QDO Alarmed By BJD Proposals

November 25, 2015

The Queensland Dairyfarmers Organisation is concerned by proposed changes to Bovine Johne’s Disease (BJD) biosecurity legislation.

QDO president Brian Tessmann said the changes would impact every dairy farmer in Queensland “sooner or later”.

BJD is a wasting disease which can cause chronic diarrhoea in cattle, emaciation and eventually death.

The bacteria lives and replicates in the intestines of animals and is excreted in faeces. It can survive in the soil for many months. It generally infects young calves but the disease doesn’t become apparent for several years.

There is no effective treatment. BJD is endemic in Victoria and parts of South Australia and NSW. Recent outbreaks in Queensland have caused movement restrictions to be placed on several properties.

“From an ethical and natural justice point of view, the just released Animal Health Australia document on removing regulations around BJD is probably one of the most unjust and one-sided documents I have seen in years,” Mr Tessmann said.

He said it was riddled with inconsistencies, inaccuracies and “plain injustice”.

“Put simply, the report … transfers all responsibility for managing the risk of BJD from government agencies to individual producers,” he said.

“The report goes on to say clearly that AHA’s intention is to treat BJD as an endemic disease (but) in another section of the same report acknowledges that BJD is in fact not endemic in a number of Australian regions.

“These regions obviously include Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia in which the past and current regulations have served well.

“While those who for their own reasons desire a freeing up of cattle movements and advocate for this AHA report often throw mud at the current practices, its effectiveness can easily be seen, evidenced by the high occurrence of BJD in Northern NSW and the very low, almost non-existent levels in south-east Queensland.

“But the AHA committee, which was dominated by government officials, has the view that times are changing and that government wants to withdraw from its responsibilities and duty of care.

“The greatest injustice is that while the initial intention of this current review placed high importance on farmer education, communication and support, this now has seemingly dissipated.

“Further, the report encourages industry management and practices including producer tracing forward and backward following outbreaks, but government itself cannot offer any practical ways this can actually occur.

“The report continually falls back to farmers taking common law action if they are infected with little real potential for limiting the spread as BJD is such a slow incubating disease that the people at fault could be possibly non-existent by the time of discovery.

“The real victim, the honest producer, has no recompense themselves and is then potentially liable to others pursuing action against them.”

Mr Tessmann said the State Government had told the QDO, the dairy industry could set up its own industry-driven and funded scheme, but had not promised any support or resources to do this.

“With only three months until removing regulations, this is akin to throwing someone into the sea in the middle of the Pacific without a life jacket and justifying their almost certain drowning by saying, ‘well if they build their own boat they can sail back to Australia by themselves’,” he said.

Mr Tessmann said the QDO had surveyed Queensland dairy farmers and found that 96 per cent of them wanted to maintain current regulations.

“This, however, has not stopped people from outside our industry with clearly no knowledge of the dairy issues around this disease abusing both QDO and myself for representing our members,” Mr Tessmann said.

“Making claims that we are out of touch and newcomers to the BJD debate are simply outrageous.

“Their uninformed bully boy tactics will continue because they have got them what they want, at least when government wants to reallocate resources and have no concern for industries impacted.

“What are Queensland dairy farmers to do in five to 10 years’ time when Johnes Disease is commonplace in Queensland dairy herds? Especially if, heaven forbid, there is a link proven to a human health condition such as Crohn’s Disease.

“What we need is for (Agriculture Minister Bill Byrne) to stand up for Queensland dairy farmers and beef producers to work on a solution that continues to protect our industry from BJD.

“We need a government and industry partnership to achieve this.”

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