I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. It has been found that the spread of infectious avian disease is a serious hindrance to the maintenance and development of the poultry industry and that it is desirable that power should be obtained to control the importation of poultry, the separation of affected poultry, and notification of disease in poultry. It is intended to safeguard healthy flocks and to eliminate disease as far as practicable. The Diseases of Animals Acts, 1894 to 1914, will be amended to provide that the powers exercisable under these Acts in relation to animal disease may be applied to avian disease in so far as may be considered necessary. The Diseases of Animals Act, 1894, will have effect as if the word "animals" included poultry for the purpose of preventing the spreading of poultry diseases. The Minister may make orders applying to poultry such of the provisions of the Diseases of Animals Act, 1894 to 1914, as he may consider necessary, declaring any avian disease to be a disease of poultry for the purposes of the Act, requiring the separation of poultry affected with disease from poultry not so affected, and also the notification of disease in poultry, for regulating or prohibiting the importation of poultry, or eggs intended for hatching, or the use of imported eggs for hatching. Day old chicks will be regarded as poultry. Power will be taken to charge a fee for the work incidental to the importation of poultry.
Our experience in the Department— and, I may say, my experience personally, and I am sure it has been the experience of many Deputies here—is that whole stocks have been wiped out through certain poultry diseases. Recently—within the last few years in particular—they have been exterminated through a disease known as bacillary white diarrhoea in chickens. We intend to give facilities for blood testing to any person who is anxious for pure stock. For that purpose a veterinary surgeon, who will be a specialist in such things, will be appointed by the Department as a full-time official. So far as egg-laying and so on is concerned, we have a very good stock on record in this country. If that stock were free from disease, there is very little doubt that we would not be very long until we would be able to hold a very high place in the world as breeders of pedigree birds, and be able to get some of the advantageous prices that are going at present to Great Britain and America principally. Apart from the great economic advantage at home of saving our fowls from these diseases and preventing losses in that way, we would have the second economic advantage of getting those big prices, because we would then be able to guarantee them as absolutely free from disease. I think that the Bill is very simple, and that it is, as a matter of fact, merely a question of classing poultry as animals for the purposes of the Act. The Bill, as I say, is very simple, and I think it requires very little explanation from me.
