May 25, 2004

 

 

Australian Pork Company Mounts Court Case On Import Rules

 

Australian Pork Ltd. will take action in the Federal Court against a new government quarantine policy covering imports of pig meat, it announced late Monday.

 

The decision was made at a board meeting of the company, which is a national representative group, incorporating marketing, lobbying and industry services activities.

 

Paul Higgins, the company's chairman, said directors are required to make decisions in the best interests of producers.

 

"As the new quarantine regime gives rise to a 95%-99% likelihood of exotic disease outbreak within the next 10 years, we simply couldn't sit idly by and do nothing," he said in a statement.

 

The industry also is known to be concerned that Australia will be flooded with cheap subsidized imported pork.

 

The new rules for pork imports were announced May 10 and followed an exhaustive risk assessment and appeals process by government agency Biosecurity Australia. This process helped identify a number of strict conditions to be applied to imports, preserving Australia's conservative approach to quarantine, said Michael Taylor, director of animal and plant quarantine at the Department of Agriculture, who announced the decision.

 

"The new quarantine conditions for imports of pig meat...tighten the situation that has been in place for the past 13 years, but more countries will be able to export to Australia, provided they can meet the stringent requirements specified in the new policy," he said.

 

But Australian Pork and many in the industry remain unconvinced of the merits of the new rules, with Higgins saying they effectively water down the import regime.

 

In particular, the new import rules allow increased volumes of pigmeat from more countries infected by the dreaded Post Weaning Multi-Systemic Wasting Syndrome, a disease that is not present in Australia, he said.

 

Company protests about this syndrome, which he said has spread like wild fire throughout the world since first being diagnosed in 1996, have fallen on deaf ears.

 

Pork imports into Australia from countries with the syndrome have jumped 17 times since 1993, and with an outbreak of it in New Zealand late in 2003 "and you have a disaster just waiting to happen," he said.

 

The decision to take legal action only came after the company exhausted all quarantine appeal processes, he said.

 

Agriculture Minister Warren Truss said his department will defend the decision in the court.

 

Truss said the import risk analysis process is transparent, science-based and conducted at arms-length from the political process in accordance with Australia's obligations to the World Trade Organization.

 

"Biosecurity Australia is confident that it has followed all of the proper processes in conducting the" risk analysis, he said in a statement.

 

Truss also said Australia has imported pig meat since 1990 from Canada under a strict quarantine regime, and that country has had the disease of greatest concern to Australian Pork for at least 12 of those years.

 

Australia also imports pigmeat from Denmark and New Zealand, countries that also have the wasting syndrome, he said.

 

Under the old policy, total imports valued around A$200 million a year of uncooked pig meat were allowed from Canada, which accounts for 60% of imports, Denmark, which accounts for 35%, and the South Island of New Zealand.

 

The new policy followed requests for access from Brazil, Canada, Chile, European Union member states, Hungary, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, Taiwan and the U.S.