Perin Davey (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Gas is not, but it has half the emissions. Nuclear has zero. Hydro has zero. Let's talk about what we could do practically to reduce emissions while keeping industry in this nation and while ensuring that we have reliable and affordable baseload power.

But back to the bill at hand, the Agriculture Legislation Amendment (Streamlining Administration) Bill 2019: this bill will strengthen the ability of the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of our biosecurity system. It will allow the use of current technologies that will ensure that biosecurity controls are enforced efficiently for vast cargo volumes. Biosecurity is so important for Australians. It is so important for our $62 billion agricultural industry, our food safety and our way of life in this country. Our work to protect biosecurity often flies under the radar, and I would like to commend all the dedicated Australians who work in this field, on our borders, to make sure that our biosecurity measures are robust.

Yes, we have the occasional high-profile biosecurity issues, like the discovery of illegally imported dogs Pistol and Boo. Then there are the headline issues, like the equine influenza outbreak and, more recently, putting up defences to ensure that we don't have African swine fever cross our borders. In fact, the African swine fever issue is still alive. Just last December our government announced funding of $67 million to address the threat of African swine fever, a disease for which there is no known vaccine and which kills about 80 per cent of the pigs it infects. We responded to and continue to respond to the severity of this threat, with more biosecurity officers, more detector dogs and new 3D X-ray machines installed in mail centres—taking no chances.

We've got a new squad of post-border biosecurity officers to help identify and target incorrectly declared products that have been brought into Australia for sale. We are putting significant resources towards keeping swine fever out, and so we should because if our efforts fail our $2.8 billion pork industry and the 20,000 individuals that work for that industry would be devastated. But the biosecurity reality is that much of the risk to our agricultural industries is far less obvious and far more insidious. It is bugs, mites and disease that can be hidden in a container of cargo. It can be a piece of fruit, a lost termite in a wooden article or even a stray leaf. The Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment process, on average, 45,000 commercial cargo referrals a month. These cargos carry different goods from different regions. Thus, from cargo to cargo there exists a great variation in threat to Australian biosecurity. It is vital that our process to adapt to this reality ensures we can put the resources necessary when the threat is high.

For example, we are currently in the peak season for the brown marmorated stink bug. This tiny little pest ravaged the United states destroying tens of millions of apple crops. Imagine that replicated here. We have 500 commercial apple and pear growers in this country producing a crop worth over half a billion dollars. Managing this little stink bug in the US has proved difficult. The population continues to grow in the absence of effective pesticides. We can't allow that bug to come here. Some of our apple orchards so dramatically devastated by the bushfires, particularly around the Batlow area, need to rebuild. They don't need to be worrying about pests like this stink bug.

Another example closer to home has been the incursion of the zebra chip disease in New Zealand in 2008. This little pest, carried by the tomato potato psyllid, cost the New Zealand potato industry $45 million. So when the carrier of zebra chip disease, the tomato potato psyllid, was discovered in Australia back in 2017—and we heard from the Plant Biosecurity Cooperative Research Centre that up to 50 per cent of our production was at risk—we made sure we put in the right early interventions. We've ensured that the zebra chip disease has not yet infiltrated our country.

But let me make it clear, biosecurity is also not limited to agriculture. It has implications for your family pets, for your domestic gardens and even for your recreation. I pity anyone who's tried to picnic in a park that has a fire ant incursion. The red imported fire ant is native to South America and, unfortunately, has been found in Australia, thought to have arrived in a shipping container back in 2001. It is now prolific around the south-east corner of Queensland. Had we at the time had access to the technology available today, technology that this bill enables us to utilise, maybe those pesky ants would never have seen the light of day on our shores.

Biosecurity is important not only to our industries and to our lifestyles but also to our international reputation. We know that once you have an incursion, even if you are able to eradicate the problem, you have to then deal with the international reputation for the countries we export to. It's not just lost production and the costs involved in attempting to eradicate the problem, but the lingering cost of lost confidence in our biosecurity, in our clean production systems, that remain.

The Nationals, in government, are absolutely committed to protecting Australia's important and unique agricultural and food industries, our pets and our plants, and our lifestyle in the same manner as we are committed to a strong economy. For us to maintain such protection is key and we continue to look at ways in which ongoing changes in technology can assist in ensuring that our process for identifying and managing risk remains positive, responsive and flexible.

The new technology that this bill proposes is computerised decision-making, as was reported by the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport. Their report said:

Computerised decision-making, as proposed by this bill, presents a number of benefits to stakeholders who engage with the importation of a large volume of various products. For example, it will allow more efficient clearance processes, and reduce the administrative burden on both importers and biosecurity officers.

It achieves this since, as the report goes on to say:

… the automation of decision-making for a limited number of administrative actions may provide biosecurity and other authorised officers with more time and resources to spend on the ground, focusing on those areas where there are existing threats and emerging risks to Australia's biosecurity.

This bill will allow us to keep pace with the changing biosecurity environment. The safeguards present in this bill will ensure that there is no weakness in the enforcement of the Biosecurity Act and the Imported Food Control Act. As I said earlier, we have a vast number of dedicated officials working to protect our borders from biosecurity threats, and they need to be supported by robust legislation that allows them to make best use of the technologies that are available. The many incidents of biosecurity concern demonstrate how important it is for us to ensure these officers are given the flexibility necessary to focus resources on these severe threats. That is what this bill achieves, and that is why I support this bill.