Feasibility of a National Horse Traceability Register for All Horses
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The Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee Feasibility of a national horse traceability register for all horses November 2019 © Commonwealth of Australia 2019 ISBN 978-1-76093-024-0 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License. The details of this licence are available on the Creative Commons website: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/. Printed by the Senate Printing Unit, Department of the Senate, Parliament House, Canberra. Members Chair Senator Glenn Sterle ALP, WA Deputy Chair Senator Susan McDonald Nats, QLD Members Senator Alex Gallacher ALP, SA Senator Gerard Rennick LP, QLD Senator Murray Watt ALP, QLD Substitute Members Senator Mehreen Faruqi (to replace Senator Janet Rice) AG, NSW Secretariat Gerry McInally, Committee Secretary Sarah Redden, Principal Research Officer Trish Carling, Senior Research Officer Joshua Wrest, Senior Research Officer Matthew Hughes, Research Officer Kate Morris, Administrative Officer Michael Fisher, Administrative Officer PO Box 6100 Telephone: (02) 6277 3511 Parliament House Fax: (02) 6277 5811 CANBERRA ACT 2600 Email: [email protected] iii Contents Members ............................................................................................................................................. iii Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................... ix List of Recommendations .............................................................................................................. xiii Chapter 1—Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 Referral of the inquiry ......................................................................................................................... 1 Conduct of the inquiry ........................................................................................................................ 1 Acknowledgement ............................................................................................................................... 1 Note of references ................................................................................................................................ 2 Structure of the report ......................................................................................................................... 2 Australian horse population ............................................................................................................... 2 Principles of animal traceability......................................................................................................... 3 Unique animal identifier .......................................................................................................... 4 Property identifier .................................................................................................................... 4 Central record ............................................................................................................................ 5 Discussions about horse traceability in Australia ........................................................................... 6 Horse traceability in New South Wales ................................................................................. 6 Agriculture Ministers' Forum ................................................................................................. 6 Emergency Animal Disease Response Agreement and Levy ............................................. 7 EADRA inquiry ......................................................................................................................... 9 Equine influenza inquiry ......................................................................................................... 9 Horse Emergency Contact Database ...................................................................................... 9 Alleged mistreatment of horses at an Australian abattoir ............................................... 10 Support for equine traceability ........................................................................................................ 10 Chapter 2—Animal traceability in Australia ............................................................................... 11 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 11 Horse identification and registration in Australia's jurisdictions ............................................... 11 Horse industry registers .................................................................................................................... 13 Existing livestock traceability systems in Australia ...................................................................... 17 National Livestock Identification System for cattle, sheep and goats ............................. 17 NLIS Pigs .................................................................................................................................. 23 v Chapter 3—Support and functionality for horse traceability ................................................... 25 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 25 Support for horse traceability ........................................................................................................... 25 Degree of support ................................................................................................................... 26 Concerns about traceability .................................................................................................. 28 Potential functions of a traceability system .................................................................................... 29 Understanding the Australian horse population ............................................................... 30 Biosecurity and emergency management ........................................................................... 30 Improved rider safety............................................................................................................. 33 Horse welfare .......................................................................................................................... 35 Racing industry data .............................................................................................................. 40 Horse processing and food safety ....................................................................................... 44 Improved breeding practices ................................................................................................ 48 Maintaining the integrity of trade in horses and professionalising the industry .......... 49 Movement of horses ............................................................................................................... 51 International comparisons ................................................................................................................ 52 United Kingdom ..................................................................................................................... 53 Chapter 4—Framework for horse traceability ............................................................................. 57 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 57 Key considerations and challenges.................................................................................................. 57 Rationale for livestock ............................................................................................................ 57 Fragmented industry .............................................................................................................. 59 Existing registers ..................................................................................................................... 60 Method of identification ........................................................................................................ 70 Costs, funding and fees .......................................................................................................... 73 Access, privacy and oversight ............................................................................................... 80 Compliance, enforcement and education ............................................................................ 82 Going forward ......................................................................................................................... 83 Chapter 5—Committee views and recommendations ................................................................ 87 General comments ............................................................................................................................. 87 Development of a register ..................................................................................................... 88 Biosecurity function (see Chapter 3) ............................................................................................... 89 vi Data requirements (see Chapter 3) .................................................................................................