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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-05-19 Daily Xml
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VETERINARY PROFESSION

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (12:32): I move:

That this house—

(a) congratulates the Australian Veterinarian Association on holding its national conference in Adelaide this week;

(b) notes that 2011—

(i) marks the 250th anniversary of veterinary education with the establishment of the first veterinary school in Lyon, France, in 1761;

(ii) is World Veterinary Year to honour the contribution and achievements of the veterinary profession in the community;

(c) recognises that—

(i) 2011 marks the 120th anniversary of the first class of graduates from the inaugurated Melbourne Veterinary College;

(ii) there are now seven schools of veterinary medicine established in Australia;

(iii) veterinarians are dedicated to preserving the bond between humans and animals by practising and promoting the highest standards of science-based and ethical animal welfare;

(iv) veterinarians are on the front line in maintaining Australia's status as being free from exotic diseases that threaten the environment, and human and animal health;

(v) veterinarians provide extensive pro bono services annually through the ethical treatment of unowned animals and wildlife;

(vi) veterinarians are vital to ensuring the high quality of Australia's commercial herds and flocks, and the security of our food supply;

(vii) veterinarians provide a valuable public health service through preventative medicine, control of zoonotic disease and scientific research;

(d) recognises that significant contributions and achievements have been made by many individual members of the Australian veterinary profession, including—

(i) Nobel Prize winner and Australian of the Year, Dr Peter C. Doherty, who achieved major breakthroughs in the field of immunology;

(ii) Professor Mary Barton, a leading veterinary bacteriologist with a distinguished career in government and veterinary public health; and

(iii) Dr Reg Pascoe, a renowned equine surgeon and dermatologist, and a leader in his profession for more than 50 years.

This week there are nearly 850 vets and vet staff meeting down the road at the Convention Centre for the 2011 national conference. It is a fantastic event. I have been there a number of times and I am attending some workshops on Friday. Unfortunately, because of commitments to this place, I cannot attend as much as I would like, but I have had the chance to catch up with a number of my colleagues and talk to them about what is happening in the Veterinary Association and the veterinary world. It is a great thing that is happening and, as I say, I congratulate the Australian Veterinarian Association on holding what has been an exceptionally successful national conference down there this week.

I congratulate Dr Barry Smyth on being re-elected as the national president last night. I am sure Dr Smyth will continue the great work that the association has done on a national basis. Certainly, the South Australian branch is continuing to do some terrific work within this state.

Amongst the announcements last night and yesterday were also some of the prizes that were awarded. There is a range of prizes awarded by the Australian Veterinary Association. Last night, our own South Australian, Professor Mary Barton, was awarded the President's prize. Professor Barton is a well-known veterinarian in South Australia who has done a lot of work in bacteriology and does a lot of terrific work at the University of South Australia. I was very lucky, as a student, to win the Australian veterinary student award. All of these are prestigious awards and I congratulate Professor Barton on receiving the President's prize last night.

Of course, as a veterinarian, there is no conflict of interest in this at all. I am very proud to be here to speak about this issue. Can I say, I am not the only veterinarian who has been in this place. The Hon. John Cornwall, a member of the other place, was in here with the Labor Party and had a distinguished career as the minister for health. So, as the shadow minister for health, I would like to follow in the steps of the Hon. John Cornwall, not as a shadow minister, but as the minister for health.

The Hon. Dr Bruce Eastick was not only the leader of the opposition, he was a speaker in this parliament. I remember, as a kid, Bruce Eastick coming out to stitch up one of my horses. It is lovely to see Bruce. I last saw him at the official opening of the new veterinary school at Roseworthy, earlier this year.

The Veterinary Association's national conference is not just about a social gathering; a broad scientific program is being put on down there. One of the biggest announcements that was made there this week was the announcement of the development of a vaccine for the hendra virus in horses. Hendra virus is a virus carried by bats, and it has caused the death of many horses in Queensland. Unfortunately, it is a zoonotic disease that is transferred to humans, and it has killed a number of vets and veterinary workers in Queensland. It is a real issue for all of us in South Australia as well, with the fruit bats (or flying foxes) coming into South Australia, because they are the main vector for this particular virus.

The scientific program is very broad; it goes across public health. There are many Indigenous issues being discussed this week, and also there is an extensive trade display. The public health issues range from the discussion of zoonotic diseases (as I said, hendra and rabies), but there are a lot of issues that are being discussed, and also public health issues, such as why dogs bite. When not just thousands of children but also adults across Australia are bitten by dogs, it would be nice to work out exactly why this is happening and educate dog owners and people who are handling dogs. The Indigenous issues are focusing around the health of camp dogs and their relationship with the public health of those Indigenous communities. I congratulate the people who are doing some fantastic work there.

There is an extensive trade display down at the Convention Centre, and I would encourage members of parliament to go down there. I am sure they would be more than welcome; they do not have to have a dog tag to go in there. The extensive trade display is everything from computer programs for running a practice right through to assisting in rapid pathology diagnosis and many other aspects of veterinary practice nowadays.

Some of the latest equipment is on display, from cages to cardiac monitors, from the latest books and equipment right through to advice on how to invest the meagre earnings from your veterinary practice. One display actually monitors the health of the vets themselves; I participated in that. There is nothing wrong with me, apart from the fact that I need to be six inches taller! It is very, very important that we as members of parliament not only look after our constituents but look after ourselves, and it is good to see that the veterinary profession is looking after themselves as well.

Last night was a trade display social night, and it was lovely to see our own veterinary students from the University of Adelaide's Roseworthy College there and to talk to some of them. It took a long time to get there, but we have our own veterinary school here in South Australia.

As I pointed out in the private member's motion, this year it is 250 years since the first veterinary school was established in Lyon in France, in 1761. I refer to A Veterinary Awakening, a book written by Rhyll Vallis. It is a terrific little book. I will give this one to the parliamentary library, but I would recommend it to members to have a look at what is going on. The word 'veterinarian' comes from the Latin word 'veterinae', meaning 'working with animals'. The first veterinary text of any note was printed in 1528 and was a copy of Vegetius' Mulomedicina, a comprehensive equine veterinary text produced around 500 AD.

The history of veterinary medicine has often been precipitated either by war, and the need to have fit and healthy horses to run military campaigns, or by disease. Between 1710 and 1714, half of the cattle in France were destroyed by rinderpest. When France suffered another outbreak in 1750, Claude Bourgelat was able to persuade King Louis XV of France that the medical profession's efforts against the disease had failed. What was needed, Bourgelat argued, was a school producing trained veterinary specialists equipped with the scientific knowledge to combat rinderpest. Bourgelat oversaw the establishment of the first permanent veterinary school in Lyon in France in 1761-62.

Over the next two decades, six similar veterinary schools were opened in Western Europe, and, in 1791, the Royal Veterinary College opened in London. England's first veterinary school proclaimed itself, 'For the improvement of Farriery and the Treatment of Cattle'. In Australia, when the first convicts arrived in 1788 there were no veterinarians accompanying the fleet and, from around 1817, of the 18,000 convicts who were transported to Australia, only six gave their occupation as veterinary surgeon. However, it is unlikely that they were qualified as vets, as we all know that vets are known to be people of strong moral fibre and hardly likely to steal a loaf of bread or a handkerchief.

On travelling to New Holland, the first immigrants, the first convicts, the first settlers, would have brought with them some of the popular veterinary texts of the day: The Gentleman's Farriery and The Family Horse Doctor. The world of veterinary science did not do much in Australia until around the 1850s, when gold was discovered, the gold rush occurred and migration trebled the population of Australia. Before that, there was not a lot of imported livestock but, with the rapid rise in population, more imports of livestock and their products and more extensive livestock production took place.

Unfortunately, with these developments came disease and, while livestock quarantine laws were enacted in the 1870s, it was too little too late. Back then, instead of a state veterinary service like those in Europe, each Australian colony had a government stock branch headed by a chief inspector of stock. In South Australia, sheep scab was a real issue in the 1850s, and we had a handful of scab inspectors, as they were called, who visited 35 sheep stations, inspected 186,274 sheep and travelled 1,622 miles by horse. That was a pretty tough life. I used to do a lot of miles in my four-wheel drive, but it was nothing like those miles travelled on the back of a horse.

In 1880, fewer than 50 qualified vets were practising in the whole of Australia, and there was no regulation of who could call themselves a vet; in many cases, farriers and other quacks put up a shingle and called themselves veterinary surgeons. Australia's first qualified veterinary surgeon is thought to have been John Stewart, who stepped off the boat and onto Sydney Cove in 1841. He set up a private practice in Sydney, which he ran in conjunction with a horse bazaar. A former professor of veterinary medicine in Glasgow, he was the author of two books when he arrived in Australia, Advice to Purchasers of Horses and Stable Economy.

When the first confirmed cases of foot and mouth disease occurred in Australia in 1876 and 1872 in cattle imported to New South Wales, a veterinarian, John Pottie, who worked part-time for the New South Wales government and part-time in private practice, was able to confirm the disease, enact quarantine, and shut down the spread of the disease and, as we know, Australia is still free of foot and mouth disease.

The first veterinarian to arrive in Victoria was William Tyson Kendall in 1880. He observed that there were no more than a dozen qualified veterinary surgeons practising in Victoria. Kendall, along with Graham Mitchell and several other qualified vets in Australia, had the following to say about the Australian veterinary profession in 1881:

A large proportion of the stockowners and farmers have had no previous experience of the management of stock in countries or parts where veterinary surgeons were available...The present state of veterinary progress in these colonies is therefore similar to what it was in England fifty years ago...

To remedy this sad situation, the vets set about professionalising veterinary medicine in Australia. Due to their efforts, in 1880 the first Australian veterinary association was formed—the Australasian Veterinary Medical Association. The association's president, Mitchell, and secretary, Kendall, also began publishing The Australasian Veterinary Journal in 1882. The Australasian Veterinary Medical Association, with members from various colonies and New Zealand, actively campaigned for the establishment of an Australian veterinary school. It also sought legislation granting qualified vets exclusive right to the title of 'veterinary surgeon'. Both aims were accomplished: in 1887, the Veterinary Surgeons Act was proclaimed and, in 1888, six students enrolled in the Melbourne Veterinary College.

The history of veterinary science in Australia is well put together in A Veterinary Awakening by Rhyll Vallis, and I encourage members and members of the veterinary profession to read it. It also talks about the history of government veterinarians, and we know that the role of government veterinarians complements the role of those in private practice. I will finish by once again congratulating the Australian Veterinary Association on the hard work that it has been doing in advancing the profession, both scientifically and professionally. I congratulate those associated with the establishment—at long last—of the University of Adelaide's Veterinary School at Roseworthy. Professor Gail Anderson is the founding Dean of that school. I have been there a number of times, and I had the pleasure of being there with the minister for agriculture at the official opening.

The future for that school is a very bright one. There is a need for governments and politicians of all persuasions to ensure that we encourage and support the veterinary profession because, without the eagle eye for biosecurity that vets provide, we will go back to the days of sheep scab and foot and mouth. If some of the diseases get into Australia, they will destroy the agricultural industries. Because of the work of vets on sheep scab, the wool production in Australia went from £2 million a year to £40 million a year between 1830 and 1850. The levels of production in agriculture are only possible because of the work of our vets.

Also, the role of vets in small-animal practice and the enjoyment given to families and communities by the ownership of pets is a terrific health benefit as well as a social benefit. The role of veterinarians cannot ever be underestimated. I am very proud to say that my daughter Sahra is a vet as well now, and she is a proud member of this profession. With that, I congratulate the Australian Veterinary Association on its national conference.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (12:46): I will make a brief contribution. I have to declare that I am not a vet and I prefer to go to a standard medico rather than to a vet. I am not sure which one is cheaper these days.

I want to comment briefly on a program which has been developed by the vets, and I commend them for this. It is something that we may not think of but, during bushfires or times of other emergency, animals running astray and loose can be a hazard not only to themselves but also to people on roads, and so on. To the credit of the veterinarians in South Australia, they have set up a system whereby, if there is an emergency, they have an arrangement where that issue can be dealt with by the vets and others to ensure that we do not have animals that are injured and untreated running astray and causing a risk to themselves and others. So, I commend them for that recent establishment. I am not quite sure what its fancy name is.

I commend the government because, ultimately, the government came to the party, I guess through the Minister for Emergency Services, to support that group. I know Dr Rachel Westcott runs a mobile veterinary practice called Vet to Pet. (She grew up in the street where I allegedly grew up.)

I conclude by once again commending the veterinary specialists for their contribution to that civic duty of ensuring that if there is another emergency—bushfire, Ash Wednesday, flood, or whatever—that there is now a coordinated organised response arrangement. I again commend the minister, I think the Minister for Emergency Services, who decided to support that in various ways.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.

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