Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Biosecurity Bill 2014 and associated legislation. The bill is supported by four other bills that are designed to help ensure the smooth transition from the Quarantine Act 1908 to the enactment of the bill. Australia's world-class biosecurity system relies on a legislative framework that was designed more than 100 years ago. It is time to update it to match the changing global environment. When the Quarantine Act 1908 was written, people and goods arrived only by sea, and biosecurity threats included diseases like the bubonic plague, leprosy, yellow fever and smallpox.

As a member for an electorate whose economic wellbeing is inextricably linked to the biosecurity of our agricultural sector, I consider this raft of legislation to be fundamental to the people in business in my electorate. Representing the leading wine-, citrus-, potato-, rock-lobster-, nut-, cattle- and sheep-producing regions in South Australia and arguably the country, I believe that strengthening the biosecurity of these sectors is an essential innovation to enhance our continued prosperity, both within my electorate and for our nation's export driven advances into new markets.

It is a nice segue, given that I am joined in the chamber by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment, who accompanied me through my electorate, so you can take his word for what my constituents do and the great products they produce—not that we consumed all of it! We had a fair go, whether wine, beer—

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