AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY

STOCK DISEASES REGULATIONS

EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM

No. 3 of 1962

	Contagious bovine pleuro-pneumonia is a serious disease of cattle which is endemic in the north of Australia and is from time to time brought south with cattle despite precautions taken to prevent its spread.  The N.S.W. Government has established Pleuro-pneumonia Protected Areas in locations off the routes normally taken by stock moving south, and very stringent conditions are imposed to ensure that affected or “carrier” animals are not introduced into such Protected Areas.  Similar conditions have been imposed by the Department of Health on the introduction of cattle into the A.C.T.

	That portion of N.S.W. adjoining the A.C.T. boundary to the west, the south and the east has long been established as a Pleuro-pheumonia Protected Area.  The N.S.W. Government has now extended the Protected Area to include the region bordering the A.C.T. to the north, but will not permit cattle within that region unrestricted entry into the formerly established Protected Area adjacent to it until the expiration of a transition period of several years, during which no more “risk” cattle are allowed entry into the added region and any “risk” cattle which may already be in that region are eliminated.

	Under the A.C.T. Stock Diseases Regulations, the conditions governing the entry of cattle into the Territory from the established Protected Area to the west, south and east have in the past been less restrictive than the conditions governing the entry of cattle from the region adjacent to the Territory’s northern boundary.  Since that region has been proclaimed as a Protected Area, cattle within that region have been entitled to enter the Territory subject only to the restrictions imposed on cattle from the older – established Area.

	These amendments to the Stock Diseases Regulations provide for the same conditions to be imposed on cattle entering the A.C.T. from the newly proclaimed Protected Area to the north as the N.S.W. Government imposes on cattle from that region entering the established Protected Area adjacent to it.