TRANSCRIPT:
I rise today to speak on the Biosecurity Legislation Amendment (Incident Response) Bill 2023, a bill that I am happy to support. This is a bill with widespread support across the relevant sectors, including farmers, the wider agricultural and horticultural industries, police and our government departments – all bar the Greens.
In recent years the threats of emergency animal disease, pests and weeds have received increased media interest, particularly following the presence of foot-and-mouth disease, varroa mite and Japanese encephalitis, as well as lumpy skin disease in Indonesia. Victoria’s biosecurity laws have been under review for some time now by this government, and this included seeking stakeholder feedback. This piece of legislation today acts upon this feedback and makes some changes to the existing legislative framework in order to better manage the risks associated with exotic pests and disease. This will primarily be achieved through a series of amendments to current biosecurity legislation, such as the Livestock Disease Control Act 1994, the Livestock Management Act 2010 and the Plant Biosecurity Act 2010. These changes are predominately based on increased penalties or creating new offences, information sharing, allocation of powers and issuing of notices and information electronically.
This legislation will also improve Victoria’s preparedness and response capability to biosecurity threats and provide further protection for Victoria’s agricultural and horticultural sectors. Biosecurity threats to our local farms and primary producers have seen an uptick in recent times. Benalla Abattoirs, a meat processor within my electorate, has been one of these producers who has been threatened and whose biosecurity protections have been significantly under threat recently. The Farm Transparency Project – which I am reluctant to mention – formerly known as Aussie Farms, has held multiple protests at this processor, disrupting animal arrivals by approaching delivery trucks and interfering with livestock. I visited Benalla Abattoirs with the Shadow Minister for Agriculture and was able to understand firsthand the massive operational toll these threats were having on both business staff and animal welfare.
Last year the Nationals proposed increased biosecurity protections and harsher penalties for trespassing activists, something rejected by the Labor government. Victoria’s maximum farm trespass fines are currently half the maximum in New South Wales. Increasing the maximum penalty would have sent a strong message to anyone considering trespassing on private property that we will not tolerate illegal invasions of strong local businesses. Due to weak laws we are seeing groups like the Farm Transparency Project feel comfortable enough to repeatedly disrupt businesses with criminal behaviour.
I was appalled by the Greens member’s earlier contribution where she called this a scare campaign by the Nationals. I have sat with Colin Sinclair and spoken to him repeatedly and understood firsthand the personal toll, the emotional toll on staff and the animal welfare risks, and you can kind of start to understand why 70 per cent of our ham and bacon is actually imported when it becomes impossible to operate in Victoria. Benalla Abattoirs contribute a significant amount to the local community, both economically and by putting food on the table for families across the electorate. Producers like them deserve to run their business without threats to the biosecurity of their product, as do all the consumers in our region. With this bill, through amendments to the Livestock Management Act 2010 within it, there are increased powers for strengthening enforcement and compliance by recognising police officers as inspectors able to exercise any power of inspections under the act, and further deterring non-compliance with the act by significantly increasing the penalties for offences related to prescribed biosecurity measure provisions. While this will not directly resolve the issues faced by businesses like the Benalla abattoir, it is pleasing to see a large focus on general threats to biosecurity and the ability of police to act upon them through this legislation.
Sadly, we are seeing biosecurity threats come from a variety of different angles, and addressing all of them does remain a difficult task. At areas like the Winton Wetlands and its surrounds, the overabundance of kangaroos is causing issues and concerns about the biosecurity of the area. The Winton Wetlands, located within my electorate, is an 8750-hectare site that features 32 distinct wetland zones and is home to a huge variety of native flora and fauna, including over 180 species of birds. With a growing population of kangaroos, threats to the wider wetlands ecosystem and its neighbours have increased. When found in excessively high numbers, like in the Winton Wetlands, kangaroos become pests, and farmers need to keep them off their properties. Under the government’s kangaroo harvesting program and authority to control wildlife, permits are given to property owners to manage this. Yet we are not seeing enough issued.
In questions to ministers, information about the number and rate of permits being issued under these plans has been hard to come by. What I am hearing from my community is regardless of how many permits have been issued and how many kangaroos have been harvested, they are still running rampant and destroying the local area. Like any traditional livestock industry, the kangaroo harvesting sector faces very similar risks of disease and pest incursions, many of which have the capability to impact entire livestock industries. It is imperative that this issue be managed effectively, yet this Labor government is failing to adequately support the Winton Wetlands and its surrounds to safely manage biosecurity threats. Funding for Winton Wetlands is set to expire at the end of this year, with no plans yet made to continue support in the new year. With this being such a massive environmental project, full government support is imperative.
Another concerning area of biosecurity for our state revolves around the capacities of our veterinarians and their ability to respond to outbreaks. Sadly, in my electorate and across many rural communities, the veterinary profession is not in a strong position. Rural private vets are short of staff and struggling to meet the needs of clients, and there has been progressive downsizing of the animal health division at the department of agriculture. This notion has been reinforced by recent inquiries into vet shortages in New South Wales. Having spoken to a local vet in Euroa, Dr Andrew Jacotine, he was able to provide me with some further information:
I think the breaking point probably happened last year.
The industry is now in contraction and has permanently changed to a new normal.
Last year we wanted staff – now I am not sure we do –we have changed from providing services over 168 hours of the week to now just 45 hours a week.
We don’t have the total workload as we did.
Another person in the industry I have spoken with recently has been the former member for Benalla who was a vet for 30 years in disease control at a state and national level, spending time in the UK during the FMD outbreak in 2001. Here is what Dr Bill Sykes said:
When we had the nervousness of the FMD in Indonesia, I asked questions about the Victorian department of agriculture’s resourcing and ability to respond in the first couple of weeks of an outbreak.
It was difficult to get objective answers and I was given repeated assurances that things were all under control.
He did not buy it, though, and instead suggested some questions were raised about how our state would handle a biosecurity threat. What is the level of preparedness and resourcing of the department’s animal health division when it comes to an outbreak as serious as FMD? Do they have contracts to employ vets and other skilled professionals at short notice? Do they have a list of suitable vets and other skilled professionals to contact? Within the government services, what training has been done for staff to be part of the massive team response that is required?
He also talks about biosecurity being a multitiered risk management exercise. Firstly, and this is primarily a federal concern, we must reduce it coming into our state from overseas.
A member interjected.
Annabelle CLEELAND: I am saying we do not have 5000 vets employed right now. This is achieved with high-security quarantine requirements for both passengers and goods.
The second tier is early detection and rapid response. This is where the state government must come in. This tier requires having livestock owners aware and willing to report as well as having capable staff at field-lab level. Farmers wear a high level of responsibility for maintaining biosecurity on their enterprises on a day-to-day basis, not just for concerns about exotic diseases. That is why we have whole-of-life identification of livestock, the protection of our properties and certification on animals that come onto our property, the same as with feed and contractors. You may have a high level of biosecurity if the risks or consequences are high, such as intensive poultry or pigs, where you have limited access and people going in to have contact with the animals. In essence, we must continue to find ways to help our farmers and protect the biosecurity of our state, and I am pleased this bill achieves this.
A quick shout-out to Toot Morgan and the Hill boys of Colbinabbin, who let me ride their header this week, as they go through harvest, which is a really wonderful time for our region. I am very proud of all of our agricultural producers, including my husband.