Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

On Wednesday 27 July in question time I asked a simple, standard, straightforward question of the new Minister for Agriculture, Senator Murray Watt. It was: can the minister confirm how many passengers have passed through Australian international airports from Indonesia since the foot-and-mouth outbreak in Bali was reported on 5 July 2022, and how many of those have been treated with disinfectant foot mats? The minister's reply was: '100 per cent of passengers have been walking through sanitised foot mats.' The minister's answer was wrong. We know it was wrong because the foot mats had only been installed in the major airports in the previous two days. They were nowhere to be seen on 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 July in our international airports, as thousands of returning passengers from Bali were making their way onshore. The minister knew that and was deliberately avoidant, whether he meant to mislead the Senate or whether it was because he was too cocky by half. 'The mats are here. Calm down, hysterical regional Australia. Calm down, hysterical farmers who are incredibly concerned.' And we are reflecting their concern in this place. We are actually reflecting their concern. I am happy for the contributions on this matter in this place and elsewhere from Senator McDonald, who is herself of a beef-producing family, to be on the record, along with those of Perin Davey, Matt Canavan, Jacinta Price, David Littleproud and the National Party more broadly on this substantive issue. We are reflecting the concerns of our constituencies and the industries that underpin our local communities. It's why they sent us here.

We wish you all success, Minister, in stopping foot-and-mouth and lumpy skin disease from arriving here, but you cannot come into this place and deliberately mislead the Senate. That is why Australians were shocked as Channel Nine, I think, was on the ground in international airports on a weekend a couple of weeks ago, interviewing returning passengers and saying 'What biosecurity measures did you actually have when you landed?' The response was: 'Nothing. I told them I'd been on a farm. I got waved through.' 'Foot mat?' 'No, the foot mats aren't here.' That was despite the minister claiming that he had it all under control. Then he walked into the Senate and told us that he had it all under control.

I wrote to the minister to tell him that I thought he had misled the Senate, and I implored him to do the right thing by this chamber, as a senator of integrity who claims to be concerned about accountability and transparency, and to come and explain himself. I asked him, if it was an accident—it was his first question time, and I understand people can get excited and say the wrong thing at the wrong time—to come in and explain, please, because you cannot stand up in this place and mislead the Senate and, therefore, the broader Australian public on an issue of such concern. The convention in this place is that, if you as a minister feel you may have misled the Senate or said the wrong number in question time, you avail yourself of the earliest opportunity to come into the chamber and correct the record. We often see ministers stand up after question time and put the right percentage on the record or ask to correct the record now that they've been alerted to the fact that they may have given an incorrect response. This minister, in his arrogance and his contempt for this chamber, chose not to do that, not just for Senator Roberts and his question but for me, telling Australians that 100 per cent of passengers had been walking through sanitised foot mats since 5 July.