I have recently been hearing two somewhat related arguments concerning actions of the AFB PMP Management Agency. In the leadup to the review in a couple of years time, I would like to better understand what is being described.
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"The Mgmt Agency is using powers from two places: the AFB NPMP Order, but also using powers directly from the Biosecurity Act."
“The Mgmt Agency can take away a beekeeper’s potential livelihood by destroying equipment based on spore-testing only. It should require evidence of a clinical infection first.”
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Let’s try an example, as I try to understand the principles and how they could be/have been applied. Remember - I’m just making this up, but basing it on what could well be real. (“It’s the truth, whether it happened or not. - Ken Kesey”). When it says "The Mgmt Agency did such and such" - I'm just using my best understanding of what might happen...
A beekeeper has, say, 40 hives. Through whatever circumstances, 36 of them are found with AFB, some at quite advanced stages. There might be any number of factors involved: eyesight, not looking, not identifying - those reasons aren’t what I’m talking about in this ramble.
Just prior to the inspections that found the AFB, all of the honey had been taken off the hives. No AFB was identified by the beekeeper. The honey boxes were not marked in any way, so cannot be returned to the hive they came from. 80 boxes in the shed, 4 hives still alive. Sampling and testing revealed a high AFB spore load in the stored honey boxes.
The Mgmt Agency ensures that the 36 AFB hives are appropriately destroyed. But further, they order the destruction of the stored honey boxes. The beekeeper ordered to destroy both frames and boxes (and not given permission to paraffin wax dip the boxes to reuse them).
So from my understanding of it, the argument would be (in part) that the destruction of the hives was done using powers of the PMP. But the destruction of the honey boxes was carried out with a power from the Biosecurity Act itself. And that somehow this is inherently wrong…
Would you describe this example as a gross misuse of the powers available to the NPMP? What other factors do you consider the Mgmt Agency should take into account in making such decisions?
And can someone explain that issue re: powers of the PMP/powers of the Biosecurity Act for me?
