Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Chair, for your protection. For those senators who can't recall that classic interview of the minister—I think it was on Sky, but I'll search my records—I will send it to Senator McCarthy, Senator Ciccone any other government senator who doesn't believe that the agriculture minister was more concerned about Australian travellers coming back from Bali wearing thongs and what these chemicals may do to their precious feet than he was about protecting Australia's livestock industry from foot-and-mouth disease. But I'll leave that for another day. I will return to the bill before us.

It's good that they're now in place. But this government flip-flopped about whether to install the mats in the first place, and by the time they did it was way too late. In the weeks that it took for the government to make up their minds and take action, over 79,000 international travellers arrived in Australia from Indonesia, 93.4 per cent of those from Bali, without having to disinfect their shoes, without having to go through a raft of measures to provide security to Australian producers and indeed the future prosperity of this trade. One of our great gold stars internationally is that we are foot-and-mouth disease free, which means that our primary produce can require a higher price in international markets. That's a good thing, but that works only as long as we keep foot-and-mouth disease out. Sorry if I'm not going to share the great offence of the Labor Party that people's precious little feet are being impacted by measures that will actually protect this great industry and our future trade prospects.

In a positive move, this bill will strengthen preapproval reporting by ensuring that prearrival reporting requirements of the Biosecurity Act will be expanded to ensure that accurate and up-to-date information is available to assess biosecurity risk, including the human health risk of arriving vessels and aircraft. Penalties for operators and people in charge of aircraft and vessels who do not comply with these requirements will be expanded and strengthened. The importance of having a strong biosecurity system should never be underestimated. In 2020 the value of Australia's biosecurity system was estimated to be $314 billion over the next five decades, so it's absolutely essential that compliance with our national biosecurity laws and frameworks is always maintained and that we never become complacent about this.

It's not sexy. You won't be finding Victorians in marginal seats this weekend casting their votes for or against Premier Daniel Andrews' re-election—I hope not, Senator Ciccone, and that Victorians will cast their vote for a positive future in my home state of Victoria. But this won't be one of the topics that they think about, because it is out of sight, out of mind. But it is critical for our future economic prosperity that we as legislators keep our minds and eyes focused on keeping this framework as strong and robust as possible.

It's absolutely essential that compliance with our national biosecurity laws and framework is always maintained and that the penalties in place reflect the seriousness of the risk. If they're going to destroy people's lives and livelihoods and future prosperity, we need to throw the book at these people and not just the individual travellers who are breaching the framework but the operators that are responsible for ensuring that travellers are fully informed of the risk and are fully informed of their responsibility on their return or on their entry to our country. Importantly, this bill will increase the penalties for those who do the wrong thing. People who put at risk our biosecurity system by failing to comply with these requirements will face civil penalties of up to 120 penalty units or $26,640. That's a few trips to Bali, if you get it wrong.