Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was making the point that the so-called expert advisory committee which advised the minister did not in fact have a single member competent in infectious diseases, quarantine, biosecurity, veterinary medicine or environmental or wildlife issues associated with disease emergence. It is little surprise, then, that that committee firstly advised the minister that AQIS had nothing to do with this biosecurity CRC when it is simply a service of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Secondly, it advised the minister that Customs was not associated with the bid when Customs is not involved at all in research into infectious diseases. The committee completely failed to comprehend the concept of one health approach to infectious diseases, recognising the interspecies relationship between wildlife—animals and birds—and humans.

This is a critically important question. We have deaths of humans and animals. We have the circumstance in Australia, as do our neighbours to the north, in Malaysia and now in Bangladesh, of deaths as a result of bat-borne diseases—through other animal species to humans—and, we believe, possibly directly from bats to humans in Bangladesh. I cannot emphasise sufficiently the importance of this. I am surprised that it is not being taken with the seriousness it should. Only last week we had the death of the second of my veterinary colleagues from the hendra virus in the last 13 months.

The minister was quite right when he drew attention to the CSIRO Australian Animal Health Laboratory in Geelong. It is world’s best practice. It is the envy of the rest of the world. It is an institution that is approached by countries asking if they can be involved in antiterrorism biosecurity research. What is interesting is that half of the hendra virus and Nipah virus work at the Animal Health Laboratory in Victoria and the work being done in the field—I repeat: in the field—by the Queensland DPI is at least 50 per cent funded by the Australian Biosecurity CRC for Emerging Infectious Disease. Given the fact the minister is continually only talking about the relationship with CSIRO and the AAHL, I ask him: will he guarantee continued funding for work into these viruses when the CRC ceases to be funded?

The Australian Biosecurity CRC for Emerging Infectious Disease brings together a host of Australian, international, Bangladeshi, American, British, state, CSIRO, government agricultural and other research organisations. You just do not dismantle the sort of network that has been developed since the early part of this decade without impacts on the excellence of the outcome. I certainly will be interested to learn whether or not the minister thinks that CSIRO will be expanded sufficiently to pick up the very, very necessary work that is undertaken.

In defence of the committee and its advice to the minister, I will make the observation that this advice came down and the decision was taken to discontinue this CRC before the swine flu pandemic hit Australia in the middle of this year. It also, therefore, of course, occurred before there was a transfer of that particular flu virus from humans to swine in New South Wales. Thirdly, it occurred before the recent hendra outbreak. I concede that the advisory committee was not aware of those circumstances, but surely those three are an example that the minister should take the responsibility that is allowed him under the CRC guidelines. He is responsible for this particular activity and should see the committee as advisory only and have its recommendation assessed independently.