...were likely infected with white spot disease, senators hear
Posted about 4 hours ago
Australian Agriculture Department officials have estimated that nearly half of all imported raw prawns were infected with white spot disease before imports were suspended in January.
The officials told a Senate Estimates hearing in Canberra on Wednesday that six importers supplied "the vast majority" of the contaminated prawns.
The Department has since revoked their import permits and approvals...
Testing failed detection
LNP Senator Barry O'Sullivan said the outbreak "represents a catastrophic collapse" of Australia's biosecurity arrangements and the so-called risk-based approach to raw prawn imports which involved testing a percentage of prawns at the border.
Agriculture Department investigations revealed that a number of importers engaged in the "deliberate subversion" of those processes, including deliberately mislabelling prawns as other product to avoid testing.
Investigations also revealed that white spot testing at the border failed to properly detect infected prawns.
Under more sensitive testing at the Australian Animal Health Laboratory, a large percentage of raw prawns that were initially cleared at the border were subsequently found to be infected with white spot...
