The Australian Government tabled the legislation last week for its proposed new Biosecurity Levy despite strong protests from across agriculture as well as a number of considered reviews on whether it was fair and reasonable.
It increasingly looks more like a department with a strained budget trying to meet its commitments on revenue collection than it is about delivering a secure biosecurity program.
Debates about how to fund biosecurity programs can seem misplaced when the cost of failure is so high.
In taxing agriculture to cover the cost of biosecurity, you are asking those who would not cause any biosecurity breach to fund the prevention program to protect the whole agricultural economy. Is that reasonable?
Government would argue that there is an identifiable group of industries that directly benefit from biosecurity programs and they should contribute.
It can also be argued that quarantine and biosecurity are general community protection functions and should no more be based on user pays principles than funding the army or the navy.
The red meat processing sector has been through this funding debate with the government over many decades.
A health certificate required for every export shipment can cost over $30. If you want a hard copy as required by some markets the price doubles. If the consignee changes and you want a replacement health certificate it's over $500.
But the core issue has remained around who should pay for export meat inspection.
Are the levies collected for export meat inspection a simple "fee for a service" or are they an attempt to raise revenue through an "export tax" for what is a public service monopoly.
Governments on both sides in Australia have had their finger in the meat inspection funding pie but the Beale Review of 2008 under the Rudd Labor Government returned government policy to full cost recovery for export meat inspection.
In 2001 after a couple of Productivity Commission reviews, the Howard Government accepted that there was a community benefit from a national meat industry food safety and meat inspection system and agreed to contribute 40 per cent to the cost of export meat inspection.
The Rudd Government reversed that policy and went for full cost recovery. There was no change in the "service" just who was paying.
This generated a significant challenge from the processing sector that this policy change was just revenue raising that would put an unnecessary burden on our export competitiveness.
Australia is one of the few major red meat exporting countries to impose this cost on its red meat export sector. Tha US Government accepts export meat inspection as a legitimate cost of government.
US beef processors, our main competitors in Japan, Korea and China don't pay this fee when competing with Australian exporters.
Economists have argued that there is no logic or policy consistency imposing an export tariff on an Australian export industry when at the same time they are abolishing import tariffs on products from overseas in the name of economic efficiency.
The service provided by the government on export meat inspection in Australia is now costing export processors over $76 million per year.
The government has already indexed further growth in these costs going forward. This cost comes right off the processor's bottom line and their ability to pay for livestock.
That cost would be closer to $100 million without the Meat Modernisation program that the Australian Meat Industry Council continues to drive with the government.
In building an internationally competitive red meat industry, the program has led to the introduction of a range of new regulatory tools, the savings from which have been measured at close to $20 million.
The administrative burden, however, still remains too high especially when most international competitors don't face this cost.
If an Australian abattoir is only producing red meat for the Australian domestic market, these costs do not apply.
The Productivity Commission has argued that cost recovery should be applied to agencies for economic efficiency reasons not merely to raise revenue.
It is hard not to see the proliferation of government levies as also reflecting a search for more permanent revenue streams that might otherwise be removed or reallocated when government priorities change and budgets are reviewed.
For processors, the middle ground has included marginal cost pricing for the actual "service" provided, without asking them to cover government overheads as well. Failure to consider that approach only adds to the argument that revenue raising remains a priority.
A recent Productivity Commission report highlighted how this whole mindset of government revenue raising has moved inexorably towards increased levy collection from Australian industry.
In 1960 they advised there were only four government levies in place in Australia.
Today it's over 248.
The Commission report said they now raise six times the revenue of import tariffs which have dropped over the years to "promote trade".
Equity, transparency and more independent analysis of the actual criteria being used to label agricultural producers as the only beneficiaries of proposed industry levies would be of value.
Simply because agricultural producers are the easiest to identify in the supply chain and therefore the easiest to levy, should not apply.
For export processors, the extra tax revenue for the government generated directly and indirectly from a successful red meat export sector would far outweigh the cost of export meat inspection.
