Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Hansard source

The government is committed to a strong biosecurity and quarantine system, which helps to protect our agricultural industries, the environment and human health, and particularly to Australia’s rural and regional communities. Consistent with the recommendations of the Beale review, the government is committed to implementing a conservative risk based, science based approach to maintaining Australia’s biosecurity systems.

When we came to government we inherited a quarantine system which had been neglected and was not as efficient as it should have been. For example, the system included 75 separate information technology services which did not actually speak to each other. The equine influenza outbreak, which the National Party said could never happen in Australia, cost the horse industry up to $1 billion and the taxpayers up to $400 million. The government recognised the stress our quarantine system was under when we came to office and the Beale review, which we commissioned, recommended sweeping changes to Australia’s quarantine and biosecurity arrangements. The government agreed in principle to all 84 of the Beale recommendations. So far, we have already appointed an economist to the Eminent Scientists Group; we have appointed an interim Inspector-General of Biosecurity, Dr Kevin Dunne; we have consolidated the department’s functions into a single biosecurity services group; we have appointed Andrew Inglis to head up the government’s new Biosecurity Council; and we have committed $14.7 million in support of scoping works on new biosecurity facilities and the initial work to upgrade the separate IT systems.

The biosecurity services staff in the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry continue with that huge task that they have ahead of them and anything that distracts from that vital work will only result in further delay. For that reason, the government does not support the motion.

Question agreed to.