THE federal government's decision to allow beef to be imported from countries that have had outbreaks of mad cow disease could put 300,000 people out of work in a week, a Senate inquiry has heard. 

The upper house's Rural, Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee is examining the government's decision to relax beef import restrictions.

In October last year, the government announced that from March 1, 2010, it would import beef from countries that are able to demonstrate they have appropriate controls in place to ensure beef products coming into Australia are free of BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) - or mad cow disease.

"Such a move would put 300,000 out of work in a week," a submission from the Australian Beef Association to the inquiry says.

"No government in the world did this when BSE broke out within their borders," the association said.

Australia has made much of being free of diseases like FMD, BSE, Blue Tongue and Scrapie and had gone further to promote the nation's image with its National Livestock Identification System.

Despite these factors the nation's producers are receiving the second lowest prices in the developed world, the association said.

"By allowing in beef from BSE-affected countries, we are relinquishing this much-touted selling advantage," the association said.

Veterinary surgeon Bob Steel told the inquiry once countries that have BSE were allowed to export beef, there was uncertainty surrounding how effective and thorough the overseas testing would be.

"The only requirement for these 22 countries is that if they have a cohort of BSE cattle, that they test them, not all the others," Dr Steel said.

"Without identification, how can we possibly know what's coming into the country."

The US is not required to say how many cases of BSE they have, he said.

Professor John Mathews, who was the federal government's consultant over its changes to the import restrictions, told the inquiry he was given just two and a half weeks to produce the report.

Professor Mathews said he was told in August 2009 that the report's deadline was for the following month.

The period of time he was given, however, was sufficient enough to update the government's policy on BSE.

"I wasn't starting with a blank slate, and because I had a major role in providing advice to government while I was with government, so I had in my head, if you like, the scientific evidence and a great level of detail," Professor Mathews told the inquiry.

"So I only had to update the science from about 2006 to 2009."

Asked if the changes posed no increased risk that Australia would suffer from a BSE outbreak, Professor Mathews said "I'm not willing to comment on the political end of it".

He then said "any increased risk would be negligible, and I tried to quantify how negligible in my report".

Professor Mathews also rejected suggestions the government should wait to relax the restrictions until the new testing processes for BSE are proven more comprehensively.

"The combination of control mechanisms that are in place in the UK and other BSE-affected countries have brought the risk of BSE in those populations down," he said.

"The argument is we roughly know what the average relationship is between the number of BSE cases and the number of variant CJD (human form BSE) cases and that is not going to change very much."