Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Australia's biosecurity is not sacrificed in favour of trade objectives; in fact it is protected by Australia's trade objectives. Australia's stated appropriate level of biosecurity protection—and I remind the Senate that this statement was made when Warren Truss was a minister—is manage risk to a 'very low level but not zero'. That is because zero risk is impossible. Zero risk would mean no wind, no ocean currents, no migratory birds, no immigration, no tourism, no mail. None. Senator Heffernan might be excited that zero risk would mean no imports, but it would also mean no exports. There would be no vessels, no aircraft arriving here to load up the $36 billion worth of agricultural products to the export markets that Australia's regional communities depend upon.

If any senator in this place has any evidence that would support tougher conditions on the import of ginger from Fiji, potatoes for processing from New Zealand or tomatoes from Timbuktu they should provide it to the scientists in the department. If the scientists ignore serious evidence that would stand up to academic scrutiny, then that is the time to bring it before parliament, not before it is ignored. If the motivation is to discredit biosecurity itself, to attack public servants, to pull a political stunt or to use our biosecurity system as a form of protection from competition, wouldn't that be ironic! The once great Liberal Party, the party of deregulation, the party of the free market, the party opposed to interventionist government, are being bullied by the agrarian socialists over there. The monkeys are in control of the circus again, trashing our international reputation, trashing the biosecurity system and trashing the environment all at once—in the same way that Mr Abbott bullied the Nationals into voting against wheat market reform yesterday, in the same way that Mr Abbott broke his clear election commitment on illegal logging and in the same way that Mr Abbott is running out of puff on carbon.

The Labor Party is the only party in this place with a clear commitment to protect Australia's biosecurity system. We are the only party with a track record of investment in the sort of biosecurity system Australia needs, and the lack of a policy from those opposite and the crossbenchers is something Australia's farmers should be concerned about.