October 26, 2005

Australia's High Court to speed hearing on pork imports

Australia's High Court has agreed to expedite a preliminary hearing of a possible appeal against new quarantine protocols for imported pork, according to industry lobby/services concern, Australian Pork Ltd.

Justice Michael McHugh said the court would hear Australian Pork's application for special leave to appeal on November 18. If the application was successful, the appeal would be set for a full hearing before the High Court next year, the company said.

Appealing to the High Court, Australia's highest court, involved a two-step process. An application for special leave to appeal would be made, and if that was successful, then the appeal would be heard by either five or seven High Court judges.

Australian Pork wanted leave to appeal a September 16 ruling of the Federal Court that backed a decision by the Director of Animal and Plant Quarantine to adopt Bio-security Australia's import risk analysis to allow conditional entry of imports from countries whose herds had Post Weaning Multisystemic Wasting Syndrome, or PMWS.

Andrew Spencer, Australian Pork's chief executive, asserted the Federal Court decision was illegal.

"We have said all along that this case is about keeping diseases we don't have out of this country and as an industry, we are resolved to fight this case all the way through the High Court to maintain our health status," he said in a statement.

Modelling undertaken by the government's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, of Bio-security Australia's import risk assessment for imported pork, found it would result in a 95 to 99 percent likelihood of an outbreak of PMWS within 10 years.

Spencer said PMWS has killed 8 million piglets in the European Union since 2000 and was the biggest threat facing the Australian industry.

A PMWS outbreak in Australia would be catastrophic, adding A$55 million a year to the industry's costs of production, he said.