Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate for granting me the great honour of receiving the first question on behalf of the incoming Albanese government. And I thank him for asking this question, because it is a very serious issue.

As I have repeatedly stated, both publicly in the media and in the briefing that I just provided to all MPs, including opposition MPs, about this very serious threat, this is something that the Albanese government is taking seriously. It's worth noting that this outbreak reached Indonesia prior to the election, when the former government was in government, and we, of course, have now become responsible for supporting our friends in Indonesia to manage their outbreak, especially since that outbreak reached Bali.

Senator Birmingham has referred to announcements that I made on behalf of the government as to assistance that we are providing our friends in Indonesia. That assistance includes one million vaccines for foot-and-mouth disease along with a range of technical assistance, such as assistance in rolling out the vaccines, in improving laboratory testing capacity and a range of other measures that the Indonesian government has advised us would be of assistance to them.

We, as I have previously made public, expect the vaccines to be delivered to Indonesia in August. They have been ordered. We expect them to arrive in August, as previously announced. The offer has, as I say, been made to provide technical assistance. I'm aware that one of our biosecurity experts has already been liaising with Indonesian authorities and that assistance will continue to be rolled out in partnership with the Indonesian government.