Unfortunately, the perception that all of AQIS is incompetant and under-performing will be applied to all of the AQIS branches and offices.

From personal contact, I know that our local office of AQIS (Mackay Qld) has some very dedicated and skilled officers who are under-resourced, underfunded and under staffed. They are top people just trying to get the job done under very difficult circumstances.

Give them more staff, more resources and a decent budget and the job they are capable of will be better than world class.

Let's see what Minister Burke and Secretary O'Connell come up with. I have a sneaking suspicion that they'll just throw more money at the problem (ie AQIS) rather than really addressing the issues in a constructive way.

There will always be a cry of understaffing, underfunding, and under-resourced; a typical 'unionist' viewpoint.

The reality is, some program areas are over-staffed, over-funded, and have immense resources that are not being utilised effectively or efficiently.

For instance the NSW Mail program has had its staffing levels increased by close to 300% in the past two years. The overtime budget there is blown out of the water, and us AQIS officers can go and spend 10 hours working overtime there and not seize one item of quarantine concern.

That's $500 a day I can make looking at chocolates from the UK and brand new NIKE shoes from the USA. Yeah...I'd love to keep that gravy train rolling!

Why is this happening? Because the Mail management have no idea how to motivate their staff, and see 'power' in their budget allocation.

My annual salary rises from a base of $55K to upwards of $90K by doing overtime 'work' and collecting allowances for shift penalties.

You will also find that of the hundreds of staff employed by AQIS in NSW, less than 10% actually have any industry background. That means 90% of the staff are ex clerks, administrative officers, ex-Woolies chicks, semi-retirees, and numerous ex-airline staff.

The three assistant regional managers have no agricultural background whatsoever and would struggle to see the difference between a horse and a donkey.

AQIS is an absolute joke. Alas, it pays off my mortgage and provides me with plenty of 'play' money. The public are being ripped-off but nobody has the guts to break the 'boys club' that exists, especially in the NSW region.

There are some hard working, dedicated and qualified people in AQIS. There are also some bloody no hopers. The useless people have brought the service into disrepute as have SOME of their management that seems to be more interested in creating the useless bureaucratic processes identified by Callinan in order to simply increase revenue and who knows what. Certainly some of the processes have nothing to do with biosecurity. Those processes and bad management helped the horse flu to enter the country.

AQIS is a monopoly and as such it is inefficient and charges an inflated fee for service. The services are dragged out to raise revenue and mangement like to use unqualified, inexperienced people because any given job costs more. If AQIS used skilled people as they did in the past they would be more efficient, more vigilant and prevent more incursions.

For example when John Cahill (AQIS Director prior to horse flu and current Director of Biosecurity Australia) revoked my quarantine authorisation he simply transferred the inspections and processing of imports for CSIRO from qualified and experienced officers to people with less than one year's experience in biosecurity. This meant my time was taken from high risk items such as live plant inspections, live materials under quarantine and most of my time was then spent paying AQIS bills and chasing useless AQIS paperwork and wasting time on low risk items. The new staff at AQIS seized everything they could even though all the paperwork and import requirements were in order. The costs dramatically increased and Australia's research capacity was adversly affected. It still takes AQIS five officers to do the same job as one of my professional biosecurity staff. Why would AQIS management want to change a thorough system that worked so well for Australia?

Anyway the work done by AQIS management and their bureaucratic processes was so intolerable I quit my job after 22 years as a quarantine officer. Only a few people in AQIS management would listen to me at how bad the situation had become. They in turn were unable to be heard. I had absolutely warned about the situation and that the new bureaucratic system and incompetent officers was setting up imminent disease incursion. I warned them, I warned the ministers. They did nothing and the responses were simply we do a good job.

The government should immediately reinstate the quarantine authorities of CSIRO Quarantine and biosecurity professionals including those at CSIRO Quarantine Unit in Canberra and AAHL at Geelong. Commonwealth research materials and goods should not be handled by incompetent, unqualified or inexperienced AQIS people anymore. However AQIS people should still oversee the operations in a regulatory manner only as was the case prior to 2004.

IT IS TIME THAT INDUSTRY REPRESENTATIVES AUDIT AQIS OPERATIONS. These are the people and industries that feel the financial and social affect of incursions. Pome fruit people should be auditing pome fruit operations and horse people should be auditing horse import operations. Although it is understandable that AQIS management like to carry out their own audits and performance management. No doubt when auditing themselves they can cover up deficiencies and maintain their revenue streams. They can use their fancy PR people to pump out warm tummy garbage like the border security show. I note the PR show only shows the terrible imports and never talks about the big issues like horse flu. Maybe they should film the process that lead to this costly stuff up. AQIS does not need more money, staff or resources. They need to become more efficient and better skilled. They need to be genuine about sharing responsibility. They must lift their game.

Over the last few years the staff hired have not necessarily been qualified or experienced in anything agricultural, horticultural etc. Many are just amatuers when it comes to biosecurity. The quailfied and skilled officers are able to "go for the jugular" and find the nasties much quicker and more efficiently than the amatuers and at a lower cost to taxpayers and importers.

I doubt that AQIS will sack anyone over horse flu as would occur in private enterprise if such incompetency was discovered. Some of the senior management people in power and who set up the processes and management structures prior to horse flu have in fact been given promotions. Some of these people deserve long gaol sentences not promotions for the money they "stole" from agricultural industries and the economy through their actions that contributed to the entry of the disease. These people know who I am speaking about and I say to them quit your job and move into admin jobs where you cannot cause anymore damage to the Australian economy or agriculture.

I hope the changes now taking place are not simply rearranging the deck chairs on the Titantic. But I bet they are and I bet the cover up culture remains in tact.

The lack of agricultural knowledge and training among quarantine staff applies equally to the state bodies as to the federal "service". Obsession with procedure rather than any basic understanding of etiolology and epidemiology is a fundermental problem throughout quarantine services.

Michael, you appear to be confusing the changes to management and culture in AQIS (which I agree appear to have been the major reason for the EI breakdown) with the BA risk assessment process. If we want to be heard in world trade processes (for whatever that is worth) we cannot argue for a zero risk policy. There is no evidence that import protocols were a problem just the enforcement of them.