WAS it a case of foot in mouth over foot and mouth?
A Senate estimates hearing this week tried - unsuccessfully - to track down the origin of a controversial recommendation to allow the import of live FMD virus samples.
The recommendation was made in the report of the review of the quarantine system submitted to the Federal Government last year.
Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan quizzed federal agriculture officials on where the idea came from.
"There's a fair bit of agitation and alarm at the farm level about this," he said at the hearing.
"Where was the seed for this recommendation sown?
"We want to know because this is the most serious exotic animal disease on the planet."
Head of the review secretariat, Fran Freeman, said the matter was not raised in the 220 written submissions to the panel, but indicated the panel had also conducted 170 public consultations.
Senator Heffernan said if the panel members came up with the recommendation themselves, "they were completely out of order".
Without any answers, the estimates committee has called on the panel members to clear up the mystery. The panel consisted former federal public servant Roger Beale, former grains chief Andrew Inglis, former chicken meat industry leader Dr Jeff Fairbrother and consultant David Trebeck.
