Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the senator for the clarification. I really do appreciate that. These people are struggling and any contribution we might make ought to be to help them rather than to hinder them. I accept your explanation and I really appreciate you having done that.

This legislation proposes to change or replace the existing legislation, which has served our nation now for over 100 years. As is well known, we are very well regarded at an international level for the production of quality agricultural product. At the heart of that is the ability for us in this clean, green quality arrangement to be able to keep pests and disease out of our agricultural industries. It should not be ignored that the act does reflect upon issues to do with the spread of disease with humans; it is not just about the agriculture alone. But the focus obviously when one talks about biosecurity is in regard to our agricultural industries.

Previous speakers have made the point—and I think it is a very important point—about the increases in passengers and trade volumes coming into our nation, which have increased exponentially over the 100 years but indeed more recently over the last two decades. Now the world is a much more mobile place. People find the ease and cost of travel are within reach and are now coming from all points of the globe. The traditional stream of visitors to Australia from traditional destinations is now much more diverse and this increases the risk involved with the transportation of diseases that can so easily impact upon our agricultural industries.

Panama Tropical 4 is a pathogen. As was raised by Senator Siewert in her contribution, it is a contemporary biosecurity example because we are currently dealing with an outbreak of it in the banana industry in North Queensland. That industry has a value of about $660 million and employs thousands of people directly—it is very hard to gauge—and probably over 100,000 people indirectly when you look at the importance of that industry to many of the small regional communities in North Queensland. The largest part of the banana industry is now located in that part of my state. The threat is real. It has virtually wiped out the commercial banana industry in your home territory, Madam Acting Deputy President Peris. It is proof that if we do not have sound biosecurity measures in place, entire industries can be completely devastated.

Additionally in this case—and this is true I suspect of many of these diseases—this pathogen can remain undetected and dormant in the soil—it is a soil pathogen—for up to 30 years, so we could have time bombs not just with Panama Race 4 but with other pathogen based diseases right across our nation. It is significantly important that we have the best most intensive biosecurity measures, particularly when it comes to agriculture.

It is right, as mentioned by one of the previous speakers, to refer to the free trade agreements, and also that Australia must put its interests first in issues to do with biosecurity, before we are to relent on any trade conditions that might affect those. Now, I would put to the Senate that there is no evidence—no evidence whatsoever—that there has been any part of the agreements made, particularly with our most recent free trade agreements, that would give rise to that argument. I believe that our trade minister, our agriculture minister and, indeed, everyone in this place and anyone in those industries, knows that the absolute Holy Grail of our ability to be competitive and to provide goods and services in agriculture and in the export industry is the quality of security arrangements that are in this country. They are the cornerstone of our reputation.

We live in a modern world. The passenger movements that I referred to are a significant focus of these future arrangements. We now have millions of people visiting our shores. I used Panama Race 4 as only one example of the many that could apply to quite literally thousands of contingent circumstances. That pathogen is a microbe. It can come in on a speck of dust on a pair of shoes belonging to someone who visited an infected area either in recent times, or—and I am no scientist, but I am happy to make this extrapolation for the sake of the argument—in the preceding 30 years. Our response to biosecurity is complex and I think that the government's decision to revisit this area and to develop this legislation is very appropriate and timely. I am very much looking forward to this place being on a unity ticket to allow this legislation to come into play so that we can further enhance these arrangements.

I am instructed that there was a very exhaustive consultation process in the development of this legislation. Indeed, there were certainly discussions with the relevant authorities and stakeholders in our state and territory governments. There has been a lot of consultation right across the nation with health professionals and the Australian community. Opportunities were provided for their input. Importantly, we have spoken with our trading partners because, as Senator Siewert rightly pointed out, it is very important that everybody involved—particularly those involved in the area of trade, which is where the cross-border potential for risk exists—is involved in these arrangements. So all stakeholders were consulted and, of course, the bill has had a rigorous examination by the appropriate parliamentary committee. Obviously, those recommendations have been published and taken into account for the most part, as I understand it.

Our agriculture, fishery and forestry industries have a value of some $51 billion in this country, and 77 per cent of those goods produced—those soft commodities—are exported. When one thinks about biosecurity, one thinks about protecting our borders from the importation of pests—and I used one for the purposes of this discussion. But earlier I alluded to something of significant importance: that we do not get a reputation for exporting pests. Whilst it is a matter for the importing country to deal with the arrangements that concern them in protecting their own agricultural industries, it is very important that we become even more prominent on the world stage with the export of clean, green quality products from this country.

Currently, trade arrangements are under constant review at the international level, and Australia continues to punch way above its weight in terms of its contribution to trade. We have see this most recently over the last 24-odd months where, for example, there has been a dramatic increase in our live exports. I know that not all colleagues in this place—certainly, on our side we are as one—are up for the live trade in animals. But it has become a significantly important—a very important—part of our trading arrangements in agriculture. Indeed, those who are students of such things would have noted that it has in part brought upward pressure on demand and volume within the domestic market. This means that for the first time in some 25 years many of our broadacre beef producers are enjoying returns domestically that they could only have hoped for and dreamed of even 12 to 14 months ago.

So the live export industry is a significantly important part of beef and live animal production in this country. We need to ensure that biosecurity arrangements are in place that will not ever bring threat to that industry. For example, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences estimated that if we had a relatively small foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in only one state, the impact on the economy of this country would be about $5.6 billion. And, of course, that does not include the impact it would have on families and small family corporations, who largely make up the production of beef cattle in this country. It would be absolutely devastating; it would devastate entire communities.

In the northern part of my home state of Queensland, if you were to take out agricultural industries—particularly bananas, sugar and beef production—then we would just close the shop; you could fence it off at the Tropic of Capricorn and the only reason you would go north is if you wanted to enjoy the wilderness or go for some other tourist impact.

Alarmingly, ABARES indicated that, if the outbreak were on a national level, a multistate outbreak, it would affect the economy by $50 billion. That would be a fifty-thousand-million-dollar impact on our economy for an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. Those who followed the mad cow disease outbreak—and I might say I do a particularly good interpretation of a mad cow; I will not burden the Senate with it today, but I am happy to do it offline for anybody—would know that it absolutely devastated the agricultural industry of beef production in the UK. I personally had cause to be in the United Kingdom on a number of occasions during that time and I remember being in a restaurant or some venue having a meal and the British staff would spend a lot of time making sure you understood that the beef in any part of their menu was not British beef but that it had come from Australia or New Zealand.

So I think it is a unity ticket. If we have any sort of biological outbreak of any scale in very broad, widespread industries like the beef sector, it will not just devastate our economy and our terms of trade; it will devastate individual people. We have watched them get a caning over the last 10 years or so in some industries, and many of them—those who survived—are still recovering from the suspension of the live cattle trade.

I want to come back to putting a human face on this legislation. I can talk all day; I can quote statistics until I run out of them; I can talk about the merits of the bill. But, as is my intention in this place, I like to try and reduce the impact of legislation on people's lives. My interest is of course in agriculture. I sit here with the National Party very proudly and, whilst I am a senator for the entire state of Queensland, my interests are in rural and regional Queensland in particular and in enterprises that are involved in primary production, including horticulture and farming and of course beef and animal production.

So I can share with you recent events like this issue up in Tully with the Panama 4. I have met with dozens and dozens of families during my visit there. I attended a number of public meetings that were well attended—in fact, one on the tablelands at Mareeba I suspect was attended by just about every stakeholder in the banana industry and most particularly those who grow bananas—and I can say that some of the conversations are gut-wrenching. These are people who have invested millions and millions of dollars in family enterprises. Some of them are generational farmers. One farmer there was a fourth generation farmer and one of the pioneers of the banana industry in North Queensland. The angst that they are feeling at the moment with the outbreak of this terrible disease is very difficult to measure. These are farmers who are not necessarily wealthy people. At the moment they are investing—in some cases on the smaller farms—tens of thousands of dollars to put in measures to mitigate or to minimise the potential impact of this disease on their farm.

But let me close by saying this: in their conversations with me—knowing that I was a federal member of parliament—there was a sense of hopelessness about what they could do to protect their enterprise, their investment, and their own farm economy and their local economy. There was a sense of hopelessness about what happens beyond their farm gate. And they look to government. They look to the federal government in this case to respond and to put in place measures that will prevent these diseases coming into our nation and spreading on their farms.

I think this is a good bill. I think it is a well-considered bill. It is a very timely bill, having regard to the fact that we have not had an overhaul for a period of time. I strongly commend the bill in its form to my colleagues in the Senate.