Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Road Safety) Share this | Hansard source

Labor will be supporting the Agriculture Legislation Amendment (Streamlining Administration) Bill 2019. The bill seeks to amend laws relating to biosecurity and imported food to provide for streamlined administration through automated, computerised decision-making. The explanatory memorandum states the bill will: allow risk identification and management across a large number of goods and conveyances; reduce the burden on importers by enabling fast, accurate clearance; and provide flexibility in responding to existing and emerging risks.

It is important that the Senate understand that automated, computerised decision-making systems are not new. In 2004 the Administrative Review Council considered the administrative law implications of computerised decision-making. Back then the council concluded that expert systems could assist in administrative decision-making. The explanatory memorandum states that it is intended the principles set out by the Administrative Review Council be taken into account during the implementation of the automated decision-making scheme 'to the extent consistent with maintaining biosecurity and food health and safety standards'. The bill provides discretion for authorised officers to override an electronic decision where satisfied the electronic decision is inconsistent with the objects of the relevant act or another decision is more appropriate in the circumstances.

Decisions made by a computer program will be subject to merit and judicial review in the same way as a decision made by an officer under the relevant provision. In the case of the Biosecurity Act, the decision will be taken to have been made by the Director of Biosecurity but not in a personal capacity and as such the matter will be subject to a judicial review in the first instance. The bill provides the Director of Biosecurity with broad powers to arrange for the use of computer programs for any purposes for which a biosecurity officer is required to make a decision under a relevant provision, exercise power related to making a decision or do anything related to exercising a decision-making obligation.

Ensuring Australia maintains its world-class biosecurity status is critically important. This bill will assist decision-makers to make timely decisions on biosecurity matters which are simple, frequent, repeatable decisions that have a low biosecurity risk. However, the Morrison government cannot use this bill as an excuse to not properly fund Australia's biosecurity system. The government has failed to even introduce its own biosecurity levy which it announced in the 2018 budget. The budget measure was to raise $325 million over three years, beginning from 1 July 2019. Yet here we are in February 2020, and not one cent has been raised from the levy. This is because the Morrison government has failed to implement the levy.

The agriculture minister's own department told us how the levy would be spent. But, remember, not one cent has been raised so far. Therefore, either the programs listed below are not being funded or the Morrison government is cutting costs elsewhere in the agriculture department. This is what the Morrison government said it would fund. I'll name the program first and then the amount: assurance verification and enforcement, $34 million—this is over five years; border clearance, including traveller, mail, sea and air cargo pathways, $7½ million; priority pest and disease planning and response, $65.6 million; Indigenous biosecurity rangers program, $33.5 million; biosecurity predictive analytics and intelligence, $36.5 million; emergency response funding, $35 million; Biosecurity Innovation Program, $25.2 million; environmental biosecurity protection, $7.6 million; international sea and airport supplementary funding, especially passengers, $18.1 million; and, for our Tasmanians, the Tasmanian fruit fly, $20 million. Not one cent has been raised!

This third-term government has failed to take our biosecurity systems seriously. Automating a few decisions will not be enough to ensure our biosecurity is the best it can be. The funding of our biosecurity system was a key element of the 2017 independent review into the capacity of Australia's national biosecurity system. The report made 42 recommendations to strengthen our national biosecurity system, but the Morrison government has failed to implement all 42 recommendations. Ensuring that our biosecurity system is properly funded must be a priority for this third-term government. The department of agriculture has seen four different ministers and is up to its third different departmental secretary. This disruption has impacted on the department being able to deliver effective policies to ensure our biosecurity system remains strong.

There are many biosecurity risks that threaten Australia's world-class biosecurity status. All senators will remember the impact of white spot on the Queensland prawn farmers, and African swine flu remains a real threat to our world-class pork industry—and, Senator Colbeck, you and I vividly remember citrus canker. Maintaining Australia's clean, green and safe competitive advantage is critical to our farmers, fishers and foresters. Sadly, the Morrison government continues to fail to develop and implement the biosecurity levy, with another working group being established to co-design and figure out how the levy will work. I'm not making this up. According to the department's website, the new industry working group will determine how the newly-named 'onshore biosecurity levy' will be applied, the appropriate charging points, the scope and the implementation timing.

However, once again, the government seems to not have learnt its lessons from the past: there is no mineral based product representation on the new committee. It appears that the government will just seek to announce the new levy in the May budget. It is difficult to see how this third-term coalition government will get the levy right this time around, when it couldn't get it right after two years of trying. There are no terms of reference for the new committee, and stakeholders will be concerned as to who will be the target of this new levy. It seems the government just doesn't get that poor consultation will always lead to poor policy design.

The other aspect of this bill is that it will amend the Imported Food Control Act, and I'll talk about that. The Secretary of the Department of Agriculture may arrange for the use of computer programs for any purposes related to issuing of food control certificates; issuing of written advice following an inspection and analysis of food; and decisions regarding the treatment of failing food. The EM states that it is intended that computer programs will be used to issue automated food control certificates for all foods not required to be inspected, with foods requiring inspection continuing to receive a food control certificate from an authorised officer. The secretary must take reasonable steps to ensure consistency of decisions made by computer programs and may delegate the power to arrange for computer programs to make decisions to a senior executive service, or an SES. I reiterate that Labor supports this bill; however, this third-term Liberal-National government will need to do more than just minor amendments.