Livestock exporters have complained of excessive compliance costs and regulatory overkill by the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service in a submission to the Government's review into quarantine and biosecurity.
The Australian Livestock Exporters Council and LiveCorp said the services provided by AQIS to the live exporting industry were "unsatisfactory", and recommended a suite of changes to help improve both animal welfare outcomes and exporting efficiencies.
The submission is one of more than 200 forwarded to the review being chaired by consultant and former secretary of the Department of Environment and Heritage, Roger Beale, who will now start meeting with industry and Government stakeholders before reporting to the Federal Government by the end of September.
The live export industry submission said while exporters appreciate the role of AQIS and acknowledged AQIS was often unfairly the subject of a lot of criticism, at the same time its industry was heavily regulated and many of these regulations could be simplified.
The ALEC/LiveCorp submission says export approval must be simplified and exporter prior history acknowledged rather than the current system where AQIS officers in Canberra assess all elements related to exporting but often don't have the experience or technical field knowledge of the business they are assessing.
The exporters said this was a slow process with extensive decision making time, a poor interpretation and application of standards and little consultation with their industry.
It said the vast majority of livestock exports are repeat orders of similar stock to the same clients and destination, yet these orders are always treated as new orders with a lengthy quarantine approval process required.
The submission said there is no practical way to hold AQIS accountable for its decisions, and there needs to be some form of independent review mechanism of all decisions implemented to ensure a high level of transparency.
One of the most alarming issues raised in the submission were details about the cost of compliance.
"AQIS costs far exceed the commercial norm," the submission said.
"For example, AQIS costs for loading often significantly exceed the cost of mandatory third party veterinarians, even though AQIS' time on site is usually significantly less."
The submission used the example of inspection costs for a recent shipment of 46,000 sheep from Fremantle.
A third party vet allocated 53 hours to the inspection at a total cost of $4080 or $76.98 an hour. An AQIS inspector spent 6.25 hours on the job, at a total cost of $6855.58 or $1096.80 an hour.
The submission said the cost of compliance needs to be reviewed and reduced and there needs to be an ability for businesses to monitor and control costs.
The industry also called for a more science-based approach to the application of standards and protocols.
Scores of primary industries organisations - both corporate and lobbying - have made submissions to the quarantine review.
The horse and racing industry is still waiting anxiously for the release of the Callinan report from an inquiry into the outbreak and spread of equine influenza in August last year.
The report was given to Minister for Agriculture, Tony Burke, in April and his office says he is still considering it and the government's response to it before he releases the report publicly, as intended.
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