Ken O'Dowd (Flynn, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Agriculture and Northern Australia. Will the minister outline how the Morrison government's partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people on biosecurity, including through Indigenous ranger programs across northern Australia, will help achieve Closing the Gap targets?

David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Minister for Agriculture, Drought and Emergency Management) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Flynn for his question. The member for Flynn represents a rich and proud agricultural area, and he knows better than anyone the importance that biosecurity plays in protecting our agricultural landscapes but also our reputation as a clean, green producer of some of the best food and fibre in the world. It gives us a competitive advantage to send our product around the world and command a premium for it. That's why, as part of the Australian government's Ag2030 plan, one of the key pillars of that plan is around biosecurity. Between the budget in May and the budget back in October, the federal government has committed $1.2 billion worth of projects and programs to support biosecurity, to protect Australian agricultural production and to protect our environment. That's not just investing in technology; that's also about investing in boots on the ground, because the threats are evolving. We are seeing these pests and diseases sweep across the globe to South-East Asia and the front lines of those are not just in our airports and ports. They are now at the north. They are now on the ground. We are facing African swine fever in Papua New Guinea and other threats that are literally blowing in from South-East Asia. So it's important that we invest in boots on the ground, and the Indigenous ranger program has been pivotal to that. The biosecurity piece of the ranger program has been at the forefront of protecting Australia's borders.

This investment is not just about us protecting it. It's also an investment in businesses—Indigenous businesses. There are 64 Indigenous ranger biosecurity groups. These are all businesses that are paid a fee for service to the Australian government and to the Australian taxpayer. These are businesses that have been set up to employ local Indigenous people. It is important that we are also complementing this with grants to the businesses to build the capability and capacity of young Indigenous Australians. I'm proud to say that, with that, we're also creating traineeships. This month there will be five new trainees that will start as Indigenous rangers in northern Australia, from Cairns right across. We are making sure they are part of the new breed of Indigenous rangers protecting Australia.

We're also investing in their education. A Cert IV in Tropical Biosecurity will give them the tools to understand the work they're undertaking, whether that be trapping, surveillance or data collection that feeds back into the department of agriculture. We understand the threats that are there to our environment and to agricultural production systems. The important thing about this is that we are matching generations of traditional knowledge with today's science and technology to make sure our borders are as safe as they can be and that we are protecting agricultural production systems and the environment into the future.