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

Thank you, Madam President. The Liberals and Nationals announced programs, but didn't even fund them, even on issues important to their own constituencies, like biosecurity. And when you don't make long-term biosecurity investments, you leave Australia's farmers and our agriculture industry at risk.

Now, I was very concerned when I read an article this week, or in the last few days, by ABC reporter Kath Sullivan. It reported that Australia's sniffer dogs haven't been sniffing for queen bees and were not on the beat when the deadly varroa mite arrived last year. Why would that be? If you go on reading the article, it says for several years the then government had stopped training sniffer dogs to detect queen bees that might carry the varroa mite. That is the legacy of the coalition government. That is the risk they were prepared to take with biosecurity, and we have to fix this up because of these terminating measures. (Time expired)