Australia's NLIS Record
by Rob Johnson

Despite the careful language of a news item in the Weekly Times of 27 September called “NLIS Manager Resigns,” the message is clear—they were lying to us. The paper said the manager of Australia's National Livestock Identification System (NLIS) resigned after an investigation into tampering of a poll assessing the success of NLIS. Two computer programmers had created a script that lodged a series of votes of excellent and good in the poll.

According to ABC Australia: A Rural Press poll asked readers to rate the performance of the NLIS system to trace animals from birth to death. Early poll results showed more than 60% of voters described NLIS as poor or terrible, but a day later, after tampering by Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) staff, the poll showed 70% believed the system was good or excellent.

MLA's managing director David Palmer says, “We will take all steps and measures to set us down a track to try to win back that integrity and win back that credibility that we just so desperately need from industry.”

A long-time critic of NLIS, the Australian Beef Association, says the incident does nothing to boost the credibility of electronic identification.

It says the incident backs its claims the system can be easily corrupted.

Rob Johnson lives in Victoria, Australia. His letter appeared in the Holiday 2006 issue of Rural Heritage.