Buffer Zone; what buffer zone?

Yes could hardly believe the post from Olivia Slater on AE this morning

"We are in the Buffer Zone, clearly shown on gridmaps as well inside. NOT part of property and not the v.v.edge of boundary. We have already been told that although IN the Buffer Zone (with 30 horses) they had hoped the buffer zone would contain few or no horses. BUT where it does the vaccine will be prioritised (still) to registered racing interests and may not even be offered to others at all."

You'd think the DPI would appreciate the concept of a buffer zone. It would seem not.

First consignment of vaccine:

Racing 4880
Harness 1450
Buffer 1048
Other 80

With 482 left sitting in storage!

That adds up to 7940 - how many vaccinations did Qld get allocated? We were assigned 9240 - where did the other 1300 go?

And at Innisplains, near Beaudesert, Andrea-Laws King reports:

"Well the area south of Beaudesert was clean until yesterday. Unfortunately with the advent of "Walk-On Mares" (honestly I can't understand why the DPI ever agreed to these movements when everyone else is not permitted to move-obviously the owners of these multi-million dollar businesses have friends in high places ), two large studs (one with aprrox 600 mares ) at Innisplain are infected."

My thoughts :

THE BUFFER ZONE VACCINATION plan is an absolute joke. Token gesture. They are not even bothering to hide the fact they have NO INTENTION of doing it properly, if indeed they know how.

Never mind about proposing any"blanket vaccination" theory (yesterdays meeting) - they can't (or won't)even vaccinate a 10KM wide buffer zone properly AND it should by rights beat least 50-200KM wide.

DPI philosophy seems to be - spread it here, spread it there...spread it gaily everywhere. And, oh no, it isn't working because no one is abiding by biosecurity measures.....Plllleeeeaasssseeee! "

Notes on the Ipswich meeting from Janice O'Connor - maybe that should read first impression:
"Lessons from Ipswich...... Our horses will continue to get sick, they will not be vaccinated., the 'plan' allows 8 -EIGHT - weeks for the buffer to vaccinated. The brumbies in the buffer are apparently immune or perhaps they think they can shoot them all.

It is our fault because our biosecurity won't let their plan work.

As the fire ant people are currently all working on EI they will probably take a run too!

What a mess. Their message - "the 'plan' is working infection is slowing -obviously they have no idea how many more horses there are to get infected and they are working for a disease burnout. There can be no time frame and their excellent communication will continue - ie won't tell you where it isor when you are likely to get it."

Perhaps you had better wait for someone less furious to write on the proceedings. This little recreational owner is pissed off to the max by the stupidity and arrogance of those in charge who obviously wish they were dealing with cattle or sheep or some other animal they could simply cull."

Then from the AERA President Matthew Krahnen:

"Today I attended the EI meeting held at Ipswich Showgrounds that Peter and Penny Toft organized. It was encouraging to see a wide cross section of the Horse industry represented and to listen to the expert veterinary advice that was on offer.

I went to this meeting with the hope that there would be a Minister or two from either a State level or a Federal level. Sadly this was not the case, but in their absence we were graced with the presence of the CEO of the DPI QLD and the local State member Wayne Wendt and his Federal counter part Cameron Thompson and some other high ranking Govt officials.

At first this gave me some hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel in the short term, but now I feel things are bleaker than ever.

The meeting kicked off with the very well known and respected vet Janine Dwyer who gave an in depth assessment of how horses who contract EI need to be cared for and the various options available for treating this insidious disease on a case by case basis.

Veterinarian David Lovell then took the microphone and gave a precise account of how EI took hold in QLD and how many opportunities were missed that might have contained this outbreak. He also went on to offer his own personal views on some of the strategies that are or aren’t in place, and I’m sure this was done intentionally considering the audience that were in attendance. The information that the veterinary profession is providing on EI is first class and this is where the problem begins. The Vets are doing their best under very trying circumstances but are being let down by a hopelessly inadequate and under funded department.

At no point did anyone within the department offer any kind of time frame when we might be able to resume normal activities again, this was disappointing but not unexpected.

Then the DPI CEO took the microphone and launched into his spin doctor speech about how the department is doing this and its doing that and how good its communication is with every body, he then went on to briefly out line that once the govt has spent about 2% of the GDP of the horse industries worth fighting EI they would review the whole situation and consider classing EI as an endemic disease.

What this means is that from the onset of EI the horse industry has been given a dollar value in terms of its contribution to the economy. The Govt has then said that they will spend 2% of that contribution on combating EI. When questioned about this policy and asked how much 2% actually is, a figure of $60 million was offered.

If at the point where the money has been spent and the Govt considers that there is a chance that EI can be eradicated then they are proposing to introduce a $10 one of levy per horse to continue the fight. THIS IS BULLSHIT!!!. They have already said that they expect the industry to cover 80% of the cost , the State 10% and the Federal Govt 10%.

As individuals if we are found to be doing the wrong thing we can expect the full force of the law to come down on us plus any associated fines that a court may impose just for good measure. But when a Govt department makes a disaster causing mistake or blunder like allowing EI into Australia a plan is devised to make every body pay for their mistake.

We need to keep in mind that this not the only recent breach of Australia’s quarantine laws, there has been Fire Blight in the apple growing industry, Citrus Canker and Fire Ants these are all monumental failures in their own right but if you combine them with EI and calculate the cost you are talking about billions of dollars, and guess who gets to pay for it??

The vaccination program that is being rolled out amongst the Racing Industry is flawed in many aspects and I think what precious little vaccine is available should be prioritised toward the Buffer zone first and what ever is left over should be used to work inwards from there."