Quarantine sackings despite anthrax outbreak
By Steve Rogers
CANBERRA — Federal budget plans to slash quarantine staff are to go ahead despite the outbreak of anthrax in Queensland. The cuts mean that some 30% of the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) will be chopped.
AQIS is the largest group within the Department of Primary Industries and Energy (DPIE). Primary industries minister Simon Crean has avoided any negotiations on the Labor government's plans to cut meat inspection jobs, adding to 500 jobs already lost.
In an attempt to force negotiations, Public Sector Union (PSU) members in DPIE across the country began to implement selective bans in mid-September. These bans have included correspondence with the minister and Senior Executive Service and organisational changes.
Crean responded by offering to meet union representatives in Sydney on September 22. He then pulled out of the meeting at the last moment, sending the DPIE secretary along to announce that because the cuts were a budget decision, there was no room to negotiate.
Following notification of the anthrax outbreak in Queensland, PSU representative Don Ford issued a press release raising several questions:
- Why was there such a long delay in detecting and reporting the anthrax outbreak?
- Did the absence of domestic meat inspection at the local Queensland abattoirs contribute to the delay?
- Did the move to less inspection at Queensland abattoirs develop an attitude of complacency? Will similar problems arise in other states where there are gaps in government inspection?
The problems with meat inspection stem from a government decision to move to fee for service. This has set abattoir operators against meat inspectors, and created pressure for sacking staff and privatising the inspection service.
The government plans to set up a "quality assurance" system, under which the meat industry does its own inspection.
In Victoria plans are well advanced to privatise domestic meat inspection, and a tendering process is under way. AQIS management had begun preparing a tender.
As part of this, the PSU national leadership accepted major cuts to conditions of Victorian meat inspectors in order to help AQIS provide a "competitive" quote. Victorian inspectors have now dumped the whole deal and plan to fight an industrial campaign against all cuts.
Staff across the country are preparing to escalate current bans to include revenue collection and critical areas of export and import processing.