National horse traceability register meetings underway

The National Horse Traceability Working Group was formed in October following recommendations made in a senate inquiry.

The working group is made up of representatives from Animal Health Australia, the Australian Horse Industry Council, Harness Racing Australia, Racing Australia, Equestrian Australia, the RSPCA, and state, territory and Commonwealth governments.

The group has officially met three times since it was formed, but horse owners are wondering what it will mean for them when it comes to registration with a new system.

Livestock agent Jason Fry and his wife Karen have been breeding Australian Stock Horses since 1997 at their Riverglen stud in Bunyip North.

Mr Fry said he was not opposed a national register, but was concerned that breeders would be targeted for compliance when there was a large number of unmarked horses that would be more difficult to police.

"It just depends on if there's going to be some kind of registration or fee, because us as breeders, we already pay a registration to be part of that," he said.

"In regards to traceability, you've already got registration papers, horses are already microchipped and branded.

"It's going to be totally different to cattle and sheep traceability because everything has to be transferred and scanned and so forth in that side of our field, where in the horse industry there's a lot of horses that aren't registered, are unmarked, especially in say the Pony Club world.

"That would be a concern - the breeders no doubt will be the first to be hit on because they've already got a system in place that they could copy or duplicate."

Consultation for a register would need to be varied and extensive given the number of different societies and clubs, he said.

"It needs to be bigger than say, the Australian Horse Industry Council," he said.

"If it's just going to target the registered horses I would be against the idea - it's got to be one in, all in."

He said an industry body like Agriculture Victoria needed to play a part.

Restrictions on the number of horses that people could own and breed, similar to what was introduced with dogs and cats, could be a step forward, he said.

"We certainly need to be able to police, in my opinion, how many horses are being bred every year - let alone registered - because I think there's a lot of horses out there that shouldn't be bred," he said.

He said a national register could be useful for managing biosecurity, particularly for cases like Hendra virus, which was first detected in Queensland and has now been found as far south as the Hunter region in New South Wales.

"I've only recently got back from the Stock Horse Nationals at Tamworth and there's horses from every single state and territory in Australia," he said.

"Almost 900 horses in one venue - now if there was a horse that tested positive after that event, we've got a lot of questions as to who, where and what all these horses have traveled to and where they've come from."

President of the Australian Livestock Saleyards Association Stuart McLean is chairing the working group.

Mr McLean said the core purpose of developing a traceability system was around endemic and exotic disease control and the management of horses in disasters.

The key principle the group had agreed to was using property identification codes, which were already required in all states and territories.

The group was still investigating forms of individual identification methods for horses, such as microchipping, he said.

"They have obviously been trying to introduce something that's going to have the least impact on horse owners and have the end result we're trying to do," he said.

The diversity of horses and their uses was one of the main challenges, he said.

Another challenge was the number of private sales carried out.

"Horses are traded in various forms but it's not just trading horses, it's actually knowing where they are," he said.

"If you've got for example, cattle and sheep, they don't transgress a lot of properties over their lifetime, whereas horses do.

"They're in and out of floats going to shows, going to races, events, polocross, they could be going anywhere.

"And there's lots of different agistment arrangements and quite diverse ownership arrangements as well."

He was aware of the concerns held by owners about additional registrations and possible fees and the group was investigating amalgamating existing databases to get information for the register.

There would need to be an extensive communication campaign to ensure all owners, including those with unmarked horses with no existing registration, were aware of the rollout when it did take place.

Compliance monitoring would also be discussed down the line, he said.

"It'll probably come a little bit later when we look at how the system might get designed," he said.

The group will continue to meet regularly to prepare a report for the Agriculture Ministers' Meeting in 2022.

Mr McLean said submissions and comments were welcomed.

"We're trying to introduce a national system, which is quite difficult in Australia because we have jurisdictional variations in states that manage a lot of biosecurity issues at a state level," he said.

"My view of that is that the process is not going to be a popular decision with everyone, it never is, but as long as everyone understands why it's happening then that would be good.

"We've got horse diseases like African Horse Sickness not that far away from Australia - if that was to get in here the horse industry is gone in five minutes.

"If we can incentivise people to get involved in this, rather than penalise people, I think that's probably our best approach."