Biosecurity: Lyn O'Connell, Department of Agriculture and Water Resources

thanks very much Daryl and um the key question you know Australia's biosecurity system are we ready for the future um and to start with answering that question clearly managing our biosecurity risks not only helps to keep out exotic pests and diseases but it also reduces the impact should they enter Australia and ensuring that Goods being imported meet Australia's very high biosecurities standard protects the productivity of our agriculture sector flow-ons to our communities protects our environment and our economy more broadly for the Australian economy good buyer security means an increased likelihood of sustained domestic production and international exports leading to competitive and profitable agricultural sector and so biosecurity is largely about managing that risk managing a risk while still continuing to engage in important trade significantly in terms of the future there's a very significant shift in global demand there's going passenger numbers growing trade volumes increasing exports from a growing number of countries seeking access to Australian markets a new air and sea craft and technology that are contributing to challenging our current state of our biosecurity system just a few bits of data in terms of the work that we do in biosecurity for example in the past Financial year nearly 18 million passengers passed through our international airports there was 1.7 million Consignments of goods that arrived by sea with uh one that with 140 000 of those being physically either inspected or treated or re-exported or or destroyed by our biosecurity people as a result of some potential biosecurity risk or concern there were 30 million non-commercial Consignments of goods that arrived by air and of those 160 000 required some form of intervention by our biosecurity staff so managing the risks imposed by this volume of movement requires a strong flexible and responsive biosecurity system and that's part of that system is definitely a shared responsibility it's not the Commonwealth alone that's involved in the biosecurity system it's shared across governments at the federal and the state levels and shared between governments and Industry and also the community more broadly so in response to these changing Trends and these increasing challenges the department is progressing four important initiatives that will ensure Australia's biosecurity system is ready for the future and able to respond to the changes these these four areas of biosecurity initiatives so firstly a rewrite of the biosecurity Act and the implementation of our new legislation and our new legislation comes into effect mid this year and I'll talk a bit more about that in a moment enhancing our biosecurity surveillance and analytics capability which was an opportunity that's come out of the agriculture white paper that the Deputy Prime Minister spoke a bit about this morning thirdly reforms to our export legislation and lastly a review of our intergovernmental agreement on biosecurity and it's basically for those who don't get involved in the government world it's the agreement between the Commonwealth and the state and territory governments that outlines who's responsible for what and who administers what roles and responsibilities and how we interact so just going through those four areas as an example of some of the important initiatives that we're undertaking in biosecurity firstly the new biosecurity act it's the biosecurity act of 2015 and it commences on the 16th of June this year so 16 June 2016 has a certain symmetry to it that's the implementation date for our new biosecurity legislation and what that legislation does is it produces a much more modern legislative framework that's flexible so that we can respond to those types of future challenges that I outlined earlier and places us in a much better position to manage our biosecurity risk environment it's an absolute complete rewrite so the old act goes and it's replaced by a brand new act that's actually all in one place until there are changes to it and it is actually a very readable piece of legislation this biosecurity act replaces the old quarantine Act of 1908 which is the one we're currently operating on and under and in 1908 things were quite a bit different for example in 1908 you know there were five thousand miles of Australian Coastline that remain Uncharted and the sort of diseases that we were concerned about with the Bubonic plague leprosy and smallpox and goods only in people only ever arrived by sea so clearly there's a lot of changes between the quarantine Act of 1908 and a current contemporary World in which we live and modernizing our legislation will equip us much better to be able to manage those sorts of risks that we now face in a more modern world there's been plenty of consultation through the development of the legislation it's been some four years during the development and its passage so there's been plenty of consultation with industry with agricultural stakeholders State and territory and governments environmental groups health professionals and trading partners and also the General Public so what does the new legislation do it certainly reduces the complexity where you actually have a readable act that you can pick up and read and it also is much easier for our stakeholders to understand what their obligations are and therefore much easier for them to comply it's a range of new powers and these Powers help us to address onshore biosecurity risks but will also provide us with some powers to manage domestic ballast Water For the First Time recognizing our seas as a significant potential biosecurity risk for us it provides for a greater range in differentiation of penalties under the legislation so that those penalties are much more proportionate to the type of compliance activity that that's required so it's a much greater range of penalties for people who don't comply and it also provides us with a new opportunity to assess someone as a fit and proper person so that we now have a test to determine what sort of people will be authorized officers who will help us undertake biosecurity management activities on behalf of the Commonwealth under this new legislation and lastly it provides a real opportunity for us to reduce the regulatory burden for compliant businesses and people and to recognize businesses that are compliant and have good biosecurity practices in place and reduce the red tape and our interaction and involvement with them and place our attention on those areas of higher or greater risk the Department's well underway in doing what needs to happen to be ready for the commencement of the new legislation on 16 June we've spoken to quite a large number of organizations and we're going to be undertaking a road show soon to all industry bodies to tell them what the changes are and how they can comply importantly we've released most of the draft regulations the regulations as the detail underneath the legislation we've released the draft regulations for comment and those regulations and the determinations that go with them are available and open for comment until the 24th of this month so just before Easter if you haven't had a look you can have a look on our website and have a look at those regulations and determinations to see how they affect you and you can express a view or an opinion about those regulations as they are in draft the next area I wanted to touch on was the agricultural competitiveness white paper and the government is part of the agriculture competitiveness white paper has committed 200 million dollars to improve biosecurity surveillance and Analytics and this investment will be used to strengthen our surveillance and to build community-based engagement to grow our scientific capability and to enhance the collection and Analysis of information so strengthening our surveillance and activities will help us identify and protect Industries and the environment and communities from high priority pests and diseases and it'll help us to try to prevent risks that might enter particularly through Northern Australia through its increased development and to try to stop the spread of of diseases and pests from seriously affecting other parts of Southern Australia it'll also help us to more comprehensively understand Preston Pest and disease prevalence and our freedom status and to more comprehensively document where we're free from what and where we have concerns in terms of our pests and disease status we'll also be under that white paper initiative money helping to promote on-farm biosecurity protocols which are fundamentally important in today's modern supply chain of preventing biosecurity pests and diseases so we go to increase our scientific capability to ensure that the department has the access to the most up-to-date information and Technology to make informed decisions and importantly things like the bill review from 2008 outlined that our biosecurity decisions should be absolutely sort of science based so ensuring that we've got the right equipment and Technology to undertake those science-based decisions will be important part of the white paperwork that will be undertaking we're also going to be developing our analytics and information technology capability so that we'll have the tools and skills to convert information into intelligence and to increase the visibility of changes to Pest and disease status for Australia and to keep in and watchful eye on global Trends with Pest and disease incursion to inform us about future biosecurity risks before they turn up on our Shores the area of export reform our Department's also undertaking and leading the reform for Australia's agricultural export legislation which again is another well it's a range of number of pieces of legislation it's not in one place and the aim is to get the export legislation in one place in the form of a readable act much like the biosecurity act and the aim is to to provide a much more modern and flexible act so that exporters can retain and secure increased overseas markets it'll make the rules for exporting simpler easier to understand and more able to be complied with and it'll also help remove I think some of those unintended barriers to to trade the proposed work of the export legislation follows a very significant review done last year in 2015 a review of all of the existing laws and there was plenty of consultation as part of that review which determined that really we could do with a much more updated piece of more modern legislation while still retaining our ability to deliver quality assurance processes for export so this export reform work will be a pretty significant exercise for our department after we've implemented the biosecurity ACT changes and it will take some years to roll out I mean the drafting of the legislation is underway now but it will take some years to roll out and there will be an enormous amount of consultation as part of that export legislation reform lastly I wanted to briefly touch on the intergovernmental agreement on biosecurity and as I mentioned that's an agreement between the Commonwealth government and all of the state governments with the exception of Tasmania who didn't sign it that identifies the roles and responsibilities so which things estate responsibilities which things are commonwealth responsibilities and areas that we ought to collaborate the agreement first came into place in 2012 and again it was one of the findings of the bill review report from 2008 that suggested we need a formalized agreement between Commonwealth and States on who was doing what in biosecurity and how we should collaborate and work together there's been a number of significant achievements under the current agreement firstly it's the first of the biosecurity agreements between Commonwealth and state but also importantly it's done a couple of important things like setting out a national response agreement for environmental pests and diseases that includes cost sharing arrangements for responses on any biosecurity incidents and it also set up a national policy approach to identifying and managing pests and diseases that were of national significance typically in the past we looked at things that were a regional and state significance but this allowed us to get agreement on what were pests and diseases of national significance and how we should deal with them so to ensure that the agreement remains effective ministers have asked that we review that agreement during this calendar year and that we report back to them at the end of 2016 with our findings in terms of what might need to change to underpin a new agreement between or a revised agreement between Commonwealth and states to operate our biosecurity system so these initiatives that I've touched on these initiatives that I've touched on are a high priority for the department and the Australian government and we look forward to continuing to engage with everybody in relevant stakeholders on their successful implementation and continued engagement we see is absolutely vital to continuing our biosecurity system just a moment's reflection on the start of this discussion and presentation which was talking about our future will certainly biosecurity being sort of free from pests and diseases and managing them is absolutely part of our future and in a world where we can't really compete as effectively as we might like perhaps on things like price and volume we can compete in our significant Market Advantage is about quality which increasingly means more than sort of freshness and taste it means being able to establish the provenance of your product and indeed all of the things that went into manufacturing or creating growing your product and in answer to the question are we ready um I think the answer is that we're better positioned as a result of those initiatives that I've been through those four initiatives but it is absolutely a moving Target we're certainly an organization in biosecurity has been the subject of many reviews which is a healthy thing in terms of making sure that you don't stand still because standing still just means you're actually going backwards so um the assessment there in terms of our future it is a changing world it's changed quite a lot we've got those four things underway to be much more contemporary in our management of biosecurity for the future to position us better but it is a moving Target and we need to stay vigilant in terms of are we ready thank you