Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to the debate on the Biosecurity Bill 2014 and related bills. This bill has been a long time coming, and fixes to our biosecurity system have been a long time coming. Our biosecurity system has held up well in Australia and has, by and large, protected our agriculture and our environment. I say 'by and large' because there have been some well-known problems, and I will come to those in a minute. This system has held up as our agriculture and international trade expands, but as more people, produce and animals travel both within and into Australia, this system is well overdue for modernisation and consolidation of arrangements. The system really has grown over the last hundred years through the existing legislation—that is, it has been a hundred-year process—and a modernising of the system is well overdue.

Having said that, the Greens are concerned that the Biosecurity Bill 2014, while a significant improvement on our current system, does not sufficiently safeguard our environment, industry, agriculture and community from biosecurity risks into the future. This is where we have our eye clearly focused. This legislation is not just about today's system; it is about our agriculture and our environment into the future. We believe that it does not provide a rigorous enough framework for ensuring that scientific risk-based assessments are not undermined by other considerations such as international trade agreements.

Australian agriculture, in particular, is dependent on high quality biosecurity arrangements. After climate change, the introduction of pests and diseases is one of the biggest threats to our agriculture, and it needs to be addressed. In fact, as climate change continues to change our environment, the risk of pests and diseases spreading to Australia increases. We saw this just a couple of years ago in my home state of Western Australia, where Chinese green mussels were able to travel into WA ports as our waters warmed.

Our reputation as clean and green is a key part of our farmers' ability to get good prices in overseas markets and at home. But it does not take much to undermine this: one lapse is all it takes. I note that Panama 4 disease is back in the media and at least one farm will never grow commercial bananas again. Other growers in Far North Queensland are taking incredible measures to stop this from wiping them out too. Panama 4 completely undermined some farms, and it is only because there has been a quick response in Queensland that others may escape this same fate. We are yet to find out what caused this outbreak, but it is a timely reminder that biosecurity requires vigilance and that a quick response to a crisis is only part of the story.

There is so much we can do to keep Australia safe and to stop disease and pests from gaining a foothold in the first place. We only have to look at the Asian honey bee and the way that came in. Many of us believe we did not take a quick enough response to that, and we are still dealing with the consequences. Myrtle rust is an example of lapses in environmental biosecurity. I will come back to the issues around biosecurity, because we are deeply concerned that this legislation is not adequately addressing the issues around environmental biosecurity. Australia has a unique environment. It is essential that we make sure we have sufficient biosecurity regulations in place to protect that. It is obviously important that our agriculture be protected. We all know that there are many diseases that we do not have here in Australia, and we need to keep them out of our country—some of them would devastate our agriculture.

The 2014 bill builds on the 2012 bill of the previous government, and we welcome the improvements that come with the 2014 version. However, there are some substantial issues that still have not been addressed. Some of the key concerns identified during the 2012 inquiry process that have not been addressed in the 2014 bill include the failure of the bill to take account adequately of regional differences; the lack of legislative arrangements that ensure that the Eminent Scientists Group and other independent industry and scientific advisory channels are always included in biosecurity processes; the failure to guarantee the independence of the inspector-general from the Director of Biosecurity; and the failure to provide a right of appeal against the Director of Biosecurity's decisions.

Unfortunately the architecture of this bill falls short of the highly regarded Beale review and fails to fully capitalise on the broad support that the review generated. From the perspective of the Australian Greens, the key recommendation that has not been implemented is the creation of a separate biosecurity agency. Ms Mellor, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, told the committee:

It is government's decision to not pursue the recommendation of Beale to establish a separate biosecurity authority and commission, but to maintain the management of biosecurity under this act in the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry in concert with the Department of Health and Ageing.

That was before Ageing was split off from Health. The consequence of this decision is a significant conflict of interest, for both the Director of Biosecurity and the minister. For the minister especially, there is a significant tension in being directly responsible for both the Director of Biosecurity and the inspector-general. Our biosecurity response should be an arms-length process and not exposed to politicised decisions. I must say that we, the Greens, are not just focused on what the current government may or may not do. This act is to protect our environment and our agriculture for long into the future, so it is about any governments, be they Liberal, Labor or, one day, Green. We need that independence.

The legislation also leaves too much of the biosecurity review process at the discretion of the director and the inspector-general, and in doing so fails to bring transparency into the BIRA process or to encourage industry or community confidence. In the words of Mr Prince, the CEO of Nursery and Garden Industry Australia:

It was a key conclusion that the Beale review came up with—having someone who was independent from the influence of either the trade or the department of agriculture. This legislation is huge, when you are looking at animals, humans, plants and environments. It is a very over-encompassing piece of legislation. For it to sit, or be charged, under the department of agriculture, which is very focused on primary industry, was one of the issues that was raised in Beale. You had Biosecurity Australian and AQIS—two different bodies—almost at loggerheads with each other or having different processes. So an independent body that has feedback from those other three ministers would certainly make sense and strengthen the whole process.

The Australian Greens support recommendations 1 through 5 in the majority committee report of the inquiry into this bill, which outline ways in which transparency and rights to appeal can be integrated into the legislation. But we would much prefer to have actually established a separate biosecurity agency, with a director that is not also the head of Agriculture.

While the legislation has been revised to clarify that the Director of Biosecurity must have regard to the objectives of the act, it is impossible to understand how this will work in practice. As stated by Mr Andrew Cox, President of the Invasive Species Council:

An average person would think, 'How could they possibly not take into account the other things that are a part of their responsibilities?' It is one person making a decision, who holds multiple roles. It is a simple conflict.

One of the ways that this conflict manifests is through the impact of international trade agreements on our biosecurity arrangements. While the Australian Greens support the desire of the Department of Agriculture to maximise trade between countries, we remain concerned that this responsibility has an undue influence on the biosecurity arrangements. Dr Booth, policy officer at the Invasive Species Council, noted:

I think the industry bodies come up with many examples of where they think there has been an influence of trade on decisions. We have to—and Bill emphasised this—reduce the risk of that happening. That should be for whoever is running biosecurity. So independence does that. It takes it out of a department that has a strong trade focus, so perceived and real conflicts of interest are avoided in that sense.

Furthermore, negotiations such as those taking place around the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement have been shrouded in secrecy and do not inspire confidence.

Similarly, it is our preference that the inspector-general be a statutory position. The decision to not create a statutory inspector-general position is the most significant change between the 2012 and 2014 versions of the bill. Dropping the Inspector-General of Biosecurity Bill proposed in 2012 is very disappointing and, in our opinion, a grave mistake. The 2014 bill instead provides powers to the Minister of Agriculture to review biosecurity performance. Ms Langford, from the Department of Agriculture, explained:

The intention is to delegate those to the Inspector-General of Biosecurity to allow a review of the system to happen.

However, even if the powers are delegated, this is a backward step from the arrangements proposed in the bill of 2012. The Invasive Species Council submission outlines why it is not suitable for the minister to have this level of control over the process:

The Minister for Agriculture has a clear conflict of interest as both Minister administering biosecurity legislation and person responsible for reviewing biosecurity performance. The areas subject to review are likely to be influenced by political considerations, and matters that could embarrass the government of the day are likely to be avoided. The risk of this would be substantially reduced and the public would have greater trust in the reviews if they were initiated and conducted by an independent statutory officer.

The majority committee report calls for the findings conducted by the inspector-general, or any other person delegated this authority, to be made public. This does go some way to addressing the problem, but it does not prevent the role from being substantially reshaped in the future without parliamentary oversight. It is not good enough for a rigorous biosecurity system.

The Australian Greens recommended enshrining the independence of the inspector-general in legislation by reintroducing the Inspector-General of Biosecurity Bill 2012. I move, as a second reading amendment:

At the end of the motion, add:

but the Senate calls on the Government to enshrine the independence of the Inspector General in legislation by reintroducing the Inspector General of Biosecurity Bill 2012.

There are many other issues with this bill, which I will go through briefly now, and which we outlined in our additional comments to the majority report of the inquiry into this bill. A large area we are concerned about is environmental biosecurity. We are deeply concerned that not enough emphasis is placed on environmental biosecurity. I mentioned the issue around myrtle rust earlier, which is a classic example of what happens if we do not have adequate biosecurity measures in place to protect our environment.

One of the areas we think needs to be addressed is to establish and resource an entity that can act as a key body for environmental health, in the same manner as Plant Health Australia and Animal Health Australia, and use this body to establish partnerships between the community, governments and environmental businesses in order to deliver on high-priority policy and planning issues in environmental biosecurity. My colleague, Senator Waters, will be addressing this issue in more detail when she makes her contribution to this debate.

Another area we are also deeply concerned about is that the definition of environment in chapter 1, part 2, section 9 of the Biosecurity Bill is not adequate; there needs to be a change to the definition to address Australian biodiversity so that we are clear we are talking about the variety of life indigenous to Australia and its extant territories encompassing ecosystems, species and genetic diversity. We want it to cover ecological processes and natural and physical resources. Again, Senator Waters will go into more detail about these issues when she makes her contribution. We believe these are key amendments necessary in order to strengthen the bill.

One of the areas we consistently bring up in this place is the delegation of a lot of powers from legislation to regulations—so that this place, the Senate, is not actually discussing the nature of some of the powers that have been developed through the legislative process such as this Biosecurity Bill. With so much going into regulation it is much harder to know what, in fact, the government is proposing. For example, one of the concerns that has been raised is that we are not exactly sure how the government intends changing the import risk assessment process, because that is going to be covered by regulation. We express our very strong concern, through this debate, that we do not know the extent of some of the changes that are being made, or whether they are sufficient, because they are going to be dealt with by regulation. It is a blunt instrument in this place. Yes, those regulations will be tabled in this place and we will have the right, or the ability, to disallow them; but we have always maintained that that is a very blunt instrument because you go 'yes' or 'no'. You vote them down; you cannot amend them, whereas through legislation we can. That is an area we think needs to be further developed and we would like to see those draft regulations as soon as possible.

We are also concerned that the bill does not adequately protect or provide for consultative arrangements such as the Eminent Scientists Group, and we believe this should be established in the legislation itself and not left up to a separate process. One of the other areas we think is also important is broadening the definition of biosecurity risk in chapter 1, part 2, section 9 to include consideration of the following matter: recognising changes through time, to require that risks are assessed over an ecologically-relevant time frame and take account of climate change. This is absolutely essential. I gave an example earlier in my contribution that outlined the risk to our biosecurity of climate change and the impact of the spread of pests in our marine environment. There are equally as many examples in our terrestrial environment, where climate change will enhance the risk of pests and diseases. We should be including the likelihood of new genotypes of disease or pest combining with others to exacerbate the potential for the disease or pest to cause harm, or to do greater harm than existing genotypes; and we should recognise regional differences and different levels of biodiversity, ranging from the ecosystem to the genetic level. The other issue we believe needs to be contained in the legislation is commitment to the precautionary principle. That is very, very important when we are talking about biosecurity and strengthening our system.

Another area we also think needs to be addressed is: we have the capacity to put in place biosecurity zones. We believe there needs to be the capacity, and a category, for a biosecurity zone for high-value conservation areas with high biosecurity risks, to be known as conservation biosecurity zones, as the basis for implementing biosecurity measures, plans and monitoring. I can give you a classic example of this, and that is the Fitzgerald River National Park in my home state of Western Australia. It is a bookmark reserve. It is one of the most significant, biologically-diverse places not only in Australia, but on the planet. It is at risk from pests and diseases and particularly from what we commonly call dieback. We already have elements of dieback in the park; there have been massive efforts to reduce that. They think it has already taken out 1,000 plant species in Western Australia, so you can see the risk it poses. Something like a high biosecurity zone and the ability to put that in place would help protect that park. That is an example of why we think that is important.

There should be a requirement to table a biosecurity outlook report every two years. Another area that has come up repeatedly when we have been dealing with biosecurity in this place over the years is regional difference. We know that is so important. I will speak again of my home state of Western Australia: we know we do not have many of the diseases that are already in the eastern states, and we want to keep it that way, thank you very much. You can keep your diseases and pests to yourself in the east! We need to be able to build that into our processes—into our biosecurity import risk analysis. It is absolutely essential that we be able to address regional differences. We know the WTO raises that issue. If it is in the legislation, it enables us to deal with it and sends a clear message to other countries that we are protecting our regional differences. It is very important, we believe, that that be included in the legislation. As always, there needs to be sufficient funding allocated by the government to ensure that the arrangements that are proposed under the bill can be properly implemented.

These amendments, we believe, would enhance the 2014 bill. The 2014 bill is an improvement on the 2012 bill—other than taking out the independence of the Inspector-General of Biosecurity. That is a very significant mistake. It should be fixed. These other amendments would guarantee that we have a world-class biosecurity system that protects our agriculture, the industries that are based on it, and our environment and unique biodiversity. We will be moving a series of amendments to try and address these flaws in the bill. As I said, I have already moved my second reading amendment to address the need for an independent inspector-general of biosecurity so that that position is independent of any government, no matter what persuasion it is.