Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Moore for her continuing interest in biosecurity. Australia's agricultural sector—the farm gate—contributes up to $50 billion to our national economy. Australia's farmers not only provide us with primary production but they also underpin more than 300,000 jobs in rural Australia. This industry is worth protecting in a biosecurity environment. That is why the Gillard government is committed to have a strong biosecurity framework where decisions are made to protect Australia's biosecurity based on the best available science. Labor has worked since 2008 to improve an old biosecurity system that we inherited from those opposite. It was the Labor government that ordered a review of biosecurity in Australia. In December 2008, the Beale review—One Biosecurity: a working partnershipwas released. The government agreed in principle to all of those 84 recommendations. Since Beale, we have invested more than $1.6 billion to safeguard Australia's biosecurity status; protect Australian farmers and the environment; and underpin Australia's reputation as a reliable exporter of high-quality food and fibre.

The 2012-13 budget delivered well over half a billion dollars to maintain Australia's biosecurity system and improve the recommendations by Beale. The budget included almost $400 million over seven years to deliver a state-of-the-art post entry quarantine facility, reversing the short-sighted decision made by Mr Warren Truss, when he was in cabinet, to flog off Australia's five existing PEQ facilities, only to lease them back with no regard for changing land use, no maintenance plan and no plan for the future. We have already put forward $20 million over three years for biosecurity information. (Time expired)