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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
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LIVESTOCK (MISCELLANEOUS) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 3 May 2012.)

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (15:47): I rise to indicate today that the Liberal Party will be supporting the Livestock (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2012 in its amended form, as received from the Legislative Council. I will indicate that we will not be supporting the government's first amendment. I have mentioned my farming history many times in this place, but I think I need to at the start of this speech as well. From 1840 to 2005, when I leased out my property, we managed stock for all those years on different properties.

In my lifetime, my father ran a commercial Hereford herd. He had up to 100 breeders at one stage, and was very successful at selling commercial bulls into the local area and beyond. Apart from that, we have had merinos on board, as well as breeding with Polwarth sheep, so we have had a little bit to do with stock over time. Apart from having the odd horse on the property—thankfully, I have boys, and they like motorbikes; you do not have to feed them when they are not being used. Certainly, I would think we have had a reasonable amount of experience.

Livestock contributes to the South Australian economy somewhere between $4 billion and $5 billion annually, so it is significant. I note that there are certainly clauses in this bill that will improve the operation of the Livestock Act 1997. This bill lines up under the act. Under national agreements, the act already ensures South Australia is in line with livestock legislation enacted in other states and territories in Australia by supporting a number of important national agreements, including the National Livestock Identification Scheme (commonly known as NLIS) and the national agreements for funding of emergency responses to exotic disease incursions. Certainly registration requirements are part of this plan.

Obviously disease is a major concern amongst the state's livestock industries and it does not just reflect on Bovine Johne's disease or Ovine Johne's disease. The act does provide for registration requirements that ensure that the minimum necessary standards are adhered to for the protection and benefit of our livestock industries in this state.

With registration these requirements allow for fast and effective tracing of livestock in the event of detecting an animal disease emergency, certainly in relation to artificial breeding centres and veterinarian diagnostic laboratories. The current act provides the government with the ability to investigate and control any animal disease or contaminant that may impact on the health of livestock, people, and native or feral animals. It also provides the government with the opportunity to explore the marketability of livestock or livestock products.

The current act from 1997 provides for the establishment of livestock advisory groups. We have seven advisory groups at the moment: sheep, cattle, pigs, goat, deer, alpacas and horses. These groups are there to give advice to the government with regard to policy in their particular industries. Funds for these advisory groups are established under the Primary Industry Funding Schemes Act 1998.

Obviously this bill is to upgrade the act to include provisions that will give the owners of livestock and industry communities a greater voice in how animal health-related diseases and issues are handled and ultimately dealt with. There is an important amendment to the act, which is in the bill, to enable recovery of costs from individuals who refuse or fail to take required control actions in the event of animal disease detection. This is aimed not solely at the apiary sector, but certainly it does have a lot of issues, where in the past a large amount of taxpayer and industry funds have been used to clean up neglected and abandoned hives and hive material.

With the introduction of property identification codes (not without a little bit of controversy throughout the countryside) the PIC fee has been introduced as a component of the NLIS and provides information about livestock properties for use in disease emergencies and natural disasters. Specific provisions for all properties with livestock have been developed to provide more equitable penalties. Hopefully this will improve the current property identification code system. If this bill goes through and becomes an act I understand it will bring the PIC fee from being under regulation to becoming part of this legislation.

I note that when this bill was introduced there was a lot more controversy about biosecurity fees that were going to be put in with this bill, because this is the act that has to be opened if more biosecurity fees are going to be placed on our state's producers and horse owners. The government has decided to pull those biosecurity fees. This side of the house has successfully asked for an investigation within the Environment, Resources and Development Committee and we hope that will achieve the appropriate outcome.

One thing that is always voiced to me from farmers is, 'How much more are we going to be hit up for?' Cost recovery, biosecurity fees—these people supply billions and billions of dollars to this state's economy and the government is pretty keen to salute what our grain growers and property owners grow but then they go and talk about more fees and more imposts. It will be interesting to see where the proposal for more biosecurity fees gets to in the future.

I want to talk about the amendment moved in the other place by the Hon. Robert Brokenshire, and it relates to bringing in cases of animal welfare on a commercial livestock scale, and involving horses as well, under Primary Industries. On this side of the house we think that is a good move. We cannot see why you should expect a charity that gets $650,000 annual government funding to run the operation in regard to the inspectorate for animal welfare cases for commercial livestock or horses.

We think the RSPCA is better off looking after wild animals and pets as their inspectorate job, and that will create a better outcome for our producers. We think it is too much of a load, and we think the government should take more of a hand in it. I know that Primary Industries do support agriculture, they do promote it, but I cannot see any reason why their animal welfare officers, their inspectors, through their chief inspectors and the chief veterinary surgeon, cannot use the amendment of the Hon. Robert Brokenshire in the other place to look after the welfare of stock. These inspectors are already in place around the state at saleyards and other locations, so I believe they will give the best outcome for animal welfare on a commercial scale, involving horses, in this state.

I want to mention a case that had quite a lot of notoriety, the case that did not happen, against Tom and Patricia Brinkworth, who have properties in the South-East. I will tell the house that my father, although not a close friend, has known the Brinkworths for many years. When my father and his father had land in the Gawler region, he knew Tom Brinkworth when he was ran a pig property in that region; so, I just put that out there for the house's information. There were certainly different points of view. Some people were saying that the Brinkworths had huge animal welfare issues. Fellow farmers made that case and others—

Mrs Geraghty interjecting:

Mr PEDERICK: I can talk about who I like. The other side of this argument is that, when this all fell apart because of a botched investigation by the RSPCA, costing the operations manager his job because of a flawed application process for a warrant, Tom and Pat Brinkworth were unable to put their case. I just want to put that out there. It is pretty easy for people to make allegations about anything, and I am talking about any issue at all. It is pretty easy—

Mrs Geraghty interjecting:

Mr PEDERICK: No, no; everyone over there can have their go. It is pretty easy for people to make allegations. The Brinkworths could not even defend themselves in court; so they have never been able to make their case. I am just making the point. There are always at least two sides to an argument, and sometimes there are more than two. The operations manager by his own volition (and I will give him credit for that) decided that he needed to confess that he had altered the paperwork in regards to the application for search warrants. If he had not done that this may have gone through, or it may have been found by legal means, who knows.

Certainly, it was a bad outcome for everyone. The RSPCA was badly smeared and they got a bad reputation out of it. It cost their operations manager his job and it also smeared Tom and Patricia Brinkworth. In line with the RSPCA campaign in recent days, campaigning for members of parliament to vote against the Brokenshire amendment, I want to quote from some correspondence to our party, the response I gave and then a further response I got from a constituent. This person lives in the electorate of Waite so he was writing to the member for Waite, Martin Hamilton-Smith. I quote:

Dear Martin,

As a constituent of Waite I am contacting you about a proposal by Robert Brokenshire MLC to amend the Livestock Act, which would transfer the RSPCA's power to protect livestock and horses to the department of primary industries and resources (PIRSA)—

it is actually the Department of Primary Industries and Regions now, but I digress. It continues:

I am concerned that asking any organisation to both promote and police the same industry would create an untenable conflict of interest. I believe the power to investigate and prosecute alleged cruelty must be held by a completely independent body. I am convinced the best option is to allow the RSPCA to continue its great work in this area. Therefore, I am calling on you to oppose Mr Brokenshire's amendment. I trust you will consider these concerns most seriously and I look forward to your reply.

Yours sincerely, Tony Box.

On behalf of my office, my trainee, Kaitlin, responded to Mr Box in this way:

Dear Mr Tony Box,

On behalf of Mr Adrian Pederick MP JP, I would like to thank you for your email concerning the Livestock (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2012. As Mr Pederick is the shadow minister for agriculture and a farmer, this is an issue he has watched for its entirety.

The South Australian Liberal Party believes the Department of Primary Industries and Regions [South Australia] (PIRSA) is in the best position to manage animal welfare issues with regards to commercial livestock and horses, but we are also of the belief the RSPCA are best suited to dealing with pets and native animal welfare issues.

The Livestock (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2012 will improve the current operation of the Livestock Act 1997 and will bring the current act up-to-date to manage the health of commercial livestock in South Australia.

Once again thank you for your email. If you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact Mr Pederick or the Hammond electoral office.

Kind regards, Kaitlin.

We get a further email reply from Mr Box. It says:

Dear Miss Kaitlin...,

Thank you for your vacuous reply.

(1) 'Pederick is the shadow minister for agriculture and a farmer, this is an issue he has watched for its entirety'. So what! BFD.

I think members can all work out what that is. It continues:

If Pederick is a farmer then knowing that creates immediate distrust of his motives. Farmers rank the same as politicians on the totem pole of integrity, etc—

and I will come back to that. You might be surprised, member for Torrens, that I will come back to that. It continues:

(2) 'best position to manage animal welfare issues with regards to commercial livestock and horses'. If you can convince me that PIRSA would have gained a successful prosecution leading to jail time for farmers, Thomas and Patricia Brinkworth (a notable failure by the RSPCA, but I suspect bribery), then I'll accept your assertion which is otherwise meaningless.

(3) 'Livestock (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2012 will improve the current operation of the Livestock Act 1997'. How will it improve the current operation of the Livestock Act? Just an assertion and yet Pederick has watched this for its entirety yet can't succinctly and cogently explain why it's an improvement.

(4) 'to manage the health of commercial livestock in South Australia'. This is a concern. Livestock health is important economically but you've forgotten welfare.

I think you need more training before you respond to your boss' emails.

Regards, Tony Box.

I find that not so much an interesting reply but quite a disgraceful response. I rang my trainee and I said, 'Look, don't worry about it. No more response to that constituent.' However, I do take offence to where it says:

If Pederick is a farmer then knowing that creates immediate distrust of his motives. Farmers rank the same as politicians on the totem pole of integrity etc.

As a farmer and now as a politician in this place I can accept—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: You've got two strikes.

Mr PEDERICK: Yes, two strikes. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. As a politician, I will take all the grenades. Throw the bombs, throw whatever, because we get it on all sides—whether you are Liberal, Labor, Green or an Independent, politicians are easy targets, and so it is. I do not think that we should be such easy targets because I think that there are many people in this place on all sides who do work hard. You have to work hard to retain your seat.

I do struggle with people always knocking the integrity of politicians. I really take great offence to someone who, because they believe politicians are in such a low place (and I am using their words), believe that farmers have got that same level of integrity, according to them, and I think that is absolutely disgusting and disgraceful. In relation to some of these people who write in, what I can say to the RSPCA is that if you have got friends like this you do not need enemies.

This is absolutely disgraceful, not just to comment on politicians but to comment on the food producers of this state. People then wonder why the food producers of this state start to arc up, get angry and stand up for themselves because they are sick of all this carry-on. You have people who do not want food produced: they want to reduce populations with some archaic policies. Farmers are working with the best, most modern, up-to-date equipment—and I note that out in my area they are seeding at the moment in very dry soil—so they can feed people not just in this state but feed people around the world, and to cop this abuse, well, I just treat it with the absolute disdain that it deserves.

People need to understand that their meat does not turn up in a cryovac pack in any of the supermarkets or in the local butcher, or milk just does not turn up in a carton. It is produced by the many thousands of hard-working farmers and their staff and families across this state so that we can feed everyone. If there are people out there who reckon they can live on thin air, well, good luck, because you are not going to last long, and if you want to bag farmers, you go out and live on thin air for a while and we will not need to worry about feeding you, anyway.

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr PEDERICK: No, I read from the letter; it is right there. People need to understand—

Members interjecting:

Mr PEDERICK: No, I am going to defend our profession. I am going to defend it.

The Hon. P. CAICA: You don't need to do it here.

Mr PEDERICK: No; that is fine. People need to be aware on all counts about the contribution that people involved in primary industries make to this state. I notice one clause—and we will get to it during committee—fixes the issue about artificial insemination. I think that it was only supposed to be operated by a veterinarian, but I can tell members—and this was something that was brought up in the briefing—that this is something that needs to be fixed, and it certainly does. People have been doing their own artificial insemination probably since the act came in and probably before.

Quite often I go to my local store at Coomandook and one of my local farmers has a box of pig semen that has turned up in the mail. The farmer and his wife happily go out to do their pig mating. Technically they are contravening the act, so I am glad that is getting tidied up if this goes through this house and then gets back through the other place.

With those few words, I want to indicate that we are supporting the bill in its amended form from the upper house, and certainly supporting the amendment put by the Hon. Robert Brokenshire in regard to bringing animal welfare issues in under PIRSA from the RSPCA. I commend the bill.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (16:09): I rise, with my colleagues, to support the Livestock (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2012 in the form that it has come to us from the other place. Our shadow minister, the member for Hammond, has made a strong case on a lot of points. I will limit my remarks to the amendment that has come from the upper house, which essentially brings the role of administration back to PIRSA for the welfare of commercial livestock, leaving the RSPCA to deal with pets and wildlife.

Let me say at the outset that the RSPCA does good work. I put on the record my personal view that I do not agree with absolutely everything it does, but it does good work. This has absolutely nothing to do with trying to water down the protection of animals. This has nothing to do with trying to make rules slack or loopholes or gaps for people to slip through. Every single person in this house wants animals to be protected and cared for properly. So, let nobody say that this is a way of letting farmers get away with things they should not be allowed to get away with, because that is not the case and it is certainly not my position or the position of the opposition.

The RSPCA is not equipped, skilled, or experienced and does not have the resources to do absolutely everything it would like to do. That is a fact. It is essentially a charitable organisation which receives government support. I have had representations from my own electorate of Stuart, and I will not go into the sources, but people involved with the RSPCA, essentially saying, 'We can't do everything we need to do. It's just not possible.' My view is that if you spread yourself too thinly you are not going to be able to do everything properly.

What we should do, and what we are trying to do, through supporting this amendment, is allow the RSPCA to concentrate its resources, expertise, skills and ability on a narrower range and allow PIRSA to concentrate on another area, and that will actually get more done, it will be a smarter way to protect animals, because the RSPCA is not in a position to do all of the work it would like to do.

The example the member for Hammond raised about the recent flawed case involving the Brinkworths is a good example of that. There may or may not have been an issue to answer. None of us will ever know. People have personal opinions but we will never get a final outcome on that, essentially because it was stuffed up by the RSPCA. That is the reality of it. I would like to do whatever is necessary to make sure that the RSPCA has the resources to do what it needs to do in a certain area and PIRSA can take care of another area.

It makes great sense to me to ask the RSPCA to deal with pets and wildlife and to ask PIRSA to deal with commercial livestock, because it is doing that anyway, it is already involved. By the way, that does not exclude any member of the public, and it could be a member of the RSPCA as well, from bringing issues forward. It does not exclude anybody, in a private capacity, from going to a saleyard or going to visit a property, with permission, and highlighting problems that exist. It is just about the regulatory authority. So, I fully support PIRSA dealing with commercial livestock and the RSPCA concentrating on pets and wildlife.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (16:13): I too rise to support the Livestock (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill. I had an upbringing on a farm property. I grew up with livestock for almost all of my life. My father was not only a farmer but a very well known and well regarded stock agent for many years, and then moved on to be a live shipping sheep buyer, which took him all over the world and gave both myself and my family a very in-depth perspective on the livestock trade and what livestock means to food production in this country, and all over the world.

In doing that, he was also a breeder of livestock and a feedlot farmer, but to complement that we had family butcher shops in the South-East at Keith and Tintinara, and our own slaughterhouse. That is something that I have some very fond memories of, working in the slaughterhouse. One of my scariest memories is one day cleaning the slaughterhouse, squeegeeing the floors, walking backwards into the blood pit and falling down about 15 feet into about five feet of blood and guts. It is something that I do not recommend to anyone here in this house.

In saying that, Primary Industries and Regions in South Australia should be the responsible authority for managing animal welfare in this state. The amendment will improve the operation of the Livestock Act and bring it up to date in order to better manage the health of commercial livestock in South Australia.

The livestock industry is obviously crucial to the state's economy. The contribution in 2010-11 was over $4.5 billion. That has been a huge economic driver, but also it has been a huge economic earner for this state. With the seasons that we have had over the last couple of years, a lot of properties that had been de-stocked, and in some cases decommissioned, gained confidence; they are now restocking and putting vast amounts of country back into livestock production.

Again in the 2011 year, beef production was worth over $1 billion. Pork was $669 million. As for sheep, it is great to see the wool sector showing some buoyancy once again. Before my days, or in my earlier days, wool was a pound for a pound. We have seen economic decline in the wool industry over a number of years, but it is starting to get a sniff of fresh air, which is really good to see, really good for the agriculture sector, and it gives more diversity, or some hope for that diversity, on many farming properties.

Of course, the dairy industry generates some $850 million. It is with concern that I say that, because obviously with drought, with issues with the River Murray, particularly the lower end of the Murray, we have seen many dairies wind up through lack of finances, having to lease water and having to deal with high salinity water. As a result, those industries have either relocated or moved interstate. I am hoping some confidence will be put back into that industry and that those industries will again assess whether the lower end of the River Murray is still a viable area in which to own a dairy.

The poultry industry generated $557 million last financial year. That is just a snapshot of how the economy is driven by parts of the livestock industry. There are millions of livestock animals here in South Australia. Some 12 million sheep were shorn in this state in the 2010-11 year, and we have about 543,000 beef cattle and more than 90,000 dairy cows. It is a very robust industry that has to move along with the times through drought and flood, but overall it is a very resilient industry. We have seen hiccups with exports into Indonesia, but I think that we have moved on from there now, thankfully. I can say that the livestock industry here in South Australia has been quite a reliable industry and quite a reliable economic driver.

Policing the welfare of all these animals is an enormous task for which I believe PIRSA is the best suited. At this point, I would like to commend the superb record of South Australian farmers and breeders on animal welfare. Australia, with few exceptions, sets among the highest standards in animal welfare anywhere in the world, and I am proud to say that. My support for this bill should not be seen as a comment on the competence of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The RSPCA has been actively involved in the South Australian community since the 1870s and has exercised government powers with regard to animal welfare for more than a century. The RSPCA is still the best-placed organisation with regard to native animal and pet welfare matters, and I believe that they should do what they were designed to do, that is, to look after those areas.

We do need to move on, and I still believe that the government in this instance can be the only objective authority on livestock welfare considering the well known positions of the RSPCA, particularly with live exports, etc. However, the government must ensure that PIRSA has sufficient resources, funding and expertise to meet the needs of livestock industries, and the expectations of the South Australian community and, of course, the export markets, in particular, regarding animal welfare.

One of the issues that has concerned me over my time in this place is the continual budget cuts to PIRSA. We saw in the 2010-11 year, $34 million ripped out of PIRSA's heart and moving on 180 employees. That really has had a huge impact on primary industry in this state, and it has also had a detrimental effect on the confidence of primary industry in South Australia. Again, we look at the biosecurity levy that is under review through the Environment, Resources and Development Committee, of which I am a member, and I am sure that the findings and the evidence will underpin the decision that the government must be responsible for the biosecurity of the livestock industry.

The attempts at cost recovery really did fly in the face—particularly in the electorate of Chaffey—when we looked at the fruit fly program, particularly up at Yamba, where they were looking at taking away the 24/7 surveillance at the border, and the issues that that might have brought upon the industry, particularly the fruit growing industry. It is not just the fruit growing industry that it protects; it protects all industries in South Australia. In particular, we look at weeds and pests; and we look at livestock diseases that are coming in. They are all pulled up at Yamba and anything that is brought across the border is viewed and assessed. Thankfully, the government (I think under pressure from this side of the house) saw sense and decided to reinstate the full 24/7 surveillance.

How can these industries, markets and the South Australian community have confidence in PIRSA's ability to take on this important task? Well, it is funding. It is the government supporting PIRSA. It is the government supporting an institution that has been around for many years and has the responsibility of looking after the biosecurity of this state and looking after the welfare of agriculture, and taking it a step forward rather than having its funding reduced and taking it a step backwards. It really does pain me to see that, every time a budget comes out, every time we have funding cuts, primarily in the regions, funding is taken away from PIRSA. It has an effect on how we can move forward and how we can underpin the viability of an industry that is continually seeing less and less funding and support.

Yes, I do support the fact that industry has to look after itself, but the government has a responsibility to the people of the state, to the people of the country, to instil confidence, and I think the cuts to PIRSA have really jolted the confidence. I am very worried about this upcoming budget—we have all been told that it is going to be a tough budget—and, again, I do not want to see this government continue to cut funding from primary industries, in particular PIRSA. Again, if the government it going to slash resources and personnel in PIRSA, it is another hit for the food growing sector.

I would like to put on the record that listening to the Premier with his seven platforms for food production in this state, food security was one of them. To see this budget take another cut out of primary industries, out of the rural sectors, makes a mockery of one of the Premier's seven platforms, food production. In saying that, I commend the bill to the house.

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg) (16:25): I rise to speak on the Livestock (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill, which was introduced by the Hon. Gail Gago in another place and obviously passed, with some amendment. Our opposition spokesperson on primary industries, agriculture and other associated industries, the member for Hammond, has admirably presented the opposition's case for support of this bill and, in particular, the updating of the Livestock Act 1997, as we face challenges, which would have been particularly evidenced by the live cattle export exposé.

I do not want to traverse into the detail of it, but that, along with contamination by exotic diseases, in each decade produces new challenges. We do need to update, and it is reasonable for government look at these things and consider how the management of, in this case, livestock and in particular the effective tracing of livestock in the event of detection of emergency animal diseases, is so important.

I acknowledge that I have a family history, and remain today, in primary industry—particularly with cattle. There are a couple of hundred sheep, but I suppose they do not count when they are so few in number. Nevertheless, there are various operations with livestock, including pigs, which I have been a proprietor of myself. So I acknowledge that.

I remind members that when the Livestock Act 1997 came into effect under the then Olsen government it repealed the Apiaries Act 1931, the Branding of Pigs Act 1964, the Brands Act 1933, the Cattle Compensation Act 1939, the Deer Keepers Act 1987, the Foot and Mouth Disease Eradication Fund Act 1958, the Stock Act 1980 and the Swine Compensation Act 1936. So I suppose that gives a taste, those acts, of what responsibility the Livestock Act undertook. It was quite comprehensive.

At the time it included in it a secretariat of enforcement, which remains. In fact, very significant powers are given to inspectors who are appointed, and who have powers of seizure, powers of entry, powers to ensure that the health of livestock is maintained, and not just in notifiable conditions and diseases and the control and eradication of contaminations and the like, but also to protect brands. Bees are still high up there in being looked after, especially Kangaroo Island Ligurian bees, which are the purest in the world. In any event, there is a whole structure that goes with that act and with the powers to appoint those who ensure that occurs.

In more recent decades artificial breeding has, of course, attracted a considerable amount of regulation—as it should—and that comes under that jurisdiction. The Animal Welfare Act is well over a century old in the sense of animal welfare law and the recognition of the protection of animals but currently, under the Animal Welfare Act 1985, it is specifically for the promotion of animal welfare. It is to traverse all things living except humans and fish, which are excluded by definition, and it is to ensure that there is no ill treatment of animals. Things such as organised animal fights are prohibited. The use of electrical devices for the control of animals is extremely limited and, in some cases, outlawed.

I think the protection generally of animals has expanded over a number years; not just from prevention and making it an offence to inflict any act on an animal or animals that will cause death, harm or injury but also to ensure that they are not neglected or face ill-treatment as a result of the neglect or reckless conduct of humans. All of that is important.

That, too, provides for a number of other responsibilities that have come to pass: one is, of course, the ethics committees that relate to the extensive research on animals. We now have a very complex licensing procedure, as I think we should, to protect animals against abuse for the use of drug research and the like. These are all important obligations.

What I find interesting is the debate that has developed over the amendment from a member of the Legislative Council to transfer the prosecutorial role for cruelty of animals when they are in a commercial environment from the RSPCA to the Department of Primary Industries and Regions. It is curious because, of the five letters that I have received (most of which have been from constituents), there has been an alarming theme of a claim that there is a conflict of interest in the Department of Primary Industries and Regions undertaking this role.

If I could summarise the well-meaning concerns that have been expressed in the correspondence, it is to suggest that the Department of Primary Industries and Regions has a principal role of promotion of primary industry, and therefore, it would have a conflict of interest if it were to undertake the role as prosecutors for those who breach animal welfare laws. That is the gist of the correspondence, and those people have put forward this view very articulately and passionately.

I am a little concerned, in reading the correspondence, what those people might have been told. The reason is this: we have a number of different prosecuting bodies to protect against acts that are unacceptable, unconscionable and certainly unlawful. To protect humans and property, we have the very high-level Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, which sits with statutory independence outside of the Attorney-General's Department and has the principal role of prosecuting crime.

The inspectors in those circumstances are usually members of the police force, and the level of seriousness of the crime is the threshold upon which it attracts the attention of the DPP. At lower levels of property damage and assault (for example, shoplifting or minor assaults), there is a prosecuting arm within the police department which competently undertakes that role. Both these agencies have responsibility to ministers, whether it be the Minister for Police (Attorney-General) or directly to the Attorney-General, and ultimately, to this parliament.

We then have the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, which undertakes a prosecutorial role in the detection of the behaviour of humans when they do the wrong thing in relation to land and soil degradation and pollution—some of that is via the Environment Protection Authority—plants, weeds, and all the rules that relate to very serious offences and penalties, in some circumstances, including breaches of the Native Vegetation Act. In that circumstance the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has a very significant role in not only policing but prosecution. They have a set of inspectors as well, and they have rights of seizure, entry and the like.

The Department of Primary Industries and Regions in this instance has been identified as a body that is not fit to be a prosecutor because of an apparent conflict of interest. I mention it particularly for the reason that it already has a prosecutorial role. The Fisheries Act which it is responsible for does not come under animal cruelty. By definition you cannot be cruel to a fish, but you can make it more vulnerable to be eaten and you can have rules that give it another chance to live. We have lots of rules about the size of fish, where you can catch them, and all the things under the Fisheries Act which are under the remit of responsibility of the Department of Primary Industries and Regions, so they currently already have a role.

They are also responsible for the general management of fishing licences, and that is an interesting thing. If this extension of the conflict of interest were to prevail, then one would have to argue that they are in charge of licensing and permits and therefore they should not be responsible, all the fishing inspectors should be sacked and we should hand that over to some other agency. I just want to make the point that a number of different areas have had this responsibility.

The RSPCA itself has had a policing and prosecutorial role for over 100 years and there is clearly significant overlap now in relation to the work it does. I do not raise the Brinkworth case, as others have, as a demonstrable failure of effective prosecution by the RSPCA. I raise it because, whatever the negligent behaviour or misconduct—I will put it as high as that—of falsely completing a form in the prosecution process which led to a nolle prosequi being entered and the whole case failing, the very protection of the animals (if they were ill-treated) may not have been addressed and because the reputations of other people who are responsible for livestock come under the umbrella of diminution of their reputations as a result of that kind of publicity.

The very first people who rang me after the publication of the Brinkworth case and its fatal direction were farmers who were outraged that this was a case that was left undealt with, whether Mr and Mrs Brinkworth wanted to have an opportunity to put their case or whether in fact they should have been punished. Who will ever know? Other farmers asked, 'Why should we live under the shadow cast by the incompetence of an agency that conducted it?'

At that time I was shadow attorney for the opposition and I wrote to the Law Society. They have an animal welfare subcommittee and I wrote to it suggesting that we should consider the transfer of prosecution of commercial cases (which would cover livestock in this instance) and/or multiple animal cruelty cases to the DPP's office; that there should be independent but competent, qualified and experienced prosecutors for serious offences. These are serious offences. In my view the death or severe injury to an animal or multiple animals, particularly in a commercial situation, needs to be treated at that level.

I also wrote to the former attorney-general, the member for Croydon, asking him to review this situation because of the importance of ensuring that this situation did not happen again. I got some responses from the Law Society who seemed favourable to introducing a system that would be more effective and more independent. I do not think I have heard from the new Attorney-General on this matter, but it has been going on for some years. What I do say is this: I do not think that the Brokenshire proposal, which is to transfer the RSPCA prosecutorial role to the department, is offensive. I do not think it is the best model. Personally, I think that it should be transferred, in commercial cases, to the DPP's office; that is my personal view. It is not as though this alternative should fail because it is not the best model, just because I think that, but it is an improvement on what we have.

The Department of Primary Industries and Regions already undertakes a significant prosecutorial role and policing, and they have got a whole inspectorate, apart from the fact that they might be asked in the near future to sort out the marine parks fiasco and any management or inspection that is required for that, because there will not be any money, obviously, for the Department for Environment to do anything with it. Nevertheless, they are vested with the responsibility. They have an army of experienced people and they are capable of dealing with it.

There is one more thing I would like to comment on in terms of prosecution and the question of independence and conflicts of interest. Under the Animal Welfare Act we have an Animal Welfare Advisory Committee. Personally, I do not know who is on it, but the act provides that there has to be nominees from the minister, nominees from the South Australian Farmers Federation, a nomination from the RSPCA, other people that the minister feels are suitable to represent animal welfare organisations, and the Australian Veterinary Association.

So, the three groups in that category, who I think have a vested interest in the promotion and advocacy role in their particular field—namely, the RSPCA, the Farmers Federation and the Veterinary Association, particularly in areas of research, for which I am sure they most helpful as a committee—in my view are potentially in a situation where they could be accused of having a conflict of interest—all three.

So, if in fact Mr Brokenshire's idea was to come to us and say, 'Look, I don't think the RSPCA should handle this, I think that it should rest with the SA Farmers Federation,' then I would be standing here and voting against that amendment, because I think they too, in that in a situation, could be blemished and vulnerable to the accusation that they would be in a conflict of interest if they were to undertake that role.

But in this instance we are asking the officers of the department, who have a role consistent with that already and who are obviously experienced and able to undertake it—perhaps not the best in my personal view, but then I have not always been right. This may be a halfway measure that will at least bring about some improvement. I will certainly write to those who have raised this concern with me. I am always alert to potential conflict of interests, and I think that they are something to be carefully investigated when the allegation is made. However, in the circumstances I think the bill, as presented to us, with this amendment is a significant improvement to the act, and it has my support.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (16:44): I want to make a couple of comments about the bill. As the member for Hammond, the lead speaker, has indicated, the opposition is supportive of the bill as it came out of the other place. I want to talk about the Brokenshire amendment, which I do not believe the government is of a mind to support, and I want to talk about why it should be supported. I also want to talk about another issue that the bill encompasses, and it is about the National Livestock Identification System. As members know I am by trade a farmer and have been practising farmer for most of my working life—

The Hon. P. Caica interjecting:

Mr WILLIAMS: Well, I regard it as a trade, Paul. I'm not too proud to suggest that I work it as a trade, Paul. As a practising farmer and somebody who knows what it is like to be working with animals on a constant basis, some of the ideas that come forward never cease to astound me. I am a prime lamb producer and most of the lambs I sell are sold directly to the abattoir, what we call over-the-hook selling. A truckload of lambs—it might be a B-double, 650 lambs—will go in the truck on my property, go directly to the abattoir, and within 24 hours they are slaughtered. That is a practice that has been happening for many years.

With the National Livestock Identification Scheme, I am obliged to have an eartag in each one of those lambs. By practice, I can put the eartag in the lambs as I am loading them onto the truck, they get to the abattoir and within 24 hours they are on the chain in the abattoir and their head is cut off and within a few minutes the eartag I have inserted in the ear of the lamb is separated from the carcass.

I am told, as a producer, that that is absolutely essential to provide traceback. I want the house to understand that for years I have been delivering livestock to an abattoir and been paid for those livestock on the carcass weight, after they have been slaughtered. I have always acted under the assumption that the abattoir had in place practices to ensure that the animals that I delivered were the ones I actually got paid for and I was not being paid for somebody else's livestock that was delivered on another truck or they were not being paid for my livestock. I have had my suspicions, from time to time, mind you.

The reality is, I would suggest, that it costs probably in the order of 50¢ per lamb to put in an eartag, by the time you purchase the tag and go to the trouble of putting it in the animal's ear. Tatiara Meat Corporation (TMC) at Bordertown processes 8,000 lambs a day. That is about $4,000 worth of eartags and applications of eartags a day. If they have problems and do not have enough people in the larridge (that is where the lambs are offloaded, and these are all covered yards, shedded yards) before they go into the works to make sure there is adequate separation and the gates are shut to keep animals apart, I suggest it would probably be a lot cheaper to employ a couple more stockmen in the yards than to waste probably $4,000 a day of producers' money.

That has always annoyed me. It is going to annoy me even more, because I learnt only a week or two back that the ministerial council on agriculture has pretty well signed off to say that we have to use electronic tags. Currently, I use a little plastic tag which has my PIC (property identification) number stamped on it. My understanding is that within a very short space of time I will be obliged to have a tag which can be read electronically. As a producer, it is concerning me and people say to me, 'It's only a small cost, it's not costing a hell of a lot.' It is the adding up of all the small costs that have to be borne by the producer that makes farming a really incredibly difficult enterprise. It is incredibly difficult by the time we pay NRM fees, biosecurity fees—all these fees—and then put in the eartags. They all add up. If you add them all up, it is a significant amount of money.

I own and farm a piece of land that has been in my family for well over 100 years, so I have a little bit of experience in livestock production and handling and moving around livestock. I am yet to be convinced about the necessity for the NLIS scheme to be utilised in the way that it is. I put that on the record. We have been using electronic eartags under the same scheme for cattle for some time. To save the expense of every farmer having a cattle eartag reader to read the electronic eartag, generally stock agents have a reader, the saleyards will have a reader, and there are different points during transactions where the eartag is read and the records where livestock are moved from one property to another should be updated.

My son purchased a mob of cattle about 12 months ago. They had the tag in them. They came off another property. They were scanned and they landed on our property. His agent rang him up a while later and said, 'We've got a problem. There was something wrong with the reader and we haven't been able to properly change the information with regard to those cattle.' He said to my son, 'Can you yard the cattle and I'll come out with a scanner and we'll read them again?' My son, I think correctly, said to him, 'Well, next time I've got them in the yards or near the yards I'll give you a ring', which was a couple of months, probably. That happened.

He put them in the yards, the agent came out, went over them again with the scanner and took the information, the data, and supposedly uploaded it into the computer. Many months later the cattle were sold. My son got a letter only about a fortnight ago saying that the records had not been updated and a couple of the animals that had been through the abattoir and subsequently killed, on his account, had not been correctly listed against the property identification number, and that if it happened again he would be fined $300.

That is the sort of nonsense that farmers are being burdened with through this scheme. It is costing us a lot of money. It is the farming community, the livestock producers, who are paying for this, and it is just not damn well working and it is annoying. It annoys me and it annoys every farmer out there in the community. Can I suggest to the minister that he has a very serious discussion with the bureaucrats. If they want to enforce these sorts of schemes upon the farming community and expect us to pay for them, for Godsakes make them work otherwise it is just a mess, it is just a nuisance. I am pleased I have got that off my chest, Mr Acting Speaker, because it does annoy the hell out of me, I can tell you.

The other thing I do want to talk about is the Brokenshire amendment in the other place. I am sure that most members would probably realise that the names of Tom and Pat Brinkworth have been used probably a number of times in this debate. A lot of Tom Brinkworth's properties are within my electorate. The property on which the alleged offence occurred which he was charged with and summonsed to appear in court under happened within my electorate.

When that case failed to proceed Tom Brinkworth rang me immediately, and I can tell the house that he was very angry. I can also tell the house that he had my full sympathy because I think he had every right to be angry. Tom Brinkworth's name has been besmirched via an allegation. The prosecution case was destroyed because the RSPCA was not capable of carrying out that prosecution, and Tom Brinkworth never had his day in court. He believes that he was no more guilty of any offence than any other livestock producer in severe drought conditions, and I suspect that his contention was right.

What he did not get was his opportunity to have that tested by the court, and I am sure that a lot of evidence would have been tendered to the court if that opportunity was not denied him. In the meantime, Tom, his wife (who is his business partner) and, as I understand it, some of their managers have suffered the indignity of having their names associated with an offence which was never proved. In fact, it was never even progressed.

Under the circumstances I have always believed that the RSPCA is not the correct body to be carrying out even the investigations, least of all the prosecutions, under the Livestock Act, particularly in the case of commercial livestock or commercial animal keeping. Just as a simple principle, I think it is totally wrong that a body which is not accountable to anyone—there is no chain of accountability—is charged with those responsibilities. It is simply wrong.

As a consequence of that fundamental and of having some knowledge of the case that the Brinkworth family found themselves involved with, I think the amendment of the Hon. Robert Brokenshire in the other place is a very good amendment. It would ensure that the prosecution would be done by a professional body, a body which is, hopefully, going to get it right, a body which has a chain of accountability. I think that would be a much better system than what we have now. I am in no way suggesting that the RSPCA does not have a very important role in our society, but I do not think it is this role. The role of monitoring, investigating and prosecuting offences under the Livestock Act is a very important role and needs to be handled properly and seriously, and I do not think the RSPCA is the organisation to do that.

I fully support the amendment brought by the Hon. Robert Brokenshire. Tom Brinkworth himself just wanted the case to proceed so that he could put his side of the story. I think that is only fair and reasonable. It is totally untenable for, basically, the state (even though it was the RSPCA) to make an allegation against a citizen of the state and not give that citizen an opportunity to tell their side of the story. That is what occurred in that particular case. I believe that if the case had been run by the department, if the prosecution had been carried out by police prosecutors or the DPP, an organisation which was well versed in prosecuting the laws of the state, then the outcome may have been quite different.

I heard the comments of my colleague the member for Bragg and I concur with them. Not only has it been unfair on the Brinkworth family it has also been unfair on the rest of the farming community because it has left a cloud hanging over them. I will not hold the house any longer, but I do have concerns about some of the practices that are happening in the livestock industry at the moment. I think some of them are a little bit impractical, and that is why I told a couple of stories about the NLIS scheme. It is certainly not a perfect scheme in the way it is administered in practice. I also have concerns about the prosecution of offences under the Livestock Act. I think we can do it a lot better. I urge the house and the government to fully consider the proposal put by the Hon. Mr Brokenshire in the other place and, at the end of the day, support that proposal because I think it will give us a better outcome.

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (16:58): As a fourth generation farmer on the same property, the welfare of animals and livestock has always been most important. I was never renowned to be a great livestock person, I was more of a revhead, a diesel head, as my wife would call me, but it has been a critical part of the farming enterprise.

Dr McFetridge interjecting:

Mr VENNING: Different sort of horsepower, you are right. I am old enough to remember the neighbours with horse teams. We have certainly come a long way. Animals have played a huge part in the welfare of farmers in South Australia. It is great to see a working team, and there are still a few around for us to look at. As has been said: when you have livestock, you will have dead stock. There is no doubt about that. The member for Morphett would certainly know that, being a vet. So, you make sure that your husbandry is such that you minimise it or you call up the vet—and the member for Morphett offers a very reasonable service at a reasonable price, I am told.

When you have livestock you are charged with the responsibility of looking after them. It can be very difficult in tough times when it does not rain, there is drought and feed is short. I just note that in the old days, when I was young, we kept a lot of hay on the property. We always conserved hay in times of good, as they did in the biblical times, and when droughts came along we had the hay there to feed our animals. I am sorry I have to say that today, because the farmers are so cash strapped, that does not happen to anywhere near the degree it used to, and so the livestock can suffer. They are turfed out to forage the best they can, and it can be pretty tough on them. We really do need to keep an eye on it, and there has to be some sort of Inspectorate. As we have heard today, it can become very unreasonable

Can I say, we have made huge progress in the wellbeing of our animals, our sheep, our cattle, our pigs, our horses, and a lot more. We support this bill as it is returned here from the other place, with that amendment that the member for MacKillop just very capably explained. I certainly support the NLI (National Livestock Identification) scheme, but I am always curious about this. As the member for MacKillop just highlighted, we used to put all our meat over hooks and we were always curious to know that we were going to get paid for what we sent, so we ended up putting them on our own electronic scale and weighing them. It was always difficult, of course, because you weigh them live and then of course you can do the calculation what they were going to hang up at.

We always found that when the user knew that you had weighed them—in fact, even in some cases wrote the weights on them—certainly it took that doubt away. But there is always that doubt, particularly when they remove the head with the ear tag in it. The body goes down the line without the head on; if there is a problem further down the line, how do they know? I know the first thing they do when they are able to strip brand these animals, so you know, lamb is branded as lamb and hogget is branded as hogget, so you the consumer (and I see the minister listening) know that you are getting what you are paying for.

That was a political issue when I first got here—strip branding, particularly of lambs. A lamb is a lamb and a hogget is a hogget. If it has one too many teeth, it is a hogget, and you put the relevant strip down the back. When you go to the butcher's shop, there is no doubt. The person putting the brand down observes the head and then strips it down. If the head has been branded—the head has to be there to count the teeth—why then cannot they remove the eartag and put it on the carcass? Then, you see, it goes with the carcass, because the head, apart from removing a couple of parts, goes out to the offal pile.

I just wondered why the eartag cannot be removed, particularly if we are getting electronic eartags, and put with the carcass. As it goes down the line it has the strip on it; why can't it too have the tag? Often the imperfections are not found right then. When they hang them up and chill them, that is when they see the imperfections: marks, boils, bruises, all those things could come out later and if you have lost the ID, what is the sense?

Can I just say how pleased I am that we have actually got the strip branding through, because there was a lot of shonky business going through in the industry many years ago: people selling old sheep as lambs. You did not have to be a very smart butcher with a budding knife to fold the flaps around and make it look like lamb, just by removing some of the meat and cutting the bones shorter. You would not have known; but when it is strip branded, every cut you take off that sheep has a piece of that strip branding on it. So if you have a chop, you will see a small piece of the colour that denotes whether it is lamb or hogget, or even ewe, or even worse than that, old ewe. I have seen some smart butchers camouflage meat very carefully with a flick of the knife, but nowadays they cannot because of that.

We support the bill as returned here, but in relation to this scheme I am very concerned about the escalating costs of this. Farmers have a pretty skinny profit margin in livestock, and I do not want to see a capacity for fees and charges here that any government in the future can just mount them up and say, 'Look we are just putting these fees up and every time you sell a sheep or a cow you are up for this extra fee.' I want to resist that.

These eartags do enable traceback. Nobody can argue about that—nobody at all. Things can go wrong, particularly if, for example, somebody overuses dogs in rounding up their sheep, as dogs have a habit of nipping. You do not want stained or scarred meat because it does not take much of a nip to leave a mark on the meat, and you do not want to be buying chops with bruises on them so, most responsible farmers muzzle those dogs, whether they bite or not, they use muzzles. This sort of thing can be stamped out purely on the traceback system.

There are so many things that can be found with the meat, so I have no problem with that. I agree with the member for MacKillop, that you have to know whose stock it is; when you get to the freezer you have to know where your stock is. As I said, strip branding happens on the line so why not put the tag there? I have not kept up with the very latest because I have been in this place for so long and I have never been a real stockman but I used to love to get the horse out (when we had the horse), and put on the moleskins and the boots and ride around the property. It is still good rest and recreation. The Marlboro Man, we used it call it.

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr VENNING: I've got a whip, for sure, and I knew how to use it, because I was the opposition whip, did you know that? It is one of those heritage things that I have enjoyed. As I said, I have not kept up with the latest, so I do not quite understand why we want to go to electronic eartags because they can be removed quite easily, and disfigured, and rejigged with an electronic device, so I am concerned about why we would go down that path because eartags have been with us for years, with the brand name of the farm on it and a number, so it is pretty foolproof, apart from the fact that they can be stolen or lost. They have a habit of getting caught in the fences or in the gates in the yard and you will find dozens of them there.

I used to rear pigs many years ago. The Labor Party cracked jokes about it when I first came here, but I will not repeat the story. I used to rear pigs but that was a long time ago. When we were yarding up the pigs for sale you always branded the pigs in the back of the ute. It was just a handle with a number on the bottom, dip it in the black tar and, bang, 'squeal', a great noise! It was a real squeal, and that was it, on both sides, and then if you wanted to go and have a look, you went into the butcher shop and there they were hanging up, and there was your mark, clear as clear. They rub the bristles off a pig, they do not take the skin off because there is almost no skin there. I always thought it was a good idea and I had a couple of tracebacks at the time—just a few things, over-fat pigs, and things like that. In those days when we used to castrate the boars often things went wrong. It used to work with the pigs, quick and easy and very effective. You will read it in Hansard. So, I do support the traceback system.

I think the amendment that transfers responsibility under the act from the RSPCA to PIRSA is a common-sense thing. I know that there has been a lot of comment about this, but I believe that the RSPCA has been far too political in relation to its efforts, and it has no responsibility. It is an organisation with a strong agenda, almost bias, and I use that word advisedly because it used to contain many animal liberationists, and some of the things they used to say were totally unreasonable, particularly when it came to things like mulesing. I used to do a lot of mulesing myself, and it is pretty rugged when you first start, you have to shut your eyes sometimes, but when you see a sheep with flies, there is nothing worse than that. With a mulesing operation, we used to do all we could to ease the pain but it is only half a day and the lamb recovers pretty well, and ends up with a nice shiny backside and has a life that is practically guaranteed of not being harmed by flies. It is a terrible, very painful thing for a sheep that has had flies for five or six days. In many cases they die.

If, when you are driving down the road, you look over the fence and you see a sheep on its own, sure as eggs, it has a black backside, and you know it has flies. Body strikes can even be worse, up on the brisket at the front, and in wet weather it happens a lot. So, do not tell me that flies are not a concern. When animal liberationists really got stuck into mulesing, it gave us little choice because you really could not breed the wool off the tail of the animal. As soon as you did, you bred it off the legs and the belly too, so it became a very difficult thing. Advances are being made in that area. Some of the stuff that has been coming out, I have found pretty damning and almost impossible to respond to, because it becomes very emotional in the public arena. When they take these graphic photographs, usually taken illegally from over the fence with a telephoto lens, of farmers stripping skin off the backside of a lamb, it is a bit graphic, that is for sure—but it worked. I must have done thousands of them and we had very few losses, so they seemed to recover well.

In relation to live sheep exports, it is the same thing again. The RSPCA has been far too active. I know we were involved with an inspection of sheep on there when they said they had foot rot, and they unloaded the whole ship. Well, it was not foot rot. They were all fed in troughs with pellets which of course get spilt; they are all jammed in pretty tight and there is water on the floor. They walk in it and guess what? On their hooves they get this little mushy-looking stuff which makes it look a bit soft—but it is not foot rot.

Anyway, they did work out that it was not, but of course when you get overseas and you are selling into those countries you only need a mention of a thing like that and they will black ban the whole ship. That is what happened on several occasions, purely because some radical person here threw the magic word. When it gets there, bang! They will find any reason to condemn it, hoping to get the shipload for a fraction of the price.

I think giving it to PIRSA is a common-sense move. We have had very good service over the years from PIRSA, particularly when they had an active animal livestock section, the veterinary section, which I do not believe they have any more. I can recall many years ago when we were rearing calves, I used to go around the South-East and around Victor Harbor and those places and pick up all the day-old calves, 30 or 40 at a time, wet calves, and take them home and rear them on Denkavit. We had a fair few problems with diseases because it was fairly intensive, and young calves can scour. What I mean by scour is what we do to some people in here, give you the runs. When you get it it can be pretty dramatic.

There is another disease called leptospirosis; if you get it once it goes through the lot very quickly, and it is a deadly thing. Again, I give huge credit to the department back in those days because they were onto it quickly and we saved most of our calves. No-one likes to see their animals suffering like that.

I think it is common sense that in this instance we should take the politics out of it. I do not think the department has a political axe to grind, and I think we have got fair service from them. The RSPCA can do what they do; they can be the animal liberationists if they wish, but we want these inspections done by Primary Industries. With that, we are supporting the rest of the bill, with qualification. I commend the bill to the house.

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (17:12): I speak in support of these amendments. I think they make common sense, and a lot of sense not only for those on the receiving end but also all those who have an interest in livestock and animal welfare.

Everyone knows that before I came into this place I had 22 years in veterinary practice. I started out in racehorse practice in Western Australia working on track work as well as stud work. Then I worked for an airline flying horses and cattle, and occasionally small animals, around Australia, New Zealand and South-East Asia. With my family I moved back from Western Australia in 1984 to set up practice here, and we set up a practice south of Adelaide at Happy Valley. We lived at Kangarilla.

I had seven dairies that I was dealing with then. It has changed significantly now. Max Thorpe is still milking Friesians at Kangarilla, there are a couple of dairies at Meadows and I think there might be one towards Chapel Hill, but the area has changed significantly. There are lots of hobby farmers. I was doing some racehorse work, a lot of hack work, a lot of large animal work as in cattle, alpacas, sheep, some donkeys (that is another story). At the start of the practice there were not a lot of small animals because Aberfoyle Park/Happy Valley was still only semi-urban then.

The range of cases I saw was amazing. I have scars to prove that I had some close encounters with some unhappy patients, but the majority of my patients were well looked after by their owners. I can say that the vast majority of animal owners, whether they are farmers in the industry or just individual horse owners or small animal owners, they love their animals, love them dearly. In fact, I once said to my daughter, when one of our cats was run over, 'If you cry that much at my funeral I will be happy.'

It is a well-known fact that animal owners will grieve more for their pets; I do not just mean dogs and cats, I mean all sorts of pets, whether they are rats, mice, guinea pigs, rabbits, snakes or lizards, and horses. I remember I cried when my horse died when I was a kid. I have a lot of empathy for animal owners. At the same time, anybody who says that farmers are just in it for the money does not understand farming or farmers.

I have to put on the record that my wife owns a property at Meadows, and we farm that in a partnership. We have PIC numbers, and we have National Livestock Identification System numbers. We do not have any cattle on there other than one small heifer that has a deformed leg, and she is going off to the vet school as a specimen fairly shortly. We have had cattle on agistment there, but they have gone now.

The first amendment, Part 9A—Administration of Animal Welfare Act in relation to livestock, will be under the Minister for Agriculture, and PIRSA will be handling that. That is something that I strongly support. The RSPCA's motto is, 'See the other side', and trust me when I say I have seen the other side. I have seen both sides of animal welfare. I have seen animal owners with small and large animals who are just so over the top, and are besotted with their animals.

I remember having to de-horn some pet steers that a lady had up in Cherry Gardens. The horns had overgrown and were coming around into their heads. Fortunately, her daughter was a vet nurse and was able to help me, but the lady who owned these two steers—they would do anything for her; they would just about sit like a dog for her—went inside, turned on the radio and the vacuum cleaner and started vacuuming. She did not want to hear these two steers bellowing when I was just cutting the tips off their horns. I did it with a wire saw and it did not hurt at all, but they were just unhappy at being restrained.

At the other end of it, I have been to cases where there is just absolutely unbelievable cruelty. I have seen horses that were so emaciated that, in most cases, I have had to shoot the horse and put them down, but I would really like to understand how the owner could even allow this to happen. I have been to cattle properties where I have seen cattle that could hardly stand. I know of cases within my practice, around the back of Kangarilla, Meadows, Scott Creek and through there, where these people—and they were not clients—have had cattle and were reported to the RSPCA. The RSPCA failed to do anything significant to improve the welfare of those cattle.

In one particular case that really hits close to home for me, there was a chap who was just unbelievable. He claimed to love his animals, and he had a lot of hay in the shed, but his cattle were like skin and bone; particularly in winter, they were as poor as church mice. The RSPCA kept being fobbed off by this fellow. You did not need to be a vet—even an RSPCA inspector, who, I understand, are trained by PIRSA, should have known that what this guy was telling them and what they were seeing were two different stories. You learn that as a vet very, very quickly.

My daughter said to me, before she became a vet, 'Dad, it would be nice if animals could speak.' I said, 'They can; you just have to speak their language.' You can look at an animal and know whether that animal is just poor, ill, malnourished, or whether it has been really maltreated; you know that. Even first-year vets know that. As you get the experience, you become more acutely aware of how long or how extensive that condition has been; I have seen that.

The worst case of cruelty I saw was in some calves. We never found out who the perpetrators were, but these calves had been absolutely mutilated. I will not go into detail, but it was just so cruel. That certainly was not ever done by the owners; we know that. It was done by some people out there, and I have no idea how they could do this to animals.

I assisted the RSPCA in the investigation of that case and prepared post-mortem reports and forensic details. I wanted to do the right thing by the RSPCA and, in relation to that case, the RSPCA wanted to do the right thing too. But, there are many, many areas within large animal production, particularly in commercial animal production, which is what we are talking about here, where the RSPCA—God bless them—are out of their depth. I think this amendment is one that we really should be strongly supporting.

We have the stock squad, which investigates stock theft and similar infringements. Overseas, there are police forces that take on the role of investigating and prosecuting people who are cruel to animals, both small and large animals. Personally, I am going to look at that because we do need to bring down the full force of the law, whether through the Minister for Agriculture or the Minister for Police and the justice system, to make sure that people who are cruel realise that their actions and their negligence are completely unacceptable.

In the case of commercial animals, I do not think this is the RSPCA's role; I do not think it is adequate for that. They do an absolutely wonderful job housing and homing neglected and stray animals and assisting people with education, nutrition and welfare. Friends of mine who are vets work at the RSPCA doing desexing. I know many people who have worked there for years, but I think large commercial animal production is not their area of responsibility. There is too much anecdotal evidence, and some court evidence, that they have failed to achieve what they want to achieve. Let's put that where the resources, the expertise, the vets and the forensic pathologists are—that is, with PIRSA. Let's make sure we do that. Let's do this and do it properly.

I strongly support the RSPCA's role with small animals; they do a fantastic job. On Friday night, a lady who said she was from Animals Australia was haranguing me about live animal export. The first thing I try to do is not be anthropomorphic about animal welfare. We, as humans, have an absolute, inalienable obligation to ensure the best welfare for the animals in our charge, and those we see around the place that in our opinion are being neglected, and do something about it.

At the same time, I am not one who believes that animals have rights per se. I remind everybody who reads this Hansard that we as human beings have an inalienable obligation to ensure their welfare is at the highest standard possible. This amendment will make sure that those who do not adhere to that inalienable obligation are detected, prosecuted and punished to the full extent of the law with the resources that government has to do that.

The second amendment is the non-recovery cost of biosecurity measures. The veterinary school at Roseworthy has a new multimillion-dollar facility; it is a fabulous facility and I have had a number of tours of it. I was with minister Michael O'Brien when he officially opened the facility, and it is one that I think we can all be very proud of. I went to Murdoch University in Western Australia, and my daughter, Sahra, studied at Massey University in New Zealand. We have a number of friends who are vets and whose kids go to Roseworthy, and there are many other young people who go to Roseworthy. The double degree at Roseworthy—Bachelor of Science (Animal Science) and Master of Veterinary Science—will equip them with the highest level of knowledge possible, not only in the animal sciences but also in animal welfare and in biosecurity.

Vets in the country are more and more in demand to be at the front end of biosecurity. My daughter is working at Port Pirie. She is mainly a small animal vet, but she goes out to some properties—not a lot—and is well aware of her role as a vet in detecting the incidence of any reportable diseases or any outbreaks of conditions that could be a threat to our biosecurity.

An exercise is being held today through PIRSA with over 100 individuals at the Wayville Showgrounds; it is a desktop exercise on a blue-tongue outbreak in South Australia. In relation to controlling communicable diseases in South Australia or Australia, we saw how horse flu (equine influenza) started to shut down Australia, with its effects being felt nationwide and costing millions of dollars. Foot-and-mouth is a disease we hear about all the time, and if we were to get it in Australia it would have a multibillion-dollar effect.

Whether it is somebody importing eggs, feathers, chooks, or birds with Newcastle disease, or whether it is somebody trying to slip through some fruit with bugs in it, or something like that, or whether it is some bats that have flown down from Irian Jaya into northern Queensland, transmitting the rabies virus into the wild cattle, the bantengs up there (most of which have gone now through biosecurity), there are so many ways we can get disease into this country, and we cannot ever, ever let down our guard. Having said that, I do not think it is up to each and every farmer to be dipping their hand into their pocket again to help pay for this biosecurity. There are vets out there being well trained at Roseworthy and other vet schools and through in-service and professional development exercises, and a few years ago I attended a few.

We are well aware of it, but who pays for it? Farmers are paying over and over again. They are paying taxes, levies and fees. They are paying and paying. Every time they send cattle and sheep off to the abattoirs, they are paying a fee. A proportion of that fee should be going to paying for biosecurity measures. A proportion of the taxes they pay should be used for funding biosecurity measures. It should not come down to the fact that if you have a horse or some chooks in the backyard you are possibly going to be paying a biosecurity fee. That is not what is happening in this particular legislation, but who knows where it could stop.

I want to see our alertness and levels of biosecurity at the highest level that they can possibly be, but that is not going be achieved by yet another fee. It is going to be achieved by educating farmers and by encouraging farmers to use modern technology, modern livestock, traceback techniques. We have heard about the NLIS tags (National Livestock Identification Scheme Tags), a little electronic tag that goes in the ear of the cattle. Once it is in it stays in there for life. We know about the old plastic eartags we have been using for many years. We have had tail tags. We have had tail tags for pregnant cattle, non-pregnant cattle and all sorts of tags.

We have had hot branding and we have had freeze branding. If you have not ever branded a horse, it is an interesting exercise. You would be surprised how far a horse can kick with its back leg when you are trying to put a brand on its shoulder. I have done mulesing. I have mulesed sheep and lambs, and it is horrific to look at. If there is any other way we can get around that I would be more than happy, and they are working on ways to get around it. If there is any other way to get around that, then I would be more than happy to see governments fostering research in the area, and I think it is happening.

However, you do need to identify livestock. Hot branding and freeze branding are not used as much now, but it is certainly used more on horses. I did not get all of Black Caviar's brand, but I think it was 46/6. That means she was the 46th foal born on the stud in six years, so six is 2006. The freeze branding of standard bred horses on the top of their neck just under their mane uses the corner of two squares and various angles, and you can read the numbers from that.

Whether it is a NLIS tag, an eartag, a tail tag, a microchip or a brand, we do need to keep track of our livestock. We need to keep track of the properties as well, so we have property identification codes (PICs). We have those on our property at Meadows, and I do not think there is any particular farmer who would have an issue with that.

We have horses on agistment on commonwealth land at the airport. Who is the property owner there? Is it Adelaide Airport Limited, is it the commonwealth, is it the person who leases that bit of land from the Adelaide Airport, or is it the person who then pays the rent to that person for their horse? The property identification traceback is very important. There are issues like that which we need to keep our eye on. We cannot argue with the fact that we need to have the highest levels of biosecurity in Australia and in South Australia. How you pay for that is why I support this amendment. We all pay taxes and if you are paying taxes you are making money, and everybody out there does not mind paying for all the necessary things we need in this wonderful country.

Anyone who says that farmers do not care about the welfare of their livestock and are prepared to make their livestock endure cruel and inhumane conditions, or farmers do not care about disease, it is a no-brainer. You want to send the best quality livestock off to market, to the abattoirs, as you possibly can, because that is how you get paid. You want to breed the best sheep you can with the best wool with the highest wool clip you can possibly get. You want to have your dairy cattle producing the best milk with the best protein and fat levels and lowest cell levels you can possibly get. You want that, and that is what farmers are all about.

People who do not know this should go out and talk to farmers. Phone me and talk to me. I am happy to talk at any time about what I have seen, where I have been, what I have done and what I know, because I have been there, seen it and done it. I have seen the other side, as the RSPCA says, and I have been involved in livestock enterprises. I know what is required. What this government's bill is aimed at is good, but the amendments improve it.

With that, I conclude my remarks and I hope the government does listen to sense and look at what we are trying to achieve with these amendments.

The Hon. P. CAICA (Colton—Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation) (17:31): I thank opposition members for their contributions to this bill.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clauses 1 to 4 passed.

Clause 5.

Mr PEDERICK: Clause 5 is: Interpretation—notifiable condition and exotic disease, and details where the minister may, by the same or a subsequent notice in the gazette, designate a specified notifiable disease as either a notifiable (report only) disease or an exotic disease. I am interested in what diseases would be included in the clause as notifiable, which is report only, and what examples there are of exotic diseases.

The Hon. P. CAICA: The shadow spokesperson was right to identify that the act requires the reporting of declared notifiable diseases. It also imposes requirements or restrictions on livestock affected or suspected of being infected with a notifiable disease. Of course, countries importing livestock or produce require certification of certain diseases which jurisdictions in the industry have no interest in regulating. I am advised that there are examples and, of course, this will improve disease reporting to support exports, something that we all agree with and support.

The example I have is that leptospirosis is a disease of interest to some importing countries but it is currently not notifiable in South Australia. Information on the disease will assist government to issue certificates to help exporters access those markets.

Mr PEDERICK: Just as clarification, that is one you are classing as an exotic disease? That one is just notifiable, is it?

The Hon. P. CAICA: A notifiable disease. My understanding is that it will become notifiable, and it is for the purposes of ensuring that we can report accordingly to those countries that require certification for certain diseases for which jurisdictions and industry are responsible for regulating.

Mr PEDERICK: Thank you, minister. Have you got any examples of what you will determine as an exotic disease under this clause?

The Hon. P. CAICA: I am told that there will not be any exotic diseases notifiable. That will be a 'report only', because what this is doing is looking at a 'report only'. That means that it is reportable, but a certain level of action will be taken than that which will be taken in other areas.

Dr McFETRIDGE: On that same clause, minister, is there going to be any obligation on behalf of the animal owners or the property owners to take any action once they notify of a particular disease other than the actual notification?

The Hon. P. CAICA: I am advised that there are already certain conditions and criteria for the reporting of declared notifiable diseases. The former installs some obligations on the owner. With respect to 'report only' the only obligation will be to report.

Clause passed.

Clause 6 passed.

Clause 7.

Mr PEDERICK: This clause deals with categories of offences determining maximum penalties and expiation fees. Proposed subsection (2) provides:

If a regulation prescribing the categories of offences against a provision of this Act is not in force, any offence against the provision will be taken to be a category 1 offence.

I am just interested in what offences are likely to be listed as category 1 offences in this clause?

The Hon. P. CAICA: As you have described there: regulations with prescribed scaled penalties that recognise the relative severity and consequences of offending, which seems to be appropriate. What I am told is that, as you would expect, there will be ongoing consultation with industry as to the penalties and the criteria with respect to category 1. I am told that most of the serious ones will be retained as a category 1.

Mr PEDERICK: Have you got any specific examples at this stage as to what may be offences under that category, or does this still have to go back to the advisory groups and to the minister?

The Hon. P. CAICA: As I said, it will be going back for further discussion. As an example, apiarists are required to be registered under the act. The purpose of registration is to ensure that all owners of beehives are known so that, in the event of an emergency of an animal (in this case a bee disease) being detected in the state, effective disease control measures can be established. This would not be possible, of course, without the knowledge of who was a part of the industry and where the hives were located.

I am told that apiary operations range from one or two hives owned by a pensioner to in excess of 1,000 hives owned by a commercial operator. It is appropriate that the penalty for failing to register recognises the size of the operation, and that is an example of an activity that would have that level of scale. That is an example that I have put forward, but even that will still be subject to a level of discussion and consultation with the relevant industry groups.

Dr McFETRIDGE: Is there a chain of responsibility as to who is going to be ultimately responsible for the notification of these diseases? I will use the example of Adelaide Airport. Adelaide Airport leases the land from the commonwealth, which owns the land, it then subleases it to an individual, who then rents parts of that property to individuals where they agist their horses. If one of those horses was to be showing signs of equine influenza, an encephalitis or some other notifiable disease, who is ultimately responsible? Is it the horse owner? Is it the fellow who rents them the stables? Is it Adelaide Airport? Is it the commonwealth?

The Hon. P. CAICA: I thank the honourable member for his question. Under this section there is an obligation to report a notifiable situation, disease or illness. It is the person who owns the horse who has the responsibility. Given your example, presumably a horse might be away from the owner from time to time, and I will probably get into trouble here, but I would think that common sense would prevail. If a vet was at the Adelaide Airport to pick up a horse and noticed a difference in condition and, as you said, was easily able to identify a notifiable disease then I am sure action would be put in place to ensure that notification was made. Ultimately, I am advised it is the owner of the horse, but in the situation you raise the owner of the horse might be a long way away and not even aware that the horse might have a notifiable condition. That is what you are essentially saying, are you not, in your example?

Dr McFETRIDGE: Just to clarify that, in this particular example it is an agistment, and it is mainly kids who agist their horses, just along the airport, by the showjumping club. I do not want them to be thinking, 'Well, it's not an issue, somebody else will report it.' I want to know if there is a chain of responsibility. Animal owners do not call vets as often as they should, in my opinion, they think we charge too much, which is a furphy. I think it is important that it is not the property owner or the subletter, but the actual animal owner who has the ultimate responsibility.

The Hon. P. CAICA: That is exactly who it is. That is the person who is responsible. Having said that, I guess there will be other measures or expectations in place that when a detection occurs the responsibility would be discharged by the owner.

Dr McFETRIDGE: On that same clause, if there was an outbreak of equine flu at that particular property, whose responsibility is it to quarantine the property? Is it the commonwealth, Adelaide Airport Limited or the fellow who subleases the land from Adelaide Airport? Obviously, it is not the individual horse owner, they are just renting a stable, and I think there are 20 horses there at the moment. It will be interesting to see where the chains of responsibility start and stop with this because we want it to work.

The Hon. P. CAICA: There is a role and responsibility to notify, but once it is notified it would be the responsibility of the department to undertake the processes that are required for that, and whatever the scale of quarantining will be.

Clause passed.

Clause 8 passed.

Clause 9.

Mr PEDERICK: Clause 9 talks about terms and conditions of membership and procedures and what it will delete is that a livestock advisory group may determine its own procedures, but the new provision will indicate that subject to any direction of the minister a livestock advisory group may determine its own procedures. I think this is a fairly fundamental change, and I just wonder if there have been any issues with livestock groups determining their own procedures, because obviously there is a reason that this clause is being amended.

The Hon. P. CAICA: I had some dealings with the livestock advisory groups when I was the minister for agriculture, food and fisheries, and I had no problems at all. I cannot speak about what has happened now, but in essence, the proposed amendment provides an opportunity for the minister to direct an advisory group in relation to determining their administrative procedures. As the shadow spokesperson knows, currently livestock advisory groups may determine their own procedures.

However, what we do know to be the case is that seven or more advisory groups can result, in essence, in seven or more different sets of procedures, which can create inefficiencies and complications with administration. The overall aim, of course, would be to have the same administrative system for all the groups to minimise costs, and naturally where variations are needed this could be discussed between the minister and the advisory group.

I do understand that this could mean that the minister could end up imposing administrative arrangements on a group that they strongly oppose, but I would say that when I was the minister I would do that at my peril, and I am sure that any minister of the day would do that. It is very unlikely to occur in practice. In my experience, if any relationship between a minister and the advisory group reached this level, it would mean the relationship and value of the related advice had been lost and potential resolution would involve issues greater than administrative arrangements. Really, it is about making sure there is some consistency across the advisory groups purely from an administrative perspective.

Clause passed.

Clause 10.

Mr PEDERICK: This is about the requirement for registration to keep certain livestock, and it is a similar question to what I asked before about the different categories. What I will say is that these amendments bringing in expiation fees are a great improvement to the act, when we do not have to go straight to prosecution with the risk of $10,000 fines. I think it does allow a greater variance on how to deal with any problems under this act.

We have now the case of the category 3 offence, where $1,250 will be the fee; in the case of a category 2 offence it will be $5,000; in the case of a category 1 offence it is $10,000, which is the penalty provision in the act as it stands. Then expiation fees for alleged offences are bracketed as well through the three categories. How are those categories determined under the clause?

The Hon. P. CAICA: This is going to be part of the consultation process as well, and my understanding is that the feedback from industry, just as you have described there, is that it is a very sensible thing to have graduated penalties and expiation fees for failing to register instead of the prosecution of one penalty of $10,000. It does relate back to the question you asked in relation to a previous clause.

As I mentioned, it still is to be a subject of some discussion. Livestock owners, as you know, can own from just a few animals; for example, a hobby farmer like our good friend, the member for Morphett. He might be a bit beyond that, but I am sure that the real farmers might consider him to be a hobby farmer. For a farming enterprise with in excess of hundreds of thousands of head of livestock it is appropriate that the penalty for failing to register recognises the size of the operation and the potential gravity of a breach of the requirement to register. The penalties are set out in the clause.

Mr PEDERICK: I am happy with that clause, Mr Chairman.

Clause passed.

Clause 11.

Mr PEDERICK: This is a clause that I mentioned in my speech. I reckon the clause would have been out of date as soon as it went in the old act. Under the requirement of registration to perform an artificial breeding procedure (and I am reading from the act now), the section provides:

(1) A person must not carry out an artificial breeding procedure on or in connection with livestock of a prescribed class unless the person is registered under this part.

Maximum penalty: $10,000.

(2) Subsection (1) does not apply to a veterinary surgeon.

I note that in the new clause in the bill—and an expiation fee comes in, which I applaud as well; I think that is very sensible—subclause (2) will be deleted, and subclause (1) will not apply to:

(a) a veterinary surgeon; or

(b) a person who carries out an artificial breeding procedure on or in connection with livestock owned by the person; or

(c) an artificial breeding procedure carried out on or in connection with livestock by an employee of the owner of the livestock in the course of that employment.

This is a long overdue amendment. As I said, the initial section was probably long out of date when the act was printed, because I suggest that there would be many people, as I indicated in my speech, like my locals down at Coomandook, that have been conducting AI for many years as property owners, and their staff assisting them. I guess what I am asking is: because of the way the act was printed, was anyone charged or convicted of an offence under the old section?

The Hon. P. CAICA: I thank the honourable member for acknowledging that this is a sensible amendment, and of course he is right to point out that it is to correct an oversight that currently makes it an offence for that person to carry out artificial breeding procedures. Earlier legislation allowed farmers to perform artificial insemination on their own animals. It was an oversight that this was not continued. I am told that no compliance action has ever occurred with respect to this oversight.

Dr McFETRIDGE: I declare that I am a veterinary surgeon, so obviously we would like to see the vets doing all the work, but we recognise the fact that it is not practical. I do not want to go out there and AI 10,000 sheep, thanks very much. I think the farmers can do that with sufficient training. However, I am aware of a particular case over on the West Coast where a chap from Victoria, who has a licence from PIRSA and who has actually done work for PIRSA, is being investigated by the Veterinary Surgeons Board because he has been doing laparoscopic AI. That is a couple of small cuts in the belly of the sheep, and you can go in and do the AI that way.

It is a very accurate way of doing it; you can do hundreds of sheep a day if you are accurate and well trained. He has been training other vets, because he does not want to do it; he has too much as it is. He seems to have slipped between the cracks of the previous legislation and this current legislation.

I do not expect the minister to have an answer now—if he has that would be good—but perhaps he might just want to have a look at any cases that are going on at the moment where people are being investigated. I do not know whether he has been prosecuted yet; I do not think he has actually been charged with an act of veterinary science, because that does not fit in under this act, but he has been investigated for undertaking laparoscopic AI, and I understand a couple of vets have questioned whether he should be able to do it. I just bring that to the minister's attention. I think this is a sensible move here, and I ask that the minister see whether anyone is currently being investigated who would otherwise be excluded under this legislation.

The Hon. P. CAICA: I do not have that information before me, but if is being investigated, I would leave it at that. I am not aware of that particular situation, but I would hope, just as a rule of thumb—or a rule of hand; whatever it is artificial inseminators do—that registration procedures are in place to protect owners who may use a registered inseminator.

Clause passed.

Progress reported; committee to sit again.


[Sitting extended beyond 18:00 on motion of Hon. P. Caica]


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