Peter McGauran (Gippsland, National Party, Deputy Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Werriwa raises a very good point. As he well knows, an outbreak of bird flu in Australia—and, thankfully, we are to date mercifully free of the disease—would be devastating, leaving aside any suggestion of a human pandemic. Our measures have been in place for some time now. We have substantially invested extra resources at border protection and scientific skills upgrade in the 2005 budget. I stand to be corrected, I do not believe there are any new measures in this particular budget in regard to avian influenza, but we do have increased funding on biosecurity more generally. We tackle this first and foremost at the border, so I think I am safe in saying we have employed between 600 and 800 new AQIS officers at this point. I am definitely sure we have employed several hundred more over the last two to three years. We have installed obviously the X-ray machines so that almost all passengers are screened for avian influenza and, of course, passengers arriving from avian influenza affected countries, and 100 per cent postal is X-rayed and inspected if need be. At the same time we have plans with industry. We work very closely with the chief veterinary officer. We have simulated an outbreak of avian influenza in an exercise 12 months ago. We found the system works well but not perfectly and, obviously, involves all jurisdictions and a great many agencies from local government through to state and Commonwealth bodies.

At the same time we have a Northern Australia strategy, which the member for Lingiari would be familiar with, on which we are particularly vigilant. We also have programs in Indonesia, which is most likely to be the stepping-off point for any birds bringing in avian influenza. Our risk profile says that the introduction of avian influenza is most likely to come from wild birds. Here we can take some degree of comfort—not that we rely on it for a moment—from the fact that the particular species which could carry avian influenza are not known to visit Australia. Again, we are on a high state of alert at all times, we have a very high level of expenditure and the industry is on the lookout for any sign of the disease. We also work with small operations—what you could loosely term, without being disrespectful, as backyard operations—and their flying in of geese or ducks that could introduce it. So we take a multifaceted approach. We also work closely with overseas countries, agencies and the like. This is a major preoccupation for the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

See this speech in context