A SENIOR bureaucrat in the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service yesterday denied the existence of a culture in the organisation more focused on producing corporate strategies and business plans than in actually fulfilling their responsibility to keep Australia free of disease.

Under sustained cross-examination for most of the day at the government inquiry into the equine influence outbreak, NSW assistant regional manager for AQIS Julie Sims was repeatedly forced to admit that she had little practical knowledge of on-the-ground operations.

Ms Sims, effectively second in command in NSW since 1996, is responsible for the Eastern Creek quarantine station, which has been named as a potential source of the outbreak of equine influenza.

She acknowledged she had not seen the horse stable area for several years, had not read the specific work instructions on the importation of horses and did not know whether they had been implemented in NSW. Nor did she know the exact work roles of the staff.

She also acknowledged that she had received no training in regard to risk assessment and had not read a leading author in the field.

While saying there had been a general concern within AQIS for a number of years over a lack of resources and staff, Ms Sims struggled to name the specific aspects of the operation that were being affected by the shortage and also admitted she could not find any documents to demonstrate that she had expressed any concern over a lack of resources at the station.

Counsel for the Australian Racing Board Garry Rich asked Ms Sims: “How can you make sensible decisions … if you do not know what staff are required to do on a daily basis? You don’t think that it is helpful to know what the staff have to do?”

Ms Sims replied: “It is not my responsibility to know what the staff have to do.”

She said the question of what skills were required by staff would be handled by the station’s manager.

Ms Sims was also forced to admit that she did not know there was a requirement to inform visitors to the quarantine station of quarantine procedures.

She also acknowledged that she was not aware of the procedures for truck drivers and grooms when horses arrived at the airport.

But Ms Sims disagreed with a statement put to her by Mr Rich that there was “a cultural problem with your department that the senior managerial staff are more concerned about their managerial functions, that is, proposing business plans and corporate objective statements,” rather than their job of keeping animal diseases out of Australia.

“No, I don’t agree with that,” she said.