine purposes to also have a health certification thatrelates to the flock of origin. For example, a subsequent part of that discussion withindustry representatives was that even if the Thais, or other countries, might be prepared



to provide a health certification as to the flock of origin, that would also need to bedouble checked. You would need to perhaps have official visits to the flock of origin toverify that the certification that was being provided was being done on a sound basis.

It was more than just a simple discussion about a yes or no answer to area healthcertification. The first question goes to the point of whether that is required from aquarantine perspective. If we were talking about importation of uncooked chicken meat,then quite clearly we would be looking for area freedom from certain diseases. But to gomaking that a requirement, when we have the additional range of safeguards in theproposed protocol, is just not necessary in our view at this time.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Yes, those particular matters of concern would bedestroyed by the cooking process?

Dr Kahn —That is right.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Thanks. Mr Chairman, I have a series of questionsrelated to chemicals and so on which I will place on notice.

Having been in this business for a while, I want to make this point again. There isno question—and if there is jump in—that the quarantine protection that, at the end of theday, is being provided to Australia for the importation of chicken meat from Thailand iscontained in the cooking process. There seems to be no doubt about that. Therefore, that isthe absolutely crucial issue that has to be determined to satisfy everybody, particularly theindustry, of the actual conditions that are going to be put on. This is why I pursued thequestion of the temperature variations in ovens and so on, and the long-term compliancequestions that are going to be relied upon.

The point that I was making just a minute ago was that I have no doubt that theconcerns in the industry already there will be heightened by the information that has beenprovided to the committee this morning that not only—and this, of course, everyone wasaware of—has there been no specific testing for newcastle disease in cooked chickenmeat—we have certainly now established that beyond question—but also there is going tobe no subsequent testing at all for newcastle disease in the imported product once it haslanded in Australia. I have got no doubt this will excite some attention in the industry. Isimply make that point in conclusion to indicate that that is something I have no doubtwill interest members of the committee when we are putting our report together.

Dr MacKenzie said that there was an assumption—and correct me if I am wrong,but this was the evidence given at Maitland—presumably in the industry, that thetemperature-time parameters would be accompanied with other measures such as certifiedarea freedom from disease. I think that is what she said.

CHAIR —In essence, yes.



Senator BOB COLLINS—Can you just advise the committee, as far as I amconcerned in conclusion—and you may have answered this already, I think—what theprocess is currently, where the working groups are up to, and how many more meetingsyou think at this stage will be required to complete the process.

Mr Hickey —Dr Kahn will come back to those points. Could I just add, in relationto the comment you made about the importance of the cooking process from a quarantinepoint of view—which we certainly agree with—I hope the committee would take intoaccount the degree of conservatism that has been built into the use of the time-temperatureparameters derived from the Alexander study because, as the BRS report and the otherevidence that has been provided indicate, there are various stages of conservatismexplicitly contained within those time-temperature parameters.

They were used on IBDV, the most heat resistant of the viruses of concern, andthey were done in an experimental situation where, according to the BRS, they com-menced from a starting point of virus concentration far higher than would be found indiseased birds and, again in turn, higher than would be found in birds that were clinicallyhealthy but nevertheless vaccinated and, therefore, potentially masking clinical or liveparticles of virus.

As argued and agreed by all scientific respondents, the NDV, relative to IBDV, isfar less heat resistant. In other words, by going back to the starting point of the Alexandertime-temperature parameters, there are degrees of conservatism, depending on the origin ofthe disease that you might be concerned about, that are built into those time-temperatureparameters, that would in turn cover off potential for fluctuations in the commercialprocess. I think that just needs to be acknowledged as well, because those aspects certainlyhave not been in dispute in any of the discussions that we have seen.

Senator HEFFERNAN—After the recommended temperature process, does whatyou are recommending turn it into rubber chicken? At what temperature do we normallycook a chicken, and is this process turning it in—

Senator BOB COLLINS—At 180 degrees Centigrade for about an hour if youwant a nice tender bird.

Senator HEFFERNAN—And this is a lot less than a cooked chicken now.

Senator BOB COLLINS—It just shows how much time you spend in the kitchen.

Senator HEFFERNAN—I spend no time in the kitchen. I can see you do, though.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I do all the cooking at home.

Mr Hickey —But Senator Collins obviously cooks whole birds and not compressed



rolls of meat.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Correct. It is a valid question, obviously. Does itproduce a palatable product at 76 degrees for 30 minutes?

Dr Kahn —I do not know how palatable it is. I know we have had protests fromexporting countries saying that this is a very stringent temperature, and that not manyproducts would normally be processed to that level and, certainly, it is more stringent thanany international standard or anything of that nature that we can discover.

Senator HEFFERNAN—But is it cooked, overcooked or undercooked?

Dr Kahn —We would call it fully cooked.

Senator HEFFERNAN—So that there would be pressure on the processor that itneeds no further cooking when it got here, and I guess the higher the protocol goes, theless edible the product becomes?

Dr Kahn —It is a ready-to-eat product. So certainly, the idea is that it would notbe further processed on arrival in Australia, and it would not include, for example, thingslike chicken nuggets, which are flash fried at high temperatures for very short periods. Ourunderstanding is that it would tend to be more things like TV dinners and deli lineproducts, where the product still needs to be under refrigeration, but is fully cooked andwhat you would call a ready-to-eat product.

CHAIR —It would not include chicken nuggets, did you say?

Dr Kahn —That is right.

Senator McGAURAN—Just on Senator Collins’s question about process—

Senator BOB COLLINS—That is Dr MacKenzie’s comment on that.

Mr Hickey —On the question of future processes, there have been two meetings ofthis group, as I said. Our record has been sent to industry and we are waiting for theirresponse, which we understand we will get on 7 October. At that point we would bediscussing with the minister the future processes. The report of this committee is due to behanded down on 10 October. The minister has said there will not be a decision on thematter until your report is available.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I am sorry. Dr Kahn was going to come in on that.Thank you very much for pointing this out. It was Dr Fairbrother who in fact made thecomment that I have just referred to, and not Dr MacKenzie. The evidence followeddirectly after hers, and I got the two mixed up. Dr Fairbrother in fact said that the only



item they had agreed on was the time and temperature proposed by AQIS to process thechicken. However, there were a number of other conditions such as requirements that theproduct come from areas free of the disease in question. What he actually said was, ‘Wehave not signed off on all of the other things that are so terribly important.’

Mr Hickey —That has certainly been their stated position, and we have acknow-ledged that.

Senator McGAURAN—I have a point of clarification of something that was saidthis morning. There is no doubt that the main concern with importing cooked chickenmeat seems to be centred on the Thais’ ability or non-ability to meet the standards. Was itsaid this morning that Thailand actually exported to Japan, and that Japan had copied theUnited States quarantine procedures? I thought they sounded strict, because Australiacould not meet those standards.

Dr Kahn —Yes. I made the comment that Japan has requirements similar to thoseof the US. We were really talking then about the requirement for inspection and forhaving veterinary supervision and official inspection of birds before and after slaughter.That was the specific comparison between Japan and the USA: those countries both have asimilar requirement for inspectors to be in plants and to be under veterinary supervision,for public health purposes.

Senator McGAURAN—Is newcastle disease present in Japan?

Dr Kahn —Not as far as I am aware.

CHAIR —Maybe you need to take that on notice.

Senator McGAURAN—And the United States?

Dr Kahn —The United States does not have outbreaks in commercial poultry, butthey do vaccinate the birds to protect them against outbreaks of newcastle disease.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I have a final question. It was in fact Dr Fairbrother’sevidence that I was looking at. This is the final matter that I want to canvass here today. Ireferred to it earlier. Dr Fairbrother, in his evidence to the committee, referred to the Thaipoultry products inspection regulations of 1992, which I referred to earlier. I actually gotthe quote dug out. He said:

Poultry meat inspection in each carcass is carried out in a continuos manner as listed below . . .examine external surfaces for dressing defects, bruises or disease lesions . . . palpate the tibia todetect bone diseases. . . examine the inner surfaces, the lungs and the kidneys in place, examine theviscera and palpate the liver, the heart and the spleen. . . . investigation of abnormalities inconsistency, colour, smell and, where appropriate, taste.



This is for every chicken on the production line. The evidence that was given is that theprocessing plants actually process between 6,000 and 8,000 birds an hour. Of course, at8,000, that is two birds every second—which means a lot of inspectors! The relevance ofthese questions—and they are very relevant in terms of AQIS’s understanding of all this—is that it is my understanding, and correct me if I am wrong, that the Thai authorities arerequired to sign off on these regulations as part of conditions for exports to some othermarkets they export into. That is, there is a requirement that they actually sign a certifica-tion indicating that these conditions have been met. Is that correct?

Dr Kahn —I think we would need to look into it. When you say that ‘theseconditions have been met’ are you speaking of the line speed or what?

Senator BOB COLLINS—I am speaking about the ones I have just read out. In-line inspection of the birds is conducted in Thailand; that has been absolutely confirmedhere this morning. We do not have it in Australia, and because we do not have it wecannot export chicken products into the United States because they require it. Thailanddoes in fact have it and the way in which it is to be conducted in Thailand, according toDr Fairbrother—and I am going on his evidence—is contained in the Thai poultryproducts inspection regulations of 1992. Those regulations require, and I am quoting fromthe evidence, that ‘poultry meat inspection in each carcass’—I stress, each chickencarcass—‘is carried out in a continuous manner as listed below.’ The regulations say:

. . . examine external surfaces for dressing defects, bruises or disease lesions—

And I have no problem with that. I can imagine an external visual inspection to checkwhether the actual processing has being carried out and that you have not got bits hangingoff is fair enough. They go on to say:

. . . palpate the tibia to detect bone diseases . . . examine the inner surfaces, the lungs and thekidneys in place, examine the viscera and palpate the liver, the heart and the spleen—

That is, of each bird. They also say the inspection should include :

. . . investigation of abnormalities in consistency, colour, smell and, where appropriate, taste.

That is what has to happen according to Dr Fairbrother’s evidence. I do not know whetherit actually has to happen; that is what he says. My understanding is that that is what theThai regulations require.

First of all, I want to know if that is correct. I then want to know if it is a fact thatThai authorities are required to sign off on that—and if that is what they require, Iimagine they would have to. In other words, someone signs a piece of paper saying that8,000 birds an hour, two birds every second, get their tibias palpated, their hearts, spleensand livers palpated, and every now and again someone chews on a bit of one if taste is aproblem. On the surface of it, it would seem that if these are the requirements, and if



people do sign off on them, they are almost physically impossible. That is the point of thequestion—I make no bones about it. Is it true that these are the requirements? Is it furthertrue that the authorities are required to sign off on these regulations, certifying that theyhave been met?

Mr Hickey —If you say they are 1992 requirements, Senator—

Senator BOB COLLINS—That is what Dr Fairbrother says.

Mr Hickey —They would need to be verified with the Thai authorities againstwhatever the current stipulated requirements are. We would be happy to do that.

Senator BOB COLLINS—You can take it on notice.

Mr Hickey —I would have to say that, internationally, poultry inspection tech-niques are under review. They certainly have been, for example, in the United States andthey are currently being reviewed in Canada, to my knowledge, and potentially in othercountries around the world as HACCP systems are being introduced.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Absolutely.

Mr Hickey —So there may well be some change to those requirements since 1992,but we will verify that.

Senator BOB COLLINS—The question, as I am sure you understand, is apolitical question—in the broadest sense of that word—and not a scientific one. That is, itis the degree of confidence that people, rightly or wrongly, should have in those certifica-tion processes. I take the point you just made on potential changes, but that is frankly notrelevant to the question I am asking.

Mr Hickey —I was about to go on and answer other aspects of your question, if Icould. We would also have to verify what was required of the Thai authorities by othercountries in so far as it is relevant to cooked chicken meat. If we are able to do that wewill. In relation to what we would require, if you take the internationally accepted processof cross-review of processing plants as a guide, generally, from a public health and safetypoint of view, what is required is that the inspection techniques applied in the country arereviewed and are seen to be consistent with the regulations of that country, so the USDAreviewers look to see that we carry out inspection techniques that are prescribed in ourlegislation and our manuals. Traditionally they have been on an ‘equal to’ basis. In futurethey will be on an equivalent basis, and that is whether at the end of the day the particularinspection process delivers the outcome that we want.

So the critical question from our point of view would be: do those elements of theThai requirements, which presumably cover a range of quarantine and food safety issues



relevant to uncooked chicken meat, also pertain necessarily to cooked chicken meat, andtherefore would they be part of the mandatory requirements that we would impose? Andthey would be detailed matters that have to be worked out on the basis of our observationof the Thai system, which is the purpose of the review.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Mr Hickey, that is a proper consideration for AQIS tomake. It certainly would not answer the substance of the question that I put. I just wantedto make that clear so there is no misunderstanding between us, and I am sure there is not.

You just said a minute ago you had examined that in respect of its application tocooked chicken meat, and that is not what I wanted. I wanted specific answers, and I amsure I will get them, to those particular questions because what the question related to wasthe veracity of the existing regime that operated in the works. In other words, if theevidence given by Dr Fairbrother is wrong or inaccurate, and it may well be, and thereis—and the United States may well not require it—no certification that attests to the factthat every single carcass has its liver, spleen and kidneys palpated or examined or the tibiapalpated and so on—if that does not happen then this concern falls down immediately.That is the point. The basis of the question is not whether these conditions are relevant; itgets to the veracity of the existing certification processes that exist in Thailand.

Mr Gascoine—I think we understand that, Senator Collins. If I could just offerone comment, what would normally be the case in inspection of chicken would be that theinspectors would look for signs of abnormality in the carcasses by observing whether thecarcass was in some way discoloured or that it showed some other evidence—especiallyscrawny or whatever—and then it is likely that it would be subject to further investigation.

Senator BOB COLLINS—That is what I would have thought—

Mr Gascoine—That would involve palpation and so forth. We will look into theway in which it is done and provide you with a response. That will lead on to somethingabout the veracity of the certification.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Thanks, Mr Gascoine. That was the point I wasmaking.

Senator McGAURAN—And just to endorse Senator Collins, after all this time,that is a very important point he has just raised then, the absolute integrity of the Thaiprocedures and protocols. It is very much in my questioning if Thailand can export toJapan under seemingly strict procedures then that does put aside many of the concerns forthe Thai industry. But it seems, as Senator Collins rightly pointed out, that every twoseconds you would be doing about four different procedures—was that correct?

Senator BOB COLLINS—That is if this is accurate—it may not be, Senator.



Senator McGAURAN—It may not be accurate but it is a critical point.

Mr Hickey —It depends on how many inspectors and how many lines and all ofthose—

Senator BOB COLLINS—Just from my own experience, the scenario that MrGascoine has laid out would seem to me more likely to be the reality of what actuallyhappens than what is asserted here. That is all I am saying.

CHAIR —On that, before I go to my final question, I just make the point that it isequally important for chicken coming from the US or from wherever, because it is theirprocess—it is not just Thailand. The question I wanted to ask—

Mr Hickey —Just further to that as well, and consistent with our internationalobligations, it is also relevant to what happens in Australia. We cannot seek to imposestandards on other countries that we do not impose on ourselves. It is one of the funda-mental precepts of the WTO agreement, and therefore the question is equally as relevantto what happens in Australian processing factories.

CHAIR —I do not think you will get any disagreement here with that. Changingthe emphasis totally, in terms of the evidence that was given to us at Newcastle withregard to the likely impact on wild bird life in Australia from an outbreak of newcastledisease, what responsibility does AQIS have as far as that is concerned?

Mr Gascoine—As a Commonwealth government authority, AQIS has a responsi-bility under the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act to consider whether anyof its actions or decisions are environmentally significant actions in the terms of thatlegislation. AQIS has considered that issue in relation to the importation of cookedchicken meat.

The question is, what is the probability of the introduction of a disease such asnewcastle disease into wild populations of birds in Australia? That question turns upon theprobability of there being this disease in the imported meat, and the imported meat findingits way to the wild populations, and the wild populations being affected to the extent thatthe disease becomes established and causes significant damage.

AQIS’s judgment, as we have said in our position paper, is that the impact ofnewcastle disease on Australian native populations of birds should be regarded aspotentially extremely severe. It is on that basis that we have assessed whether or not wethink there would be a significant environmental impact. Our conclusion has been no, onthe basis that we believe that the probability of the disease entering Australia andbecoming established in a wild population is negligibly low. On that basis, we have cometo the conclusion that we do not believe that there is an environmentally significant impactassociated with this proposal.



Senator BOB COLLINS—The minister did commit to the industry that thegovernment would insist on a full EIS process in regard to this matter. But I think it canbe safely assumed that he has ratted on that commitment at this stage.

Mr Gascoine—I would like to, if I may, add to something which Senator Collinssaid earlier about the significance of the cooking step as the means of controlling thedisease risk. It is true, in our view, that the cooking step has a very important role to play.But the probability of the establishment of an exotic disease in Australia from theimportation of cooked chicken meat is obtained by multiplying together a number ofdifferent probabilities.

These probabilities are: the probability of a bird being subject to processing havingthe disease; times the probability that the cooking process will fail; times the probabilitythat that piece of meat which contains a disease and was inadequately cooked, is discard-ed; times the probability that, when it is discarded, it is taken up by a bird or some otheranimal, or through some other agency finds its way to a native population of birds; timesthe probability that it then establishes in that population.

The point I am trying to make is that the overall risk is assessed on the basis of apotential chain of circumstances. And that is how we go about our risk analysis. Whileeach of the individual elements of that chain may be very important, the overall probabili-ty has to have regard to all of the events which have to occur in order to enable an exoticdisease to establish in Australia. It is that combination which is, in the end, crucial and notmerely one step in that combination.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I have to say that in my home town of Darwin, MrGascoine, the probability of a piece of chicken being thrown away, from whatever source,is extremely high and the probability of it being subsequently picked up by a kite hawk isalmost certain. I have observed it many times.

CHAIR —I am putting to you that the only part in that process that is not highlyprobable is the cooking process. If we are satisfied, and you are obviously satisfied, withthe scientific evidence that you have or the way you extrapolate, then that will protect itfrom it. All the rest of it is highly probable. We know that the birds will be coming fromareas where the chooks have been vaccinated against newcastle disease and there will benon-active virus in them when they are treated. After that process, we know what occurswith the chicken meat. It will get to animals, and some animals are birds. Can you enlargea little more on all these other parts?

Senator BOB COLLINS—Go within half a kilometre of Kentucky Fried Chickenin Darwin and just have a look and see what happens.

Mr Gascoine—We have acknowledged that there is some probability at each stage,Senator.



CHAIR —But how do you call that a low probability?

Mr Gascoine—The question is: how big is that probability? If we are looking at a20-tonne container of chicken meat that is imported, individuals are entitled to theiropinion about what proportion of that 20-tonne container will be discarded, but mostpeople will guess that at least half of it will be consumed. Some people would say it ishighly probable that 95 per cent of it would be consumed and the waste would be limitedto something like five per cent. But if you take that kind of number—as I said, people areentitled to their opinion—if 95 per cent is consumed and five per cent is discarded, that isa one in 20 chance that any particular piece of meat will be discarded.

Senator BOB COLLINS—All I am saying, Mr Gascoine, is that, from my ownpersonal observations, our raptors are very efficient indeed in picking up scraps.

Mr Gascoine—I would not disagree, Senator; but the question is that there is someprobability of the chain breaking at each stage and, in some elements of the chain, it isalmost certain that the chain will be broken. That is to say that there is a very lowprobability of failure. In any event, the point I was trying to make was that it is thecombination—the multiplying together—of all of those probabilities that is important.

CHAIR —How much chicken meat would a parrot, for example, have to eat? It hasbeen put to me that this species is at risk.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Did you say ‘parrot’?

CHAIR —Yes. How much chicken meat carrying newcastle disease would a parrothave to eat? Would it just need one bite or would it have to eat a significant amount?

Senator BOB COLLINS—It would have to be a strange parrot, to start with.

Dr Kahn —As Dr Gard notes in his review, there is limited information availableon the infective dose, and particularly by feeding cooked chicken meat to parrots. I am notaware of anybody who could specifically answer that question.

Senator BOB COLLINS—You would have to pepper it with sunflower seed!

Dr Kahn —By and large, these are disease—

CHAIR —Just hold on a minute. The information that was given to me was thatthe bird life at most risk in Australia in terms of an outbreak of newcastle disease was, infact, the parrot family, including galahs and what have you. For your information, SenatorCollins, I have seen galahs on my father’s farm at Bindi raiding the scrap bucket wherechicken scraps had been put into it.



Senator BOB COLLINS—Do you want us to stay here all day, Mr Chairman?

CHAIR —If you want to make your smart little side comments when I am tryingto establish something—

Senator BOB COLLINS—Kites and hawks are far more likely to pick this up.

CHAIR —I am not saying that they are not.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I think cooking is crucial. That is my own view.

CHAIR —So do I think cooking is crucial, but I am just trying to work out whatthe position is.

Mr Hickey —I think Dr Doyle has some information.

Dr Doyle—I was only going to say, Senator, that the psittacines, while they getinfected and may carry the virus, do not tend to show the disease clinically. I was onlycommenting in relation to your question that they are the ones that are at risk. They wouldonly be a vector, not affected.

Senator BOB COLLINS—It would not actually produce mortality normally inthose birds?

Dr Doyle—Normally, parrots, in other parts of the world, are rather the carriers ofthe virus; they do not get clinically affected.

Senator HEFFERNAN—So when they die and a crow or a hawk eats them, hegets it instead?

Dr Doyle—That is a possibility; but, in relation to your saying that they would bethreatened, that is not the case.

CHAIR —That directly contradicts information, which has not been put on thepublic record but which was given to me, that it has the potential to wipe out 80 per centof the parrot population in Australia. You have just told us that they will not die.

Dr Doyle—No.

Mr Hickey —I think the point that is being made is that the predator birds thatconsume the meat may be susceptible to the virus but parrots may pick it up and helpcirculate it amongst the bird population.

CHAIR —I understand that.



Mr Hickey —So the starting point that we have taken in relation to this, in termsof the environmental assessment, is that there would be a significant impact on nativefauna. Whether that is parrots or whether it is predator native birds in a sense is notdirectly relevant. How the disease circulates and so on is something we have assumed, asa starting point, would happen. There would be a substantial effect. As Mr Gascoine hasoutlined, what we then have done is gone through a process of considering what thelikelihood of that event occurring is, which we judged to be very minimal.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I would imagine, Mr Hickey, from an AQIS perspec-tive—the point that Dr Doyle was raising—the quarantine additional difficulty if it gotinto the native parrot population would be the virtual impossibility of attempting in anyway to control it, as you could in a commercial chicken flock.

Dr Doyle—Once it was circulating in wild life it would be endemic, but youwould have to vaccinate or isolate the commercial birds.

Mr Hickey —The considerations here that are also relevant are other potentialquarantine points of entry. Clearly, the smuggling of birds and eggs is important in thatrespect. The government operates and subsidises the operations of avian quarantinestations in an attempt to provide a lawful route of entry for live birds and eggs, but weknow from prosecutions that have been achieved here in Australia and also from intelli-gence overseas that there is still quite a substantial trade in exotic birds, and the possibilityof some smuggling into Australia certainly cannot be discounted.

The other point is in relation to migratory birds and particularly psittacines, as DrDoyle said. As I understand it, the live virus can be held in the gut of a psittacine andthen spread for periods up to 12 months. So the potential for infection from migratorybirds is there. It is not something we would want to overstate all the time by saying thatany bird can fly across the border and then drop dead and be preyed upon.

We are not seeking to overstate that in raising it, but I think it has to be acknow-ledged when you consider the potential risk through the entry in cooked chicken meat, youhave to also have some regard to other possible entry routes, and smuggling and wildbirds do present some risks. So in terms of consistency of risk assessment, it is a relevantfactor but, as I say, it is not something that we are seeking to overstate in this.

CHAIR —Mr Hickey, can I just clarify that particular point you made, because it isimportant. Evidence that was given to us at Maitland said that one of the reasonsmigratory birds would never bring it to Australia is because they would never live longenough to get off the ground to fly back to Australia. You are saying to us that the birdcould carry it—not actually become infected itself—and deposit it somewhere else andanother bird could pick it up. Is that the essence of what you are saying?

Mr Hickey —That is correct, and that is information that has been provided by Dr



Geering of the BRS to Senate estimates committees in the past in response to preciselythat question.

Senator HEFFERNAN—Obviously, it must be a low risk because we have nothad it happen. What other countries are disease free, and what is their attitude to theimportation of cooked chicken meat?

Mr Hickey —Can we take that on notice and get back to you?

Senator HEFFERNAN—Yes.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I will put the remainder of my questions on notice.

CHAIR —I thank Mr Hickey and all the officers from AQIS. It has been a long,hard session. There are a number of questions that I had here that I want to check againstthose 18 points you raised in your opening statement, and I certainly thank you for thatopening statement. The further we look, the broader this field becomes and the moreinformation comes on the table. Thank you very much.



[1.08 p.m.]JEWELL, Mr Paul, Acting Executive Director, Wildlife Management, AustralianNature Conservation Agency, Nature Conservation House, 153 Emu Bank, Belconnen,Australian Capital Territory

MAYNES, Dr Gerald Michael, Director, Population Assessment Unit, AustralianNature Conservation Agency, Nature Conservation House, 153 Emu Bank, Belconnen,Australian Capital Territory

CHAIR —I am sure you have heard all the data about having to give your namesand if you wish to put things in camera you can apply to do so. You are under parlia-mentary privilege, so that carries certain responsibilities. You are not expected to commenton policy.

I welcome you here to give evidence before the committee with regard to thisinquiry into chicken meat and the possible impact on native wildlife and the potential of itcoming from the import of chicken meat, if there is such a potential. So, over to you.Have you got an opening statement for the committee?

Mr Jewell—Thank you. We are here primarily to discuss the importation side of itthrough a piece of federal legislation that the Australian Nature Conservation Agencyadministers, which is a Wildlife Protection (Regulation of Exports and Imports) Act 1982.The object of the wildlife protection act is to comply with the obligations of Australiaunder the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora,and otherwise to further protection and conservation of the wild fauna and flora ofAustralia and of other countries.

Up to recently, and that is up to May of this year, the objects of the act were quitebroad. As part of that object, it stated that one of the criteria was to regulate the importa-tion of animals and plants of a kind, the establishment of which in Australia, or anexternal territory, could have an adverse affect, otherwise by reason of a disease on or onthe habitats of Australian animals or Australian native plants. That objective was removedfrom it, purely because it, and a number of other statements in section 3 of the legislation,were no more than a summary of what the legislation was about. And it was decided thatthe object should be shortened, without cutting away its actual impact.

Section 5 of the wildlife protection act further relates to this relationship, particu-larly with the Quarantine Act, where it says that the wildlife protection act and theregulations shall be read and construed as being in addition to, and not in derogation of orin substitution for, in part, the Quarantine Act 1908.

The legislation itself is primarily there to regulate from an environmental perspec-tive. On the importation side, it regulates through the importation of live animals ratherthan animal products. If it was decided that we wished to regulate the importation of



animal products for an environmental purpose, the legislation itself would have to beamended to bring it into line to actually bring in appropriate controls. I think that is aboutall I need to say at this stage.

CHAIR —Right. Senator Collins, have you got any questions?

Senator BOB COLLINS—You may well have heard this evidence given just afew moments ago that there was a concern raised that newcastle disease, should it comeinto Australia, would have a devastating effect on Australian fauna. I do not think that isquestioned. Are you saying, then, so far as ANCA is concerned, that you as an organisa-tion do not see the need for an EIS process to be conducted in respect to the potential ofnewcastle disease being imported from countries where the disease is endemic, purelyfrom an environmental perspective?

Mr Jewell—The approach that has been taken is that our legislation excludesdisease as part and parcel of its controls. And the reason for that has been that we haveaccepted that the Quarantine Act and AQIS have the appropriate level of control in whichto operate under that.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Yes, I think it is important that that really is naileddown because in real terms it is not a statutory responsibility for ANCA to make thatdetermination. You, by statute, in fact, are compelled to accept the quarantine authority’sview of that.

Mr Jewell—That is correct, Senator.

Senator BOB COLLINS—The reason I wanted to make that point again is that—not unreasonably, frankly—a lot of people out there misunderstand and think that youhave some independent role to play in demanding a process to determine this. And that isimportant.

Dr Maynes—That is perfectly right, Senator. We have, through our minister, hadrepresentations in terms of the applicability of our act. As you have rightly pointed out, itdoes not apply in the case of the disease situation. Our interests apply if it is live animalscoming in and then getting loose as an environmental feral threat type of situation.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Just out of curiosity, Dr Maynes, are you an ornitholo-gist?

Dr Maynes—No, I am a vertebrate ecologist by training. I trained primarily inmammalian ecology but I have diversified, over my career, into basically vertebrates ingeneral.

Senator BOB COLLINS—It may well be, of course, that there are a lot of people



in ANCA who are extremely frustrated by the fact that ANCA cannot include disease, forobvious reasons, in its purview. But that is not a matter that you are open to canvass hereat this committee. I simply acknowledge what must be—it has been raised with me,obviously. Scientists that work for ANCA, individually, obviously would like the purviewof ANCA to include things that potentially have a catastrophic effect on our environmentsuch as disease. But that is not currently the way that parliament sees it.

Mr Jewell—That is right.

Dr Maynes—That is right.

CHAIR —If there were to be an EIS established, what would be your role? Orwould you have a role?

Dr Maynes—If an EIS were established, it would essentially be run through theEnvironmental Protection Authority under their act, rather than under ours. Our involve-ment, I assume, would be in providing comments or submissions to them, within the ambitof our act and our area of administration. We could, potentially, comment, I wouldsuggest, in terms of our endangered species act or our understanding of population ecologyof native species. It would be in that sense rather than in the direct sense of the disease.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I do not want to keep you here unnecessarily and letme say this will be my last question for that reason. In terms of your own professionalperspective and what you may have heard about the likely impact on the parrot populationand so on, does the organisation have a view or has there been any work published onwhat would actually be the potential effect on the ground on fauna in Australia from theintroduction of the disease?

Mr Jewell—Without looking at the host of the introduction, we would be greatlyconcerned with what the impact could be on our native fauna. From what we canunderstand, you are probably aware there has been through quarantine a total prohibitionon the import of live birds for many years, going back to 1949, up to 1990, when the banwas raised when live birds were allowed into the country through two quarantine facili-ties—one in Melbourne and one in Adelaide.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I think that was—Mr Jewell, correct me if I amwrong—an attempt to try to minimise the smuggling problem.

Mr Jewell—That is correct. One of the key issues here is that Australia has twoproblems when it comes to smuggling—that is, birds out and birds in. From our perspec-tive, we would believe that the smuggling of birds into the country is more dangerous thansmuggling birds out of the country and is just as prevalent. The government has recentlyintroduced new legislation to attempt to combat that smuggling of birds into the countrythrough an amendment to the wildlife protection act on the regulation of certain species of



exotic birds, which will require people in Australia to declare what exotic birds that theyhave in their possession and enable ANCA and other federal enforcement areas to be ableto identify whether these birds have been in the country before.

Senator BOB COLLINS—This is more properly a question, I know, to AQIS, butthey not here at the moment. You say ‘just as prevalent’. Do you have any idea what therate of occurrence is of detection of imported birds?

Mr Jewell—It is very difficult to say what the rate of detection is, but certainly weknow the method that is being used to bring them in. That is, most of the birds are beingsmuggled into the country as eggs and are being smuggled by being on-body packed onpeople, which makes it extremely difficult for us to pick up. That is one of the reasonsthat we made recommendations to the government that we should look at a legislativeamendment to combat this situation. We have information from the aviculture community,which extends back over a decade, that since about 1984-85 over 50 new species of exoticbirds were literally smuggled into the country.

Senator BOB COLLINS—That was my next question. The exotic birds would be,in a sense, like stealing theMona Lisa, wouldn’t they? Once you actually had the egg inhere, you would have to have it locked up, once it hatched, in your backyard for your ownprivate pleasure and for the pleasure of your friends, wouldn’t you?

Mr Jewell—Not up until recently, primarily because there has not been any federallist of what exotic birds have been in the country.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I see.

Mr Jewell—It has been impossible for us to be able to prove whether a bird wasor was not here, and whether or not a person had bred this bird or it had just beenimported. So it was extremely difficult for us. But this new legislation that is coming inon 2 October this year should have a dramatic impact on that.

Senator BOB COLLINS—We will have to make sure that we give it a speedypassage through the Senate.

Dr Maynes—If I may return to your point about the wildlife disease, Senator. It isan area that has not received a lot of attention in Australia. One of the problems is that thefocus on diseases has largely been on domestic stock—

Senator BOB COLLINS—Because of the value placed on that stock.

Dr Maynes—Yes, exactly. Recently, I was involved in the issue of the kangarooblindness outbreak. That took a lot of coordination, both at the state and federal levels, tobring together the expertise to focus on it, when it was seen as largely outside of the



ambit of the individual agencies involved.

CHAIR —That is prevalent.

Dr Maynes—That is prevalent, indeed. But it did highlight this problem that, withwildlife diseases, there is not a clearly coordinated approach nationally as to what we do ifthere is an outbreak, whether it is a native disease or some exotic disease that is broughtin. So there are some problems in terms of coordinating action and getting people focusedon a problem, if it does arise.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Dr Maynes, do you or does your organisation—againwithout going into gory detail—have any views on the proper way of coordinating thatdeficiency?

Dr Maynes—I do not think we, as such, have developed a coherent position at thisstage. It was largely as a result of that kangaroo blindness thing that awareness was raisedamongst us all in terms of the problem.

Senator BOB COLLINS—The reason I ask the question is that, until veryrecently, there were very obvious defects in terms of even animal health in commercialanimals in respect of national coordination.

Dr Maynes—Yes. I think the issue really from our point of view is it is an areawhere, at the state level, there has been downsizing of state veterinary labs and all of thatsort of thing. So it does become difficult where you have expertise which may have beenthere for a specific purpose but that purpose is seen as changing. Essentially, all I amsaying is that there is a problem there for coordination, both at the state and nationallevels.

CHAIR —On this issue of newcastle disease in particular, with these variousviruses that affect chickens, if it can be carried—and I am sure you have heard theevidence before—by migratory birds and held in their guts for up to 12 months, et cetera,and with the importation of birds which you have told us is equally as prevalent as theexport of wild birds, why haven’t things like newcastle disease become established inAustralia? Do you have any information on that? Why isn’t it here? Do you have anyevidence or information that our birds have a natural immunity to it?

Mr Jewell—I think we have been very lucky that it is not here, although therehave been outbreaks in our past, which were, I believe, in the 1930s. Plus we have hadoutbreaks of other diseases such as avian influenza, which broke out in the mid-1980s andwas believed to be brought in by smuggled birds. So there have been outbreaks. It is notas though we have been totally free; we have had them in the past.

Dr Maynes—I think one of the issues is that Australia has been protected in the



past by the tyranny of distance. The import of diseases that are not here has beeninfluenced in the past by the times needed to get here. A lot of the domestic livestockdiseases did not arrive in Australia because sick animals died and were tossed over theside of the sailing boat before they got here. It was only the fairly strong and healthy onesthat got through.

Given the increase in movement of people and animal and plant products aroundthe world at the moment with rapid transportation, I think the risks are increasing of thesesorts of diseases being moved around. It also gets back to the point that the AQIS peoplewere making earlier about the probabilities. We have the same sorts of issues with theintroduction of any exotic live animal—a feral pest. It often takes many efforts to getsomething started but then, once it is stuck into the population, it can get away anddevelop into a major problem. I guess the example I would give is with rabbits. Therewere many attempts to bring rabbits in, until finally there was a successful introduction.But that got away and now we have a major problem. I think it is the probabilities thatcome into these things. In the past, with long distance and those sorts of things, diseasestended to wipe out animals before they arrived here.

Senator BOB COLLINS—One, of course, hopes fervently—I am sure you do too,Dr Maynes—that we do not subsequently discover a problem with calicivirus in respect ofour native fauna.

Dr Maynes—There are some in the rural community who would probablywelcome something like that.

CHAIR —In terms of the migratory birds—the other things are probably new—there has been migration of birds into Australia from time immemorial; yet, despite whatwe have been told, none of these diseases have got established in our fauna. Do you justthink that is an act of luck?

Dr Maynes—I think it is an act of probability really. As a non-veterinarian—I amtalking from an ecological perspective—the issues are that, with any sort of organismgetting introduced, it first of all has to infect a susceptible animal. The animal has todevelop the disease to a transmissible phase and that then has to be transmitted to othersusceptible organisms. Then you need to have the ability for that disease to establish aresident cycle and become continually infective. It may be that, in the past, we have hadsome of these diseases come in and infect one or two animals, but it never built up to thepoint where you got a critical mass of infected animals spreading the disease across awide front.

As I say, there are the probabilities: what is the probability of a susceptible animalgetting infected in the first place; then what is the probability of it transmitting thatinfection in the period of time in which it is capable of transmitting a viable virus orbacteria, or whatever the disease organism may be. These are difficult issues for most



people in the general public. It is a little bit like black magic to most people: what is theprobability of being struck by lightning—

Senator BOB COLLINS—Not bad, actually.

Dr Maynes—It is the same sort of thing with working out the probabilities ofdiseases and everything else.

Senator BOB COLLINS—But I think the point that the Chairman and I weremaking this morning in terms of that probability scale—frankly, I don’t think there wouldnot be an ornithologist in Australia that would seriously disagree—you only have to go toany council garbage tip anywhere in Australia and see the level of bird life around it toknow that the probability of a piece of scrap, particularly takeaway food, being thrownaway is excellent. I would have to say that this would not be uncommon in Darwin: mytwo young kids routinely feed kites and hawks in our backyard for sheer entertainmentvalue, and you can see ibis on every single street corner in Darwin. If you go to theDarwin tip, they are there in their millions. I would personally rate the probability of abird subsequently picking up a piece of discarded food from the food chain as quite high.You wouldn’t disagree with that, I do not suppose.

Dr Maynes—No.

Senator BOB COLLINS—The point that Senator Crane and I both made thismorning, that that destruction phase for the pathogen for newcastle disease seems to be thecentral issue, I think is correct. You would not disagree with that either, would you?

Dr Maynes—I would not disagree with that, no.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Thanks very much.

CHAIR —Thank you very much. I do not have any more questions. Do you haveanything else that you want to add? You have answered the principal question when youmade your opening statement.

Mr Jewell—No, thank you, Senator.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Now is your chance for national stardom: say some-thing extremely controversial and I guarantee you will get a run.

CHAIR —Thanks for your attendance.

Luncheon adjournment



[2.05 p.m.]HIRD, Miss Joan Margaret, Director, GATT Projects, Department of Foreign Affairsand Trade, Parkes Place, Parkes, Australian Capital Territory 2600

McGRANE, Mr Timothy Bernard, Desk Officer, Agriculture Trade Policy Section,Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Parkes Place, Parkes, Australian CapitalTerritory 2600

TIGHE, Mr Paul Joseph, Assistant Secretary, Agriculture and Resources Branch,Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Parkes Place, Parkes, Australian CapitalTerritory 2600

CHAIR —No doubt you have all heard or seen theHansardevidence and theinformation that we have been given since we last heard from you. Have you got anopening statement?

Mr Tighe —No, Mr Chairman. As you are aware, we provided some supplemen-tary material after the last set of hearings, which we hope has been of some value to thecommittee. Unfortunately, I was not able to watch the proceedings this morning, so I amnot quite sure what has transpired over the course of the morning. But if there are otherqueries you would like to follow up with us, we would be glad to attempt to help you outwith them.

CHAIR —Right. At a previous hearing here on 28 August, you gave an answer toa question from one of us about the situation which exists in the United States, Thailandand Denmark, with regard to bound tariffs and effective tariffs. I am speaking frommemory now, but I believe the answer that you gave was that in the USA there was infact a bound tariff, but a non-applied tariff as far as the import of chicken meat wasconcerned. We have since had evidence given to us in Maitland, and information has beengiven to me—separate from that evidence, but certainly in Maitland. I will quote from aletter which I am sure has been brought to your attention. Trade Management AustraliaPty Ltd, writing to Instate Pty Ltd, says:

Dear Terry,

Thanks for your inquiry in connection with duties and non-tariff barriers in respect of poultry meatexported from Australia to the USA.

We have contacted our US office and can confirm that the importation of these products into theUSA is prohibited.

The only countries permitted by the US Department of Agriculture to supply poultry meat of anykind are Hong Kong; Israel; Canada; France; and the UK.

In view of this additional information that has been given to the committee and put on



public record, my question to you is that, at that time, even though you told us that therewas a bound tariff in the USA of 8.8 per cent, non-applied at tariff, why did you notinform the committee that, in fact, there is a total ban on the import of any form ofchicken meat from Australia to the US? Am I misinterpreting it, or is this informationgiven to us wrong?

Mr Tighe —The simple answer is that the information is new to us. I was unawarethat there was a ban. If there is a ban, it must be on some basis other than a tariff type ofbarrier, obviously. The information we gave you about the bound and the applied tariffs iscorrect, and we have spelt that out in more detail in the written material we gave you afterthe previous hearings. But I have only learnt earlier today about this accusation of theimport ban on cooked chicken meat going into the United States, and I was unaware of ituntil then.

CHAIR —In terms of this situation, which to a degree is hypothetical, although notreally, one of the reasons given to us for agreeing to the importation of cooked chickenmeat from the three countries in question—Denmark, Thailand and the US—is the factthat under the new arrangements, under the WTO and GATT, we would be liable forprosecution if we were to disallow them to import into here, subject to the variousconditions that you put down at that particular time. Would it not be a bit rich if the US,who have got a ban on the importation of chicken meat from Australia, in fact proceededto take action against Australia if we said no, for whatever reason, and that we were notsatisfied about chicken meat coming in from the US?

Mr Tighe —The purpose of the SPS agreement is to introduce a degree ofobjectivity into these decisions about quarantine barriers. Exporters to Australia have theright to challenge quarantine barriers that Australia maintains if they believe that thosebarriers are not justified on the basis of the scientific evidence that is available. We haveprecisely the same right in respect of our exports to other countries’ markets, whether it isthe US, Thailand or anywhere else for that matter, or any product other than chicken meat.

The issue that is in front of us now would be that, if we can justify our quarantineactions on chicken meat, then we are able to maintain those; if we cannot, then countrieshave the right to challenge us in the WTO. Equally, if the US has imposed a ban on theimportation into the US of Australian chicken meat, and if they can back that up withscientific evidence, then they are entitled to do that. If they cannot, then we are entitled totake them to the WTO and challenge it under the same agreement and the same provisionsunder which other countries would challenge our measures if they thought they were notjustifiable.

One of the points I need to make out too is that we need to be made aware ofthese sorts of barriers by industry in order to chase them up, to try and see if they arelegitimate or not. The letter you read out to us was news to me. I was unaware that therewas a quarantine ban, if indeed that is what it is, in the US on Australian exported chicken



meat. If that is the case, we can follow that up and see if it is a legitimate thing or not.But clearly, as bureaucrats not actually out there in the trade, we do not know whetherthese things are going on until industry brings it to our attention. Chicken meat is not anindustry that has traditionally been very export oriented and therefore we have not had alot of exposure in the bureaucracy to the sorts of barriers that may be out there.

CHAIR —It was certainly news to me as well—this letter is dated 5 September.We will certainly get a copy of it to you, anyhow, if you have not already received acopy. It was given to us in Maitland. I do not have any further questions on that subject.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Mr Tighe, the letter that the chairman has quoted fromis from a trade consultancy firm that provides professional advice to potential exportersand so on. The chairman has indicated that you would be provided with a copy of that.The letter itself does not specify the nature of the ban, except that it is absolute so far asAustralia is concerned. It is almost certainly a quarantine ban of some kind—clearly it isnot a trade ban—in relation to the material you have given us. Rather than this committeegoing back to AQIS or whatever, could you undertake to provide the committee with adetailed brief that actually lays out the nature of the ban on chicken meat—if it shouldprove to be correct? If it is not correct, someone has been robbed of $80, which was thebill for this advice. But presuming it is correct, could you give us a brief on the nature ofthe ban?

Mr Tighe —Yes, certainly. We are happy to check that up, as we did last timewhen, for example, as you would recall, there was some discussion about export subsidiesin Thailand. We checked those up and we will check these up as well.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I have got a few more questions, if that is okay, MrChairman. Just on that question: we were informed during the last hearing, on 28August—I apologise if this has been picked up in the supplementary information youprovided to us; to be honest, I have not had a chance to read it yet—that Thailand had anactual tariff of 60 per cent and the applied rate is 45 per cent or 37.50 baht a kilo. Canyou confirm that it is 45 per cent?

Mr Tighe —The applied tariff in Thailand is 45 per cent or 37.5 baht per kilo.

Senator BOB COLLINS—The US has a rate of 8.8 per cent and the EU 15 percent?

Mr Tighe —At present the current US applied rate is 8.8 per cent. Its bound rate atthe end of the Uruguay Round implementation period will be 6.4 per cent.

CHAIR —The applied rate now is 8.8 but the bound rate is 6.4?

Mr Tighe —The bound rate at the end of the implementation period—that is, in the



year 2000—will be 6.4 per cent.

CHAIR —That is additional information to what you gave us last time, is it not?

Mr Tighe —It may be additional to what we gave you last time but it is consistentwith what we provided in writing at the end of meeting.

CHAIR —I have not had a chance to read what you provided in writing yet aswell, so I am just clarifying it in my own mind.

Senator BOB COLLINS—We were also told that it was possible that Australiacould negotiate with Thailand to have them reduce their current tariff of 45 per cent andthat—and I quote fromHansard:

. . . will occur during rounds of negotiations in the WTO.

Is it correct that the next round of negotiations on agricultural products is not due tocommence before the end of 1999?

Mr Tighe —In the next multilateral round; that is correct.

Senator BOB COLLINS—And the obvious question I wanted to ask then: is it, atleast at the moment, proposed that that is when these negotiations would occur?

Mr Tighe —Yes. The agreement on agriculture which came out of the UruguayRound specified that there would be another multilateral round of negotiations onagriculture commencing, in effect, before the end of 1999. There has been no change inthat timetable and we are not anticipating one.

Senator BOB COLLINS—But nothing, of course, that would prevent bilateralnegotiations on the matter?

Mr Tighe —Correct.

Senator BOB COLLINS—What about any processes that are available to us, ifany, through APEC?

Mr Tighe —There is also the APEC individual action plan process on an ongoingbasis. There is a meeting of senior APEC officials coming up towards the end of this year.We can and do, in the course of looking at individual action plans, make proposals on theareas in which our trading partners in APEC might like to reduce their levels of tariffs andother barriers to trade.

Also when we have bilateral discussions with our trading partners, we raise these



sorts of bilateral trade irritants. In fact, we have a really very extensive network ofmechanisms for addressing these sorts of bilateral problems—whether it is a tariff or anon-tariff measure, or whether it is in agriculture or in any other sector—with our tradingpartners. They can involve ministerial representations on trips overseas or when we receivevisitors here from our trading partners.

There is a regular series, usually of joint trade commissions, held between us andour major trading partners. I suspect we have one coming up with Thailand relativelysoon, although, given the change in the political situation over there, I am not quite sure ifthat will go ahead according to schedule.

But we do take advantage of all these opportunities to make these issues knownand to see what progress we can make on them. You can imagine as well that our tradingpartners will be doing the same sort of thing with us. So it will be a legitimate questionon their part to ask us where their import application is at on chicken meat issues.

Senator BOB COLLINS—It would be open to Australia in that discussion to raisewith them the question of their current 45 per cent tariff on any potential exports of thesame product to Thailand?

Mr Tighe —Certainly, we can do that and there are a range of market access issuesthat we can raise. You need to observe, obviously, that Thailand’s current tariff is withinits WTO bindings, so they are perfectly entitled to have that tariff. They are entitled tohave a tariff considerably higher than that, but there is nothing to stop them having a tariffwhich is lower.

Senator BOB COLLINS—In regard to that, is it correct that under the UruguayRound agreement on agriculture, developed countries have to reduce the average tariffacross all agriculture products by 36 per cent during the implementation period? And Ithink it is 24 per cent for developing countries, is it not?

Mr Tighe —It is 36 per cent for developed and 24 per cent for developing.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Would that situation mitigate in any way againstAustralia imposing a tariff on chicken meat?

Mr Tighe —Australia is subject to the same disciplines as everybody else under theUruguay Round agreement, so we have to observe that 36 per cent reduction. Currently,though, our applied tariff is below our bound tariff and, indeed, if we maintained thecurrent applied tariff it would be still below the bound tariff which we would have at theend of the implementation period.

Senator BOB COLLINS—The reduction timetable set out under the WTO meansthat Thailand has to reduce its tariff on the base rate as it applied on 1 September 1996—



that is, the 60 per cent tariff?

Mr Tighe —That is correct.

Senator BOB COLLINS—What would happen in real terms if, for example,Thailand said—not that it will I am sure—‘Sorry, we have no intention of changing thatrate’?

Mr Tighe —The actual terms of the agreement call for a reduction in the averagetariffs across all agricultural products in the case of developing countries of 24 per cent.There is also a requirement for a minimum cut of 10 per cent in each tariff line. So, as anabsolute minimum, Thailand has to cut that base rate tariff by 10 per cent. If they failed todo that then they would be in breach of their Uruguay Round commitments and we couldtake them into the WTO and seek compensation for that under article XXVII, I think it is,of the GATT.

Senator BOB COLLINS—The current tariff rates that apply in importation of thisproduct into Thailand, where this industry is important domestically, effectively precludeany exports from Australia of chicken meat at 45 per cent—it would be prohibitivelyexpensive. But, because we currently have no applied tariff rate on the product at all underthe agreement, what would be the maximum regime, tariff quota or whatever thatAustralia could apply if it was determined that we would do so?

Mr Tighe —We can increase our tariff up to the bound tariff which is bound inAustralia’s WTO commitments and that is currently 13.7 per cent. But it is reducing,along with everybody else’s tariffs, to nine per cent at the end of the Uruguay Roundimplementation period.

Senator BOB COLLINS—But we could do that and be completely consistent withour obligations under the WTO?

Mr Tighe —That is correct.

CHAIR —Going back to this question on the US and this letter that we are goingto give to you, how difficult would it be for you to find out the status of other countriesthat we export to with chicken meat and how many of them have a total ban for whateverreason? Is that a hard ask or not?

Mr Tighe —It would be easier if you could specify which countries we had anexport interest in—clearly there are upwards of 120 members of the WTO.

CHAIR —There has been a number of them nominated as being potential—that is,in the Hansardand in some of the stuff which has come through. Japan has beenmentioned. Korea has been mentioned and Malaysia is another one. I can certainly look at



those and we will pull those out and give them to you. What I am trying to establish isthat it is one thing to sit there and say that there is a bound tariff of X and there is anapplied tariff of such and such but it is another to suddenly find out that there is a totalban. It does not matter whether you have an applied tariff or whether you have a boundtariff. A ban is 100 per cent if it is factual. I would not dare accuse you of misleading theSenate committee, but it makes you scratch your head a little bit when you ask ques-tions—

Senator BOB COLLINS—You have not misled the Senate committee.

CHAIR —No, but when you are given information which is only part of theinformation—

Mr Tighe —As I said to you before, we are often not aware of non-tariff barriersuntil industry has alerted us to them. We do not actually trade; it is the industry that tradesnot the governments.

CHAIR —I understand that. Are there any examples that you have where there arenon-tariff barriers applied in terms of chicken meat?

Senator BOB COLLINS—Oh, many.

Mr Tighe —I cannot think of any off the top of my head. But, as I mentioned toyou before, the chicken meat industry is not one that has been very export oriented so it isnot one which has exercised this a great deal. Following the last committee hearing, weprovided you with quite a bit of information on respective tariff levels. I take your pointthat that does not always tell the whole story. If you want us to try to follow up onwhether there are quarantine barriers on chicken meat, we can certainly do that. You needto bear in mind too that other countries have different administrative regimes sometimes interms of clearance procedures and all the rest of it. We sometimes get complaints fromindustries that labelling requirements are acting as non-tariff barriers.

When we receive those sorts of complaints, we act on them as best we can in ourbilateral relations with other countries, or if we have grounds to do it under the WTO,under the SPS or the agreement on technical barriers to trade, we follow them up in thatway. But we are shooting a bit in the dark to be able to say to you that we are absolutelyaware of every potential non-tariff barrier that is there. I could not, in all credibility, saythat to you. As I said, we do not actually try to sell the stuff into other markets; we arereliant on industry to let us know what sort of barriers they are facing.

CHAIR —Firstly, in terms of this particular issue that I am chasing—and I know itis a bit like throwing a dart and finding out which one you hit or which one you do nothit—I will have the countries pulled out that have been mentioned and get that informa-tion to you. Secondly, if you do have any particular information relating to the chicken



industry, which has been brought to your attention, where there are non-tariff barriersbeing applied in any of these countries, I would be interested in you getting that informa-tion for us.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Mr Chairman, the officers have already undertaken togive us a brief on the reasons for the ban with the US, which you have raised. The othertwo relevant countries are obviously Thailand and Denmark, which are the countries thatare currently applying to us for the importation of their product. I just wonder whether theofficers could include Thailand and Denmark—and they have given us the trade informa-tion—along with the US, in respect of any non-trade barriers that might apply to chickenmeat.

Senator HEFFERNAN—Mr Chairman, could we also have provided—and wehave it provided to us from AQIS—the list of countries in the world that are newcastledisease free, what their attitudes are to having chicken product imported and whether thereare non-tariff barriers there also?

CHAIR —Do you understand that? Previously we asked AQIS to provide us withthe names of the countries that have a similar disease-free status to Australia as far aschicken meat is concerned. They are going to provide us with that list, if there is such alist.

Miss Hird —Could I just clarify that? These are countries which are free ofnewcastle disease?

Senator BOB COLLINS—Yes. What the committee would like to know fromsomebody is: what is the current attitude taken by countries that are newcastle diseasefree, as we are, and what is their attitude towards the potential importation of chickenmeat? Are there countries that are newcastle disease free, that have simply imposed ablanket ban on the importation of product from countries that have newcastle disease?

Miss Hird —Could I ask whether a better way to put it would be: what is theircurrent quarantine regime as compared to their attitude?

Senator BOB COLLINS—I think that is a far better way of putting it.

Miss Hird —It is just that attitudes can be inconclusive, but the current regime—

Senator BOB COLLINS—What is the current quarantine regime in countries—and obviously you will need to do this with AQIS—that are newcastle disease free to theimportation of product from countries where it is endemic?

CHAIR —Because we did ask this morning for AQIS to identify for us thosecountries that have a similar disease-free status to Australia.



Mr Tighe —Okay.

Senator BOB COLLINS—In other words, if they can do it, why can’t we if,indeed, there are such regimes?

Senator McGAURAN—Has the United States applied before the WTO disputestribunal, or hasn’t it reached that stage yet? Is it just a threat?

Miss Hird —Perhaps I should clarify that. The only WTO action against us inregard to quarantine matters is on salmon.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Yes, and we do not want to talk about that.

CHAIR —Not today, anyhow.

Senator McGAURAN—Just as a matter of administration—and it is not quite onthe subject—I am interested to know whether you rely on industry to inform you of non-tariff barriers. Given this is a total ban on importation of Australian chicken meat, that is apretty big non-tariff barrier. Wouldn’t that have been done by government agency? Isn’tthere any contact between government agency and government agency?

Mr Tighe —Yes, perhaps I can nuance a little how we rely on industry. We rely onindustry to bring to our attention, particularly, topical barriers that are causing themcurrent concerns. Clearly, we do have very regular bilateral contacts with other govern-ments and also in regional and multilateral fora. In the course of multilateral negotiations,obviously, we try to negotiate away barriers at all sorts of levels, whether industry hasalerted us to them or not. But, to a large extent, and especially when you start to get intothe non-tariff area, which is in some ways less fully encompassed in the WTO agreementthan tariffs have been historically, we do need to be in close contact with our industries tofind out which barriers are a concern to them and which ones, for example, we might beshadow-boxing with. If there is a blanket ban on chicken imports into the US, clearlythere would be a government authority that is responsible that we can make someapproaches to.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I just have one basic general question to conclude on,which relates to this question of access. It is the one we are canvassing now, as ithappens. One of the very important duties that AQIS has, which is often overlookedbecause of the understandable concentration domestically with incursions of diseases andpests from time to time in Australia, is the proactive role that it plays in getting access forour products overseas. Clearly, that must be done for it to be effective, I would imagine,in close cooperation with DFAT.

I guess I am speaking here as a frustrated ex-minister who had some terrificproposals knocked off by Finance and Treasury in this regard. The reason I wanted to ask



the question is that we did in fact have a submission at one stage for additional resourcesto be provided—let me say, either through DFAT or AQIS, I could not have cared less—to upgrade our level of technical quarantine expertise.

One of the reasons, apart from anything else, is that I have on a number ofoccasions had cited to me, for example, the success with which American citrus got intoChina and various places. Do not quote me on that one; I cannot remember the exact ones,but I have actually had it brought to my attention on a number of occasions in terms oflooking around the shelves of supermarkets as I have in Beijing and seeing a product therewhich we cannot currently put into China. That is the success with which those technicaldiscussions have been held. Can you just tell me what is the current situation as far asAustralia is concerned with the level of effort that is currently being put in by ourauthorities in respect of technical barriers to trade? Could you explain for the benefit ofthe committee the formal relationship that exists between DFAT and AQIS in this regard?

Mr Tighe —I can do my best, Senator. I cannot put an absolute figure on it, butAQIS does have officers stationed overseas in some of our key markets. There are some inAsia and some in Europe. We cooperate very closely with AQIS, both at our overseasposts and here in Canberra. There are ad hoc contacts between DFAT and AQIS on adaily basis—several times a day. You would have had in here this morning representativesfrom AQIS who deal all the time with the agriculture branch in the Department of ForeignAffairs and Trade. Also, each of our bilateral areas is in regular contact with the relevantpeople in AQIS about quarantine matters that are currently on the go. There are very manyof them; indeed, a growing number of them. I am getting a little bit out of my territory insaying this, but I am fairly confident that I can say that there was recently an increasegranted in resources to AQIS to pursue export access barriers to—

Senator BOB COLLINS—We certainly took that decision. You might like to takethis on notice: I am interested to know whether that original decision that was finallytaken to increase that effort has in fact been continued?

Mr Tighe —I believe in the context of the supermarket to Asia initiative which wasannounced by the Prime Minister a couple of weeks ago there were some increasedresources devoted to the pursuit of quarantine barriers in foreign markets. I know also acouple of initiatives that have been taken by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister forTrade, involving the creation of a market development task force which is chaired by theSecretary to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which bring together seniorexecutives from each of the industry portfolios, including primary industries and energy.The purpose of that is to ensure that a coherent and properly prioritised approach is beingtaken to the pursuit of various market access barriers in overseas markets, includingquarantine barriers.

The Minister for Trade has also undertaken to report to parliament each year on themarket access activities which have been undertaken in the course of the preceding year



and the objectives for the following year. So the government is certainly very conscious ofthat. I would need to get back and confirm that my facts are correct, but I am reasonablyconfident in saying that the supermarket to Asia initiative has devoted an increasingamount of resources to exactly the sorts of issues that you have just raised.

Senator BOB COLLINS—My last question then is that we have talked about theprospective opportunities that are available to Australia in respect of raising these issueswith Thailand. I am happy for you to take this on notice: could you advise the committeewhether there have been any discussions already between Australia and Thailand inrespect of chicken meat? If so, what is the nature of those discussions and any outcomesfrom them? Let me say, I suspect that because it is a fact that traditionally the industry inAustralia has not been a huge exporter, the answer to that question may well be no.

I am not asking you to go back 20 years, just the last three or four years. I do notknow whether there have been any formal discussions between Australia and Thailand inrespect of chicken meat and, in particular, the current high tariff levels of 45 per cent inThailand that effectively prevent any export of our product there. I do not expect you todie in a ditch in terms of the amount of detail provided.

Mr Tighe —I can assure you that there have been regular bilateral consultations ona range of market access issues. Whether the chicken meat has featured amongst those ornot, I am not sure. We can have a look and see if there is any—

Senator BOB COLLINS—Again, Mr Tighe, to make your workload a reasonableone, you understand what I am after—if chicken meat was simply one of 500 other issuesthat were sitting on the table I am not interested in that. I would like to know if therehave been any discussions with Thailand that highlighted, or specifically focused on, thisissue.

Miss Hird —I wonder if I could make a comment on the practical terms ofnegotiations on tariff barriers. Normally, in order to save your negotiating powder, acountry will take the lead if it is the leading exporter and then bring the others along withit, because generally there is an element of reciprocity in negotiating tariff reductions.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Indeed.

Miss Hird —For instance, if the United States were the leading supplier of chickenmeat and we were, say, about number 10, for us to initiate and lead the negotiations onthe tariff reductions would mean that the US would be getting, in effect, a free ride andgetting most of the benefit from that, and we would perhaps be expected to pay in termsof access for another product into our market if we were to take the lead. That is just thepractical aspect of tariff negotiations.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Absolutely. As I say, it is just for the completeness of



the record. But thank you for that, that is useful. I suspect the answer to the question isprobably no, for all of those reasons.

Senator McGAURAN—Have there been any decisions thus far from the WTO onother disputes? Have they made any judgments as yet?

Miss Hird —Not as yet. The most advanced is on hormonal growth promotants—the use of hormonal growth promotants in livestock.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I hope we are not the first.

Miss Hird —No, we are not actually. Australia was the first country from whichconsultations were sought—that was on salmon. But that is still sitting there; it has not gotto the panel stage. The United States and Canada have both requested panels on theEuropean measures on hormonal growth promotants. Australia is making a third-partysubmission to that panel. So that is the most advanced. It could be another three to fourmonths before its outcomes are known.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Our position, I presume, is that the ban on hormonalgrowth promotants should be lifted? Is that right?

Miss Hird —Our position is that the Europeans have not observed the proceduresthat they are required to observe under the SPS agreement. Therefore they are in breach oftheir obligations.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Yes; thanks.

CHAIR —What does that mean in the real world?

Senator BOB COLLINS—That is the correct answer!

Senator McGAURAN—Is it true to say that the United States is the most prolificin dragging people before the WTO at this stage?

Miss Hird —It is a frequent user of the system, so is Canada, so is the EuropeanCommunity. The Latin Americans are very frequent complainants.

Senator McGAURAN—That leads to my next question. It must be log jammednow. I am just wondering how seriously we can take it as the years roll on?

Miss Hird —No, at this stage I would suggest it is not log jammed. The stages ofthe dispute settlement system are that you must seek consultations before you can go tothe very legal aspects of a panel examination to lead to a decision. Consultations are very,very frequent. They do not log jam the system in terms of the WTO system itself because



they are essentially bilateral in character, and the majority of consultations do not proceedto the panel stage. But it is something to be watched.

It is a different system from the previous dispute settlement system, there are verydifferent new rules, and something like SPS is very different. And you would expect inthe first few years of operation of a new system that there will be an element of testingthe rules. So it would come as no surprise to have a lot of cases in the first few years andthen to perhaps drop off.

CHAIR —That is all the questions we have. I would like to thank the officers ofthe department of trade for their information today and for answering the other questionson notice. We look forward to your answers and over the next week or so I hope we willbe able to read every word of wisdom. Thank you very much.



[3.06 p.m.]HEARN, Dr Simon Eric, First Assistant Secretary, Corporate Policy Division,Department of Primary Industries and Energy, Edmund Barton Building, Barton,Australian Capital Territory 2600

STEVENSON, Ms Gay Frances, Acting Assistant Secretary, Economic Policy Branch,Corporate Policy Division, Department of Primary Industries and Energy, Barton,Australian Capital Territory 2600

CHAIR —Welcome. No doubt you have had an opportunity to have a look at theHansardand the additional evidence we have taken since we had you before us. Have youany statement to make or are there any matters that you wish to raise coming out of thatevidence that we have received so far?

Ms Stevenson—I do not think so, Senator. We did provide supplementaryinformation on the questions that you asked us last time.

CHAIR —Yes, we have all of those. Thank you. Are there any questions?

Senator BOB COLLINS—Mr Chairman, may I make an explanation. I thank theofficers for attending. We thought it wise, because we were taking further evidence thismorning from both AQIS and DFAT, that DPIE be available in case there were any issuesraised from the earlier proceedings that you might like to comment on. But outside of that,Mr Chairman, I have no questions.

Senator HEFFERNAN—I have just one question. I go back to the subject ofimported cooked chicken meat. It seems to me that the only way we are going to find outthat the protocol put in place by AQIS has not worked is if the disease breaks out here.They are not going to test the product. I go back to the lupin disease in Western Australia,which came into Australia under the supervision of AQIS and which is going to wipe outperhaps $300 million worth of lupins this year. We have been told by AQIS that theresponsibility for containing the spread of it is now a state responsibility. Do you have acomment to make on that? As the department of primary industries, would you not bealarmed that the structures for protecting Australian farmers from foreign diseases areinadequate, if that is the case?

Dr Hearn—I certainly would not say that they are inadequate. What I would say,Senator Heffernan, is that obviously as a department we must work with the industryparties to ensure that every possible angle is examined from the national interest point ofview; but I am not in a position to say that they are currently inadequate at all. I am in aposition to say that we will continue to work as much as we can in partnership with allindustries that could be affected, to ensure that our protocols do the best possible job forboth the industries and the country at large, given the importance of those industries.



Senator HEFFERNAN—So are you in a position to make a submission perhaps toAQIS, recommending some beefing up of what happens at the present time, especially inview of the proposition that chicken meat will not be tested for newcastle disease when itcomes into Australia? Obviously, I have a strong view that it ought to be, and I am surethis committee would have a similar view. It would be nice to think that a body such asthe department of primary industries might also have a view and would put forward aproposition to AQIS to beef up what they consider is adequate supervision.

Dr Hearn—Yes. What I would say to that is that AQIS is, of course, an agency ofthe department; but, in terms of bringing expertise to this particularly serious issue, AQIS,while it is an important part of the management, is not the only part of the management inthe department. Of course, other areas of expertise in the department will be used to bringto it the other considerations over and above those in which AQIS has prime responsibili-ty. But, certainly, it is a whole of department approach, of which AQIS is a very import-ant component.

CHAIR —I would like to follow on from that and be a little bit more precise. I amnot having a shot at Senator Heffernan; but I think the committee, for the first time, today,came to the realisation that, after the heat treatment of the chicken meat for whatever itmight be, there will be no further testing of the product to ascertain whether there is anyresidue of newcastle disease there or whether there has been any post-contamination.

Can you tell us whether or not any testing is carried out on other products cominginto Australia which are likely to have an impact on our other industries, whether it be thebeef industry or the grain industry—the lupin one was mentioned; you were probably atthe estimates hearing the other day when I asked questions about the anthrax outbreak inlupins in WA—by introducing diseases that could be detrimental to Australian agriculture?

Dr Hearn—Could I just clarify that point, Senator Crane. Do you mean post-entrytesting?

CHAIR —Yes.

Dr Hearn—I will have to get back to you on that, I am sorry. I understand whatyou are saying.

CHAIR —More than post-entry—post the treatment.

Dr Hearn—Post the treatment, yes.

CHAIR —What, in effect, we were told this morning is that the heat treatment isdone—whether in these cases it would be in Denmark, Thailand or the US; they are thethree countries applying—and there is no further test of that product coming into Austral-ia. I would like to know whether or not that is a consistent position which is supported by



the department as far as other products coming into this country that are likely to havedisease implications for Australian agriculture are concerned.

Dr Hearn—I would like to take the precise part of that question on notice. Asregards the policy angle, obviously if both scientific and industry knowledge throws upthat there are high risks attached to post the initial treatment, then that clearly is a matterof policy we must follow up and look at very closely, because it is the risk element that isabsolutely critical in this whole exercise, regardless of which commodity it is. If there is ahigh risk attached to that stage, then as a matter of policy that has to be followed up.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Dr Hearn, you are obviously busy on some work ofyour own. You may not have had the advantage of hearing what was said this morning.

Dr Hearn—No, I have not.

Senator BOB COLLINS—I assumed you would not have. For your advice, thecontext in which the chairman raises the question is that the committee received advicetoday that the human health authorities would in fact carry out extensive testing of theproduct from Thailand, because the NFA, or whatever it is now called—

CHAIR —The National Food Authority, I think it is.

Senator BOB COLLINS—Is it still the NFA? No, it is the ANZFA. I knew it hadchanged—whatever it is. It is essentially the NFA. It did consider chicken meat to be ahigh risk product. Indeed, it is stating the obvious to say that tragically again this has beenrecently demonstrated—of course, in South Australia. It is of some concern to me thatsome product from that same company was also sent to the Northern Territory. That hasalso been recalled. There has already been one death.

Evidence was given that there will be quite extensive testing by the NFA forpathogens that are related to potential health problems. But AQIS provided the committeewith advice that there is no intention of testing the product at all for newcastle disease,which is the principal concern and acknowledged concern from a quarantine perspective.

Dr Hearn—Yes. As I say, I think it is a matter of policy. I still think we mustcontinue to look from a whole of department context in terms of tackling risks which areidentified. It is very important that we understand those risks as early as possible. That isthe importance of scientific and industry knowledge.

CHAIR —I would certainly be interested in enlarging on that to find out what thegeneral position is. It was news to me when I heard that, because I got the impressionfrom previous evidence given before this committee that the testing that was being carriedout did include testing for newcastle disease, IBD and some of the other diseases we havediscussed at this committee.



The other question that I wanted to raise with you—it may or may not be in yourfield—relates to a matter that was raised at Maitland with us. Evidence was given to us byform of a letter that the United States had a total non-tariff barrier in place with regard tothe importation of chicken meat into the United States. Bear in mind that they are one ofthe applicants to bring chicken meat into Australia. Is or was the department aware ofthat? Do you have any information with regard to why that particular ban is in place?

Ms Stevenson—Dennis Gebbie, who came with me last time, is in fact overseas atthe moment. I had no knowledge, but I look after a different part of the department. Wecan follow that up for you later in the week, if you like.

CHAIR —We have probably given AQIS and Trade a copy of the letter, and wewill give you a copy of it. I am rather intrigued that we have one country making anapplication to bring chicken meat in here when in effect they have their own barrieragainst us. Obviously I do not want you to reinvent the wheel and do what Trade is doing,but you might have some information with regard to where it might be applied in anyother country as far as chicken meat is concerned. Trade is also looking at that, I mightadd.

Ms Stevenson—Okay.

CHAIR —I do not think I have any further questions at this point in time. Doesanyone else have any?

Senator BOB COLLINS—No, Mr Chairman.

CHAIR —I thank you very much. I am sorry it was not a long session. We do notwant you to feel that coming here was a waste of your time. We were not sure what wasgoing to transpire today, so we had to cover all options. Thank you very much.

Dr Hearn—Thank you, Chairman.

CHAIR —I thank members of the committee,Hansardand everyone else for theireffort and help during this inquiry.

Committee adjourned at 3.17 p.m.


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SENATE - Parliament of Australia · BAILEY, Mr Stephen Barry, ... KAHN, Dr Sarah Ann, ... private, you may apply to do so and the committee will consider your request