THE Australian Horse Industries Council has costed six levy options that would allow the industry to join the Emergency Animal Disease Response Agreement.

They would be linked to worming, shoeing or events, or applied to Thoroughbreds, feed purchases or horse registration.

The EADRA imposes biosecurity protocols for horse importation.

Costings are as follows:

A levy via "wormers"

  • If 600,000 of the reported one million horses in Australia are wormed four times a year, then 2.4 million units of wormers will have been used.
  • If a levy of 50 cents was applied to each unit, $1.2 million would be collected in year one and $12 million over 10 years.

Levy via horse shoes

  • About 800,000 sets of shoes are used each year, with about 200,000 of them racing plates.
  • If the levy was $3 for racing plates and $1 for all other shoes, $1.2 million would be collected in year one. This comprises 600,000 sets of shoes at $1 and 200,000 sets of shoes at $3. In 10 years this would raise $12 million.
Levy for events
  • A single event levy can be applied each time a horse participates in an event, which could be a race start, a horse show, a competition or a rally.
  • The horse would only be levied once at any one event.

Levy on Thoroughbreds

  • Thoroughbreds have about 200,000 starts a year.
  • The Horse Riding Clubs Association of Victoria has about 11,000 entries in events a year.
  • At a levy of $3, the Thoroughbred levy would raise $600,000 in one year and the HRCAV levy of $1 would raise $10,000.
  • In 10 years this would raise $6.1 million from these two bodies. This figure would markedly increase if all organisations running events were included.

Levy on hard feed

  • An estimated figure for hard feed used by horses in a year is 165 million kilograms, or about seven million bags of feed.
  • At a levy of 50 cents/bag, this would raise $3.5 million in one year and $35 million over 10 years.
  • At a levy cost of 2c/kg, this would raise $3.3 million in one year and $33 million in 10 years.

Horse registration levy

  • This may be done from lists of horse registrations, or through membership of an organisation linked to horse ownership.
  • This will greatly increase the number of horses included, compared to the numbers used at the failed senate session.
  • A levy of $3 on 100,000 Thoroughbreds would return $300,000.
  • A levy of $2 on 33,000 harness horses would return $66,000.
  • A levy of $1 on 320,000 non-racing horses would return $320,000.
  • This would give a total of $680,000 in one year and $6,680,000 in 10 years.

AHIC president Roger Lavelle said the council needed horse owners' feedback as soon as possible, "with reasons why you think particular options would, or would not, work".

"Once we have received the feedback, a further discussion paper will be circulated, setting out the advantages and disadvantages of the different options," Dr Lavelle said.

Dr Lavelle said the EADR agreement would lead to a properly co-ordinated response to outbreaks of any of the 22 diseases, including equine influenza, that were listed in the agreement.

He said comments could be emailed to secretary@horsecouncil.org.au or sent by post to The Secretary, Australian Horse Industry Council, P.O. Box 802, Geelong, Vic 3220.