My thoughts on the Discussion Paper

IMO this document sums up the SEQ situation well & best of all, a feasible solution with an end result.

Is the problem an inability of the DPI & others running the show to actually grasp the situation at hand and do something this definitive? Seems at the rate we are going we could be under lockdown indefinitely & they don't seem to appreciate what this means to tens of thousands of Australians.

A blinkered approach dictated by “short term gain” at “long term expense”.

I certainly would jump at the chance to have my horses vaccinated if we could just get on with it. And... it worries me that the touted cost of vaccination has been blown out of all proportion purely as a "scare tactic"? Other countries vaccinate and think nothing of it.

Also I don't understand how the discriminatory practice of only vaccinating "high value animal" can be justified (well perhaps I do, but don’t want to – it turns our supposed democratic society into one favouring elitism* ). Surely this is ethically and morally wrong? And ironically being seen to be driven by a Labour gov’t at a State level?

Our society is supposedly an intelligent, compassionate society which constantly reminds us to value other attributes besides money and greed. Yet we are having this “dollar driven definition” forced down our throats.

And the reasoning that they couldn't possibly blanket vaccinate is b/c they need know if EI is spreading or not??? Inferring that our “expendable low value horses” are a monitor for the so-called “high value horses”. I find it incredible that this line of reasoning/thinking could actually be verbalised, let alone be put in print.

Meanwhile the TBs/SBs are vaccinated and if infected merrily trot about shedding the disease and infecting all and sundry. Defies logic. Just in the last two days new outlier outbreaks at Innisplains in SEQ, (Glen Logan I believe) 20km from the border & at Wellington in NSW (possibly MacQuarie Stud) have been attributed to the “walk-on” policy (movement permitted for breeding on TB farms). Somebody has to be accountable for this atrocious management plan. If you vaccinate SOME you must vaccinate ALL. Agree entirely with David Lovell on this score.

Had to grimace when I saw the note about mail outs and letter drops in the SEQ - which the DPI insists they are doing. We too, have yet to see one.

The only such mail outs/letter drops that I know have occurred were to do with the Brookfield buffer zone, a complete and utter disaster. The DPI didn't have an appreciation of where cases were and how fast it was spreading, buffer zone of 5km in built up areas....and had to rescind the letters the next day. They sent a mail out to places such as the whole of Woodcrest Estate, very new estate of house blocks, hundreds - not one horse on them whatsoever.

Same goes for mailbox drop in and around inner city Brisbane to let all the city residents (that have no contact with horses) know about EI and biosecurity. Knee jerk reaction to the Hendra (oh no, infection in the racing industry) horses.

Not targeted to horse owners at all. What a waste of time, energy and money......

I fear its much too late though, though virus has bolted...... after the Melbourne Cup the disease will more than likely be declared endemic (b/c far too costly to control) and the whole thing will wind down in the gov’ts eyes and rev up from a epidemic point of view. Now that they have staggered the loss to the racing industry by vaccinating groups of racing horses up and down the Eastern Seaboard to take over when the others finally do get sick. “Who cares about the rest – there were too many horses anyway!”

What about WA, SA and Tasmania? Well I don’t know if they’ve thought about that long term? My guess is that they’ll have to go for vaccination or employ long and costly operations to ensure quarantine which just isn’t really feasible.

This should be handled conjointly by State and Federal levels of government. At the moment these gov’t departments are all over the place doing their own thing and in public denial that there is a problem. They have been playing catch up from Day 1. Making mistake after mistake.......after mistake. And now they are just waiting until their $60 mill is used up (which by the way is just the percentage of GDP for the racing industry I believe, not the whole horse industry) and then will pull up stumps and all responsibility. Reeks really.