Hendra virus concerns

I am very concerned about the ‘untruths’ emanating from our Biosecurity Queensland vets and other health bureaucrats. They are presumably made to reassure us.
1. They say there is no danger to horses and people in equestrian events. That is not proven, and they are increasing risk to lives by saying it.
2. They say it’s okay so long as horses aren’t drinking from troughs under flowering trees when they don’t know if this is the reason or the only reason for the outbreak in horses.
3. They say that Hendra virus has always been around in flying foxes and it doesn’t affect them. Are they so sure of that? Do they really know what the animals die of?
I ask: “How do they know these things?” Why can’t they say “We don’t know yet”? Please let us have a bit of honesty from these people. Let them come clean and admit publicly that they don’t know why there is such a widespread outbreak, but that it is probably due to macrobat population pressure.
The farm I was raised on in North Queensland had about 25 horses from the late 1800s to the mid-1950s with the two main troughs under mango trees frequented by flying foxes. I do not recall hearing of, in my years there, or seeing any horse exhibiting symptoms of, or dying of anything like Hendra. Certainly I am reasonably certain no-one in those days died of it. What has changed? (By the same token, my Grannie and my parents warned me never to handle the flying foxes alive or dead, so there was knowledge that the animals carried diseases, which were potentially deadly.)
Bob Johnson, Stanthorpe