Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, it might come as no surprise to you that, as someone who represents one of our premium livestock-producing regions, I've been very vocal about the need for those opposite to do more to mitigate the risk of foot-and-mouth disease entering Australia. The livestock producers in my electorate are on tenterhooks and, quite frankly, rightly so. The Labor government's slow reaction to the threat that remains on our doorstep will be to the detriment of our economy, an $80 billion a year loss. Every single Australian will pay, whether it's at the checkout or with their jobs.

I've heard reports that travellers arriving in Australia from Indonesia are not being screened. Even if they have declared themselves to have been on an Indonesian farm, they're just being waved through. The announcements being made on flights aren't good enough. People aren't paying attention. The news of a passenger today attempting to bring a Macca's breakfast meal into the country from Bali should be proof enough that people aren't paying attention.

Additional sniffer dogs are welcome, but they actually can't identify FMD. We're not screening 100 per cent of the passengers. We're still not screening all luggage. We still haven't banned the import of meat products. Footbaths are by no means a silver bullet, but they're a fairly simple measure, and that took the government four weeks to implement. There were literally thousands of Australians, and others visiting Australia, who entered our country and were simply waved through without putting their feet on those mats.

Under a coalition government, we wouldn't have wasted any time in committing to screen all passengers arriving from Indonesia and banning passengers from bringing food into the country—after all, we've got enough. We would have introduced foot mats four weeks ago, and we would have offered the use of 3D X-ray technology to screen passenger luggage on departure in Indonesia.

While the minister sat back, literally tens of thousands of travellers walked through our airports, straight into our country, unchecked. And if you wonder why my producers are on tenterhooks, quite frankly it's because it only takes one established case. And not only do we need more resources at our borders; we need to do more on the ground in Indonesia. The vaccination effort in Indonesia has been hampered by a lack of supply of vaccines and, indeed, people to administer the vaccines. Australia should be doing more to help the Indonesian vaccine efforts.

Labor's FMD failures risk costing the Australian economy $80 billion a year. The livelihood of our livestock producers, transport industries, meatworkers—all of that—is at risk, as is the cost to Australian food producers. For those opposite, let me just bring you into the world of an FMD outbreak. If there is a single confirmed case in this country all livestock for a period of 72 hours will not be able to be moved anywhere. As bad as that sounds, that is nowhere near as bad as it gets.

The member for O'Connor posed a question at a recent briefing, and I'm grateful the minister arranged that briefing. Let's assume, as the member for O'Connor did, the best-case scenario of a small, contained outbreak somewhere in Australia, where the outbreak hasn't entered our feral herds—that could be feral pigs, feral deer et cetera. How long would you anticipate we would lose our export accreditation for? A couple of weeks?

Opposition members: No.

A couple of months?

Opposition members: No.

Several years was the answer. And that is an absolute best-case answer. For producers in my electorate who have geared their farms towards livestock production, who, quite frankly, because of the topography or native vegetation legislation, can't grow or produce anything else, there is literally just over a one-in-10 chance that they'll lose their livelihoods forever. This is like getting a dice and rolling it for a one-in-10 chance. And if that one-in-10 chance comes up—and those opposite are tilting those dice against Australian producers—that's the end of their production systems. It's a risk too great to take and we shouldn't have a minister sleepwalking us into that catastrophe.

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