Prior to the initiation of this project, it was recognised that while State/Territory, as well as Commonwealth, legislation is well-developed for the management of traditional stock animal diseases, legislation has not addressed adequately issues concerning aquatic animal diseases and their control. Thus animal health policy makers established a working party to assess the effectiveness of State/Territory aquatic animal disease legislation in the face of hypothetical, severe fisheries disease outbreaks in public waters, aquaculture sites, in finfish and in aquatic invertebrates.

Accordingly, the Working Party visited each State/Territory to discuss with those officials responsible for managing aquatic animal disease outbreaks, the current status of State legislation, whether the legislation is appropriate and whether the State has adequate resources and legislative support to manage effectively aquatic animal disease emergencies. In this way the strengths and weaknesses of each State/Territory with regard to aquatic animal disease preparedness were identified for further consideration by the local authorities. Over the past two years significant progress on aquatic animal health policy development at the Commonwealth and State/Territory levels has been made and is outlined in this report.

Major outcomes of the project include a significant raising of the profile of aquatic animal disease. At both State/Territory and Commonwealth levels the issue of aquatic animal disease, even in the face of the emergence of newer fisheries industries and a growth in fisheries production, had attracted relatively little attention and hence few resources. During the course of the project, there have been interaction with other projects and activities, coordinated by the Department of Primary Industries and Energy, which has had a synergistic effect on the progress of the issue. Recently, there has been very significant progress on aquatic animal health policy development at State/Territory and Commonwealth Government levels.

In the majority of States/Territories, either new or revised legislation has been enacted, is currently being enacted or current legislation is being reviewed to determine whether revised/new legislation is required. Thus, most of the States/Territories have addressed, or are addressing, the legislative issue.

In addition to ensuring appropriate legislation is in place, each State/Territory is responsible for ensuring the legislation is invoked as needed and effective management of aquatic animal disease emergencies is undertaken. Regardless of the scale of the incident the State/Territory should be notified, and should then make an assessment of appropriate action, ensuring that such action is in accordance with national policy.

Management of an aquatic animal disease emergency will require a collaborative approach and will, primarily, involve expertise in aquatic animal biology and aquaculture systems which would normally reside in State Departments of Fisheries or the equivalent, as well as expertise in animal diseases and epizootiology normally available from State Departments of Agriculture or the equivalent. In some cases, this expertise resides within one department (e.g. Departments of Primary Industries and Fisheries) and coordination of the response presents little difficulty. In other cases, the expertise is not centralised and coordination of the response becomes a more complex issue.

A major achievement, clearly evident, was the bringing together of the principal decision makers required in the event of an aquatic animal disease emergency. In some States/Territories these meetings represented the first instance in which this had occurred for the purposes of aquatic animal disease emergency contingency planning. Hence, together with the respective roles and responsibilities, important linkages were immediately put in place which later formed the basis for development of an action plan. In each State/Territory, a theoretical scenario, an aquatic animal disease emergency relevant to the particular State/Territory, was presented and worked through to its conclusion. This illustrated the resources, responsibilities and roles required for effective management of the emergency.

Four different techniques for determining the stock structure of a marine fish species were compared, using as a subject the jackass morwong. The four techniques examined were allozyme analysis, mitochondrial DNA analysis and two techniques based on measuring the composition of otoliths ('ear stones') - electron probe microanalysis and proton probe microanalysis, each of which measures the concentrations of different sets of elements. The comparison was based on all four techniques being applied to the same samples, obtained from 14 sites distributed geographically from Perth to NZ.

The principal result was that both genetic techniques distinguished between NZ and Australian samples, indicating strongly at least two genetically distinct stocks. The otolith analysis, however, suggested much greater structuring of the Australian samples, and suggests perhaps four stocks in Australian waters: off NSW and Victoria, off southern Tasmania, in the Great Australian Bight, and off Western Australia. There appears to be considerable mixing of individuals among sites, however, at least some of which appears to be the result of large scale seasonal movements of stocks. Otolith analysis could not separate the southern Tasmanian and NZ samples, which could be either because the environments in which the fish develop are similar in the two areas or because they are the same stock. Although the genetic analysis does not separate the southern Tasmanian sample (Maatsuyker) from other Australian sites, in practice sample size for genetic analysis of this site is too small for an effective comparison and, therefore, the genetic affinities of the SW Tasmanian and NZ stocks are not yet clear.