Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Payments) Share this | Hansard source

Labor supports the Biosecurity Amendment (Ballast Water and Other Measures) Bill 2017 to ensure that Australia is fully legislatively compliant with the ballast water convention when it comes into force internationally on 8 September 2017. Each year, around 200 million tonnes of ships' ballast water is discharged in Australian ports from 13,000 ship visits from some 600 overseas ports. Australia is particularly vulnerable to biosecurity incursions, as many cargo ships arrive here without cargo, meaning that they require large quantities of ballast water to stabilise the vessel. Labor understands the importance of our biosecurity systems and that a strong biosecurity regime will contribute to our economy. Australia's reputation as a clean, green and safe producer of food is due to our strong biosecurity systems.

In 2008, Labor commissioned an independent review of Australia's quarantine and biosecurity arrangements. One biosecurity: a working partnership, the report of what was also known as the Beale review, found that Australia's biosecurity system operated well but could be improved. The Beale review proposed significant reforms to strengthen the system by revising legislation; targeting resources to the areas of greatest return from a risk management perspective; sharing responsibility between government, businesses and the community; and improving transparency, timeliness and operations across the continuum. It also recommended that the Commonwealth should extend its legislative reach to cover the field with respect to international and domestic ballast water regulation. In 2012, Labor introduced a new biosecurity bill to replace the century-old Quarantine Act to ensure that Australia was able to deal with new biosecurity threats. It included legislative changes with respect to the management of international and domestic ballast water. Sadly, the bill lapsed at the dissolution of the 43rd Parliament.

When the current government re-introduced the Biosecurity Bill in the 44th Parliament, it excluded the requirement to ensure that Australia was fully legislatively compliant with the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships' Ballast Water and Sediments, or the ballast water convention. The government's reasoning was that, until the ballast water convention comes into force on 8 September 2017, a more flexible transitional scheme should be in place to allow vessels to meet the requirements of the proposed biosecurity legislation through ballast water exchange without making it mandatory for all vessels to have a ballast water treatment system. This gave businesses the flexibility to choose their most cost-effective option to meet the requirements.

However, the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources stated in his speech on this bill that, in addition to the risks posed by recent outbreaks of zika virus, there is also the potential that 'invasive and harmful aquatic organisms, such as white spot in prawns, can be transported in ballast water'. On the basis of the agriculture minister's reasoning, the current government's decision that it was better to give businesses more flexibility to choose their own most cost-effective option in meeting requirements of the ballast water convention may have caused the prawn industry irreparable damage. The Department of Agriculture is investigating the current outbreak of white spot disease in prawns that has destroyed the prawn industry in the Logan River area, and the Senate inquiry will further investigate the biosecurity failings.

The government has also come to the opposition with some eleventh-hour amendments to the bill. The minister's office has provided clarification regarding this amendment, and Labor accepts that it is a small drafting error that removes any doubt about the intent of a provision that exempts Australian and foreign vessels from committing an offence of discharge of ballast water in Australian waters if certain conditions are fulfilled, mainly that the discharge is part of an acceptable ballast water exchange and there is an approved discharge to the ballast water reception facility.

Schedule 2 of the bill relates to additional vector management powers that are needed under the Biosecurity Act to ensure Australia is not left vulnerable to significant human health risks. The need for these powers is demonstrated by raising global detections of mosquito-borne zika virus. The bill seeks to reduce the likelihood of incursions of vectors that could pose a human health concern and provides powers to manage potential incursions when they are detected. The Department of Health has worked with state and territory counterparts and communicable disease experts to ensure the amendments address contemporary public health concerns posed by exotic mosquitoes. These amendments will be supported by nationally consistent arrangements to support collaboration across different levels of government.

When ballast water is taken up, as I have mentioned, the marine organisms can be picked up with it and then released when the ballast is discharged, and, because of this, ballast water is recognised as a major source of the spread of marine pests around the world, including pests such as bacteria, small invertebrates, eggs, cysts and larvae of various species. It has been estimated that 10,000 different species are moved around the world in ballast water tanks each day. Introduced marine pests can cause serious environmental and economic damage—for example, an invasion in Australia of the Northern Pacific seastar was introduced to my home state of Tasmania through ballast water from Japan in the 1980s and to Victoria through ballast water in the 1990s. It has reduced shellfish production in Tasmania and has damaged marine ecosystems in both locations.

I want to take a few moments of the Senate's time to read an article from Dr Louise Goggin. Dr Goggin began her career as a marine biologist, and I quote from an article that she has written about the seastar:

From my window in Hobart, I look out over the Derwent River. It's a fantastic view across the slate-grey sea. But below the tranquil surface of the Derwent, there is a battle raging between the locals and some aggressive new arrivals - northern Pacific seastars. The first of these seastars probably arrived as stowaways on ships from Japan about 20 years ago. They thrived in the cool Tasmanian waters and bred so furiously that there are now almost 30 million of them in the estuary.

The seastars could not have made the trip unaided because currents do not carry them this way. They were brought here in ships. The young seastars, swimming near the surface, were probably sucked up with tonnes of water, used as ballast to stabilise empty vessels. A single vessel can take 70,000 tonnes of ballast water - enough to fill 32 Olympic swimming pools and carry millions of young seastars.

The seastars would not have been alone - each day, around 3000 marine organisms are transported around the globe in the ballast water of ocean-going vessels. These invaders, along with the ballast water, are dumped at their destination to make way for precious cargo. In 1993, 121 million tonnes of ballast water were dumped into Australian ports - equal to one quarter the volume of water in Sydney Harbour. That's a lot of stowaways. Many of them will not survive the voyage, but those that do can settle in their new homes and, if conditions are right (as they were for the northern Pacific seastars), form plagues.

The northern Pacific seastars flourished because they left behind their natural predators, parasites and competitors. And they aren't fussy eaters.

The Labor Party will be supporting this bill that we have before us today, and we do so to ensure that Australia is fully compliant with the ballast water convention, which, as I have said, comes into force on 8 September this year. We also do so because the Labor Party supports strengthening ballast water management. The definition of ballast water management is that it provides that ballast water management has the same meaning as it does in the ballast water convention, which currently provides:

… mechanical, physical, chemical, and biological processes, either singularly or in combination, to remove, render harmless, or avoid the uptake or discharge of Harmful Aquatic Organisms and Pathogens within Ballast Water and Sediments.

As I have said, each year around 200 million tonnes of ballast water is discharged into Australian ports by over 13,000 ship visits from over 600 overseas ports. Australia is particularly vulnerable to biosecurity incursions, and I have outlined some of those. The story about the sea star and what has happened in Tasmania is of particular concern, and also, of course, there is what happened in Victoria.

Labor support this bill because we understand the importance of our biosecurity system and that strong biosecurity will contribute to our economy. Australia's reputation as a clean, green and safe producer of food is because of our strong biosecurity systems. However, we always have to be vigilant, and Labor will always support legislation that provides for a strong biosecurity system. I mentioned the Beale report, which was commissioned by a former Labor government. The Beale report recommended that the Commonwealth should extend its legislative reach to cover the field with respect to international and domestic ballast water regulation. We are very pleased to be able to support this bill. We ask that the Senate consider the bill and support it, as the Labor Party is doing here today.