Mr THOMAS GEORGE (Lismore) [12.17 p.m.]: I inform the House of a problem brought to my attention by Ron Chittick, the licensee of Bishop and Company, regarding a recent breach of clause 23 of the Stock Diseases Regulation 2009. Members may not realise that under the National Livestock Identification System [NLIS] every head of cattle and sheep must be identified and each animal must be fitted with a tag that can be read by a scanner. Accidents happen and problems occur whereby animals lose their identification tag. Regardless of whether the tag has been accidentally lost or not properly fitted, the loss of a tag creates a problem when an animal is taken to the abattoirs or to the saleyards.

One of the employees of Mr Chittick mustered and tagged the animal on a property of one of Mr Chittick's clients. Agents muster and tag animals as part of the service they provide to their clients and to assist producers. During such a process, an animal can easily miss being tagged. Livestock Health and Pest Authorities carry out surveillance of animals at saleyards. When the animal was sold the agent was held responsible for its not having a tag. On the day after the sale the agent received notification from Industry and Investment New South Wales under the heading, "Breach of Stock Diseases Regulation Clause 21 Unidentified Cattle Sold at Saleyard". That notification provided details of where the animal was sold and who owned it. The nature of the breach states, "That your company sold cattle that were not identified with a permanent identifier (NLIS device)." The notification also stated:

I am obliged to officially warn you that, if you commit a further offence in relation to the identification of stock, you will be issued with a penalty notice of $550, or may be prosecuted for which the maximum penalty is $11,000.

Admittedly the Department of Industry and Investment withdrew that letter the next day. If this is the way the industry is to be treated by the Department of Industry and Investment, there needs to be a rethink of how we can properly control this. I declare my interest in the matter. Members well know that I have been a stock and station agent for most of my life. I can assure members that when an agent is handling the numbers of cattle that go through saleyards it is very hard to pick up whether or not an animal has a tag in its ear. For the agent to be held responsible simply amounts to blaming someone else in the chain. An inspection mechanism needs to be put in place, whether by the Livestock Health and Pest Authority or other body. In my day the authority used to be at the saleyards and would religiously check every animal. But now that is not happening.

I intend to urge the Minister to encourage the Livestock Health and Pest Authority to provide inspections of these animals, and ensure that the animals are not sold without the identification tag. That is what used to happen in my day. The system that if an agent happens to bypass a tag or miss picking it up and then it becomes the responsibility of the agent who may be threatened with a $550 fine, or prosecuted with a maximum penalty of $11,000, is just a disgrace. For this scheme to be successful, everyone in the industry has to work together. It is no good threatening one part of the industry. If the buyers happen to process an animal without a tag and they get threatened, they will not turn up to the cattle sales. Unless the whole industry is working together, this scheme will not be a success. The identification scheme is a very, very important part of the industry.