New Quarantine Costs

[Ptolomy]

What do you think about the new costs?

http://www.daff.gov.au/bsg/biosecurity-fee-review-2014/post-entry-quarantine-animal-imports-non-horse

[Dogsfevr]

[sandgrubber]

What do you think about the new costs?

http://www.daff.gov....ports-non-horse

I understand why, in the short term, they need to increase daily fees to cover costs, given that fixed costs dominate their budget and the 10 day period will bring in less revenue than the 30 day period. However, as I understand it, they have closed some facilities, which should bring down fixed costs (and effectively increase costs by a large amount for WA customers, who will now have to operate through the east coast).

Without seeing their budget, it's hard to comment much further. I would be surprised if there weren't ways that they could bring the daily service cost down from $149 without effecting the quality of service.

[Aziah]

What a joke (and not even a remote surprise)...disgraceful.

[Dogsfevr]

Thats if your dog is lucky to do only 10 days so far i've heard of more OOpps & dogs having to suddenly stay longer & then suddenly get told all is sorted you can now go .

They don't do enough to warrant that price increase on looking after the dogs inside.they don't brush the dogs ,dog walking companies the last i heard are no longer allowed inside to excersie the dogs so who nows what happens during the 10 days .

If you do have a coated breed then you pay big dollars to have it brushed by "who" & an official who must stand there for the entire time twindling there thumbs

[wayrod]

The document does not support their argument! (The comparison is a 30 day stay versus a 10 day stay).

Maybe I read it incorrectly but let's say that if they had 200 dogs kennelled previously stay in a month then that is how they have based their assumptions. Reality is they can have up to 600 dog stays in the same 30 day period as new dogs entering every 10 days into a vacating kennel.

Say 200 kennels (which it the amount of kennelling to be built at new facility at Mickleham according to AQIS), at $39.00 per day would return $234000 every 30 days The proposed increase would generate $894000 for the same 30 days (remembering that 3 times the amount of dogs will be able to go through the quarantine station in the thirty day period). But then again they may out price themselves!!

Add to this the increase for cats to $149.00 per day also then the costs of PEQS will show a yearly profit of a couple of million dollars.

Imagine a boarding kennel charging those rates! Other than a few checks by AQIS veterinary staff they are no different to a boarding kennel! Except at $149.00 per day would not be classified as a luxury kennel facility. Even the new design for the one new facility to be built at Mickleham would not be classified as luxury.

There is no mention of additional services being provided! Walking dogs, brushing dogs, special diets being catered for included in the costs. Will there be a cap?

As previously mentioned if there has been a problem of paperwork and they require more information from country of export they have added additional days before release until they are furnished with information they require. Maybe they should of thought of that before reducing to ten days. Surely they would have known that from past experiences.

No staff on site 24 hours a day,

And as for interstate owners once Eastern Creek is closed then every animal departing quarantine in Melbourne will have additional expenses.

[sandgrubber]

The document does not support their argument! (The comparison is a 30 day stay versus a 10 day stay).

Maybe I read it incorrectly but let's say that if they had 200 dogs kennelled previously stay in a month then that is how they have based their assumptions. Reality is they can have up to 600 dog stays in the same 30 day period as new dogs entering every 10 days into a vacating kennel.

As I read it, they weren't to capacity with the 30 day limit, so going to the 10 day limit means 1/3 as many dogs, hence 1/3 as much revenue. This would be the equivalent, in a boarding kennel, of decreasing your number of boarders to 1/3 the number. Having run a kennel, I know this would greatly increase costs per dog, especially if you were paying for full time staff that you couldn't just lay off and you had to pay financing costs on the property and facilities.

[kelpiecuddles]

They weren't to capacity but as other facilities are closing this should in theory increase the number of animals they cater for

[Heisspur love]

I am mostly bothered by the fact they say it is a cost recovery? Recovery from what? There have been no dog disease outbreaks that I have heard of causing a cost increase. The thing that really peeves me is that the racing industry introduced EI into Australia back in 2007, then jumped up and down and were compensated and given everything they demanded including free vaccinations and compensation for service fee losses, etc due to lockdown and now the pleasure horse industry is left to pay a few hundred just for initial vaccinations against HeV, while the racing industry kicked up a stink and don't even have to vaccinate.

So now that the horse industry (racing) maybe seems to have had an influence in stopped any increase on equine quarantine fees in the recent review, I am left wondering, why are non-horse animal imports lumped with a nearly 300% increase in fees (for 1/3 of the work load), while horse imports receive 0% increase???

Big question is: Is it bad management of dog imports OR dog (and cat) imports subsidising for losses of bad management of other imports?