The army may have to fight foot and mouth disease in Australia

Our armed forces are already managing aged care homes, will they soon be deployed to farms too?

Our armed forces are already managing aged care homes, will they soon be deployed to farms too?

Australia must be ready to deploy the army if foot and mouth disease gains ground in the country, a vet who fought the last UK outbreak has warned.

Dr Neil Hudson, an equine specialist, was called in to help deal with the traumatic outbreak of foot and mouth disease across Britain in 2001 and described the horrifying impact it had on him, farmers and the agriculture industry.

Back then about 6 million cows, horses and sheep had to be killed and their carcasses burnt.

“I witnessed horrific scenes I never want to see again, it was a national emergency and like a war zone," Dr Hudson said.

“I had supervised one cull of a dairy farm overnight and in the morning the farming couple offered me breakfast and the man told me it was the first time ever, and he had grown up on the land his entire life, that he couldn’t hear anything at all. It was complete silence and it just struck me then that the day before this farm was vibrant and full of life and now you couldn’t hear the cows or the calves bellowing."

Dr Hudson said Australia does and has had very strong biosecurity measures and that the government’s introduction of foot baths at airports, and stringent checking of materials shipped to Australia was the right thing to do.

The mats have this week been rolled out in arrival halls around the country and post and mail arriving from Indonesia will now be subjected to swabs and tests for the disease.

“You have to be very, very strict," Dr Hudson said.

"If the outbreak spreads you need serious logistics to control the animals and the people and don’t rule out calling an emergency straight away and bringing in the army."

How will FMD impact us? 

A new AEC report predicts that predicting a $1.1bn hit to the central and western Queensland economy and ­almost 34,000 job losses if FMD made its way into the country. 

Australia’s cattle capital would face a “catastrophic” economic impact. 

The report has stated that the direct impact on jobs in the region is estimated at 33,726 and more than 30% of jobs in western Queensland would be at risk.

Are they going to close the borders again?

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is reluctant to close the border to Indonesia, a country that is currently battling a rapidly developing FMD situation.

“What we‘re trying to avoid is an impact … on our trade and you don’t do that by just jumping to a position that the former government never ever implemented,” Albanese said.