Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Australia's biosecurity system plays a critical role in protecting our environment, world-class agricultural and animal production sectors, economy, and way of life.

It safeguards Australia's favourable pest and disease status, underpins domestic productivity, and provides access to international markets.

That system, however, is now operating in a vastly more complex and challenging risk environment.

Rising volumes of travellers and goods, changing disease profiles, climate impacts and increasing time pressures at the border require a biosecurity framework that is adaptive, intelligence led, and operationally efficient now more than ever before.

We regularly see how real these risks are.

In 2025 alone, biosecurity officers inspected more than 280,000 commercial air and sea consignments and intercepted over 359,000 incoming travellers. More recently, in just the month of March this year, over 3,000 mail items and over 33,300 travellers were intercepted with biosecurity risk material.

These efforts prevented tens of thousands of harmful pests and diseases from entering Australia.

The Albanese Labor government acknowledge this more complex and challenging environment means we must invest to ensure our nation's biosecurity effort is fit for purpose.

That's why since coming to office we have delivered over $2 billion in additional resourcing to strengthen Australia's biosecurity system.

We also understand that a strong biosecurity system relies on robust laws that enable efficient operations and informed regulatory decision-making.

Today's border environment requires streamlined, better informed decisions at the point of entry, while maintaining Australia's high biosecurity standards.

This bill responds directly to those needs by focusing on two specific deliverables.

Firstly, it provides the first step to modernising the way travellers provide information through new methods, including the digital Australia travel declaration. By allowing information to be provided earlier and more accurately, it supports faster and stronger biosecurity decision-making.

The Australia travel declaration pilot has already shown real benefits, including smoother passenger flows, reduced congestion and faster processing at the border without compromising our biosecurity standards. Biosecurity officers are able to access information provided by incoming travellers more easily, which allows them to focus their efforts on higher risk travellers and goods.

Secondly, the bill improves transparency and fairness for biosecurity industry participants by introducing a clear notice-of-intention process for decisions relating to approved arrangements. This gives applicants the opportunity to respond before decisions are made, supporting a more consistent and transparent regulatory system.

Together, these amendments strengthen operational effectiveness at the border, improve regulatory decision-making and support better engagement with industry, while maintaining Australia's uncompromising biosecurity standards.

The bill also makes a minor and technical amendment to the Biosecurity Act, to remove the use of a defined term. This removes ambiguity and assists in ensuring provisions of the Biosecurity Act are clear.

Australia's biosecurity system is rightly regarded as strong and effective, but good performance in the past does not justify complacency in the future.

Maintaining the trust of our farmers and international trading partners requires continuous improvement and innovation as risks, technologies and the operating environment evolve. Our biosecurity legislative framework must remain contemporary, adaptive, and proportionate.

This bill facilitates this by delivering a more responsive biosecurity framework that meets this expectation. It enables the long-overdue transition from paper based information gathering to modern digital options such as the Australia travel declaration. It improves procedural fairness for approved arrangements with greater clarity around regulatory decisions.

Australia's biosecurity system is central to our ability to compete on a global stage. Forging stronger links between innovation, operational delivery and legislative clarity is essential to ensuring we remain resilient, adaptive, responsive, and trusted as a trading nation.

This bill reflects a practical and forward-looking approach to strengthening Australia's biosecurity system for the future. It supports innovation and ensures our biosecurity laws continue to make a meaningful difference for Australia now and into the future.

Debate adjourned.

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