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

On behalf of the federal coalition, I would state that we will be supporting the passage of the Biosecurity Amendment (Advanced Compliance Measures) Bill 2023 because the coalition recognises that having a strong and robust biosecurity system is crucial for protecting Australia against the threat of pests and disease. Biosecurity is a critical pillar of our national defence. Having an efficient system in place allows our nation to prepare for, mitigate against and respond to the serious risks to our environment, economy and way of life. Incredibly, Australia's environmental assets are estimated to be worth $5.7 trillion, our agricultural production has reached $90 billion and employs hundreds of thousands of people and tourism, before COVID, contributed $50 billion to our nation's GDP. The health, sustainability and resilience of all these sectors rely on a biosecurity system that is advanced and effective.

However, many of the things we take for granted as a constant of Australian life are at greater risk than ever before. It is a confronting reality that exotic pests and diseases are spreading around the world and putting serious pressure on our borders, especially with constant threats like foot-and-mouth disease and lumpy skin disease. The emergency response in Australia continues to eradicate varroa mite. Responding to this rapidly changing biosecurity environment requires the government to have the controls, partnerships, tools, processes and networks in place to manage these risks, which brings me to the bill before the Senate today. The Biosecurity Amendment (Advanced Compliance Measures) Bill will amend the Biosecurity Act 2015 by streamlining administrative processes and increasing some penalties to ensure there is compliance with our strict biosecurity laws. This follows a track record of similar changes that have been made to the act in previous years. Since it commenced in 2015, the Biosecurity Act has been amended several times, mainly in relation to increases in civil penalties for breaches.

This bill consists of four schedules to the Biosecurity Act which apply to both human and non-human biosecurity risks. Schedule 1 relates to assessing biosecurity risks for persons on an incoming aircraft or vessel. The amendments will allow classes of people to be directed to provide relevant information, instead of the current methods, which is on an individual basis. The Director of Biosecurity may also require any person to produce passports or official government travel documents so as to assess the level of biosecurity risk and for future profiling of future risk assessments. These documents can be scanned and retained for as long as is necessary to meet the purpose of this provision. It's important to note that there is a penalty for not adhering to this provision and that, currently, under the Biosecurity Act 2015, passports can be requested to be provided. This amendment will formalise this request and include the purposes for providing these documents—for determining the level of biosecurity risk associated with the person and any goods that the person has with them for future profiling or future risk assessment—and allow for these documents to be scanned and retained.

Schedule 2 amends the processes of providing notifications to holders of an approved arrangement, so as to streamline the processes of suspending, changing or revoking these arrangements. The aim of these changes is to cut red tape for biosecurity officers by making this process simpler and avoiding the need to provide multiple notifications. It also introduces a new procedural fairness requirement relating to a notice of proposed variation and an alternative sanction of a reprimand.

Schedule 3 increases a range of civil penalties for breaches of biosecurity law to prevent listed human diseases, manage deceased individuals and human remains and meet the requirements that apply to human health response zones. Ultimately, we need to have civil penalties that serve as a proportionate deterrent against noncompliance in response to growing human biosecurity threats. Additionally, there are increased penalties for providing false and misleading information.

Schedule 4 allows strict liability provisions and infringement notices to apply to a number of penalties where there is no way to deal with low-level noncompliance other than by prosecution or civil litigation. This will ensure that noncompliance can be addressed swiftly and effectively.

The federal coalition notes that this bill has undergone extensive consideration, having been referred to the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee on 22 June. This committee has now published its report and has recommended that the bill be supported through the parliament. We also recognise that, through this committee process, the bill has received the support of industry and major agricultural stakeholders, including the National Farmers Federation, GrainGrowers, Australian Dairy Farmers, Australian Pork Ltd and NSW Farmers.

Ultimately, it comes down to this. We must ensure that people who seek to enter Australia and bring goods into this country—those who actually present the biosecurity risk at our borders—are complying with their obligations and responsibilities to keep our nation safe from pests and diseases. So, while the coalition are supporting the passage of this bill, we are concerned with Labor's approach to other elements of biosecurity policy. In the second reading speech on this bill, the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government spoke about the government's sustainable funding model. We know that it is absolutely vital that Australia has a biosecurity system that is adequately and appropriately funded. That's why, in government, the federal coalition always funded a sustainable funding model for biosecurity. However, taxing farmers was never considered part of that funding mix.

The coalition's approach to a sustainable funding model was targeted at the risk creators at the borders—the importers. We believe an importer container levy is the responsible and fair way forward. In government we were making progress on this model, but it has not been implemented by Labor. Instead of an import container levy, the Albanese Labor government has decided that, from July next year, Australian farmers will be slugged with a new $153 million tax, which amounts to a bill equivalent of 10 per cent of their existing industry-led agricultural levies. Why would any Australian government tax its own farmers to pay for the biosecurity risks of their international competitors? We're one of the great agricultural trading nations on earth, but instead of facilitating that and doing what it can to put downward pressure on our competitors, the government is actually facilitating our competitors against our national interest. It doesn't make sense, it's profoundly unfair and it's the wrong approach to ensuring that our biosecurity system is properly funded in the future. Under a federal coalition government the Australian people can be assured that, in contrast to Labor, our hardworking farmers will never be punished for the biosecurity risk that their international competitors seek to bring in.

As I mentioned in my opening remarks, the federal coalition supports the bill before the Senate but calls on the Labor Party, who seek at every turn to make regional Australia and our agricultural industries pay the price so that they can sate their city-centric voting public. The regions don't vote for the Labor Party, and you can tell that by the way it is seeking to fund the biosecurity system, by taxing Australian farmers against their competitors.

We will support the bill because we need to have a biosecurity system that is strong, robust and fit for purpose, a system that has in place penalties which reflect the severity of any breaches and non-compliance by individuals who would willingly place at risk our unique environment, our economy and, indeed, our society. That is how serious it is. People might hear the word 'biosecurity' and go, 'La, la, la; that doesn't affect me or impact me.' If you love our natural environment and our flora and fauna, if you work in our tourism industry, if you rely or live in rural and regional Australia and you love our green produce that we produce and purchase in capital cities, then you need to understand that all that is completely underpinned by a strong biosecurity system. So of course we support it. It has always been a priority for us because we, unlike the Labor Party, fully appreciate and understand the role that Australian farmers and our $90 billion agriculture industry provide for this country.

We achieved a lot in government. Our government made more than $1 billion available for biosecurity and export programs in 2022. That was a funding increase of 69 per cent compared with 2014. In last year's budget we committed to strengthening our northern Australian biosecurity front line against animal diseases. We've got sentinel herds and Indigenous rangers all throughout northern Australia. The greatest risk is posed from those countries to our north where there have been outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease and lumpy skin disease. State and territory governments were to be given support to undertake surveillance and control activities, and funding to improve livestock traceability was announced. In government we increased fines and penalties for people breaking biosecurity laws. I recall doing exactly that when I was agriculture minister: throwing the book at people who chose to flout our tough biosecurity regime—who thought it was okay to bring home goods, particularly meat goods, from overseas in the interests of family, when actually that posed an incredible biosecurity risk to our country. We also partnered with New Zealand to develop world-leading biosecurity risk detection technology, such as 3D X-rays. Ultimately, our measures in office ensured that Australia remained a world leader in biosecurity, with strong controls in place offshore, at the border and within Australia.

We will be supporting this bill because we believe that the measures outlined in this legislation are sensible and reasonable, and we commend it to the Senate, but we again implore the Labor Party to find ways to fund their biosecurity policy other than by taxing Australian farmers.