Anthony Albanese and Murray Watt visit Ryan Olive at Raglan Station to talk biosecurity

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was in Central Queensland on Friday and biosecurity challenges for the beef industry was high on the agenda. Here’s what he said.

The Federal Government has said there are good times ahead for Australia’s agriculture industry with trajectories forecasting record export numbers.

But those good times won’t come without the challenges of biosecurity threats in neighbouring countries.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Federal Agriculture Minister Murray Watt were in Central Queensland on Friday where they met and spoke with local grazier Ryan Olive at Raglan Station and AgForce Cattle president Will Wilson about biosecurity.

Raglan Station is known in Central Queensland for its cattle exports, which is a key component in Australia’s agriculture sector.

Mr Albanese said the Federal Government had responded to outbreaks in neighbouring countries, such as Indonesia, with “the most comprehensive plans” ever taken place in Australia.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Agriculture Minister Murray Watt were in Central Queensland to talk biosecurity and opportunities in the local ag sector with Ryan Olive at Raglan Station and AgForce Cattle president Will Wilson.

“This is an industry that produces billions of dollars in benefit for Australia and if FMD was to gain hold in Australia it would, potentially, provide up to $80 billion of damage,” he said.

“This is an issue where the government has been determined to work with industry, to work with individual farmers, and also peak industry organisations.

“This is about jobs, about our exports, it’s about our economy and the ag sector produces a great level of value.

“Here in Australia we have enormous opportunities - we have this vast, beautiful, island continent of ours with clean products we’re about to produce the best in the world.

“What we need to do is make sure we protect it, cherish it and grow it into the future.”

Agriculture Minister Murray Watt said Australia “literally” had the strongest biosecurity response to the threats of foot and mouth disease the country had ever seen.

Raglan Station is known in Central Queensland for its contributions to live export, which is a key part of Australia’s cattle industry.

“Our government is doing things no government has ever done in Australia before,” he said.

“We’ve got sanitation mats in every international airport that receives flights from Indonesia, we have biosecurity zones which give our biosecurity officers more powers to direct passengers to do things, more officers and vaccines into Indonesia.

“That shows we’re taking this seriously and it shows we’re working hand-in-hand with industry as we tackle this threat, we’re going to do everything we possibly can in partnership with industry to keep FMD and LSD out of the country.”

Just last week Mr Watt announced Australia would send more FMD vaccines to Indonesia to help manage the outbreak of FMD.

Mr Watt said biosecurity measures in place at airports were being reviewed regularly to see if they needed to be increased.

“The approach we’re taking is three pronged, so support to Indonesia and other neighbouring countries to help them manage their outbreaks, secondly continuing to strengthen responses on our borders, at our airports and mail centres and thirdly establishing that preparedness taskforce to make sure we are full prepared as a country if the worst were to happen,” he said.

“I wouldn’t have thought the measures at the airports would be scaled back anytime soon, realistically with the best will in the world, Indonesia is going to have this outbreak for some time to come and we’ve been very clear that we stand ready to assist them in any way we can.

“I’m in constant contact with industry and the department and biosecurity experts about what other measures can be taken, one of the really pleasing things that’s happened in the last week is we’ve arranged for a group of industry leaders, from the livestock industry, to go an see for themselves what’s happening at airports and they were extremely complimentary about the measures we have in place.

Agriculture Minister Murray Watt said Australia had implemented a biosecurity response to the threat of FMD that had never been seen in the country before.

“There’s more than 20 touch points in a travel pattern where someone has some kind of contact about the risk of foot and mouth disease and what they can do, it’s starting when they book their tickets, and they’re getting social media and other things to alert them of the risk.

“We’ve now got, like when Telstra send you a message to let you know your plan in a different area, it’s called geofencing that can pick up when people are in a particular area and give them the information they need.

“We’re doing all sorts of things that are very innovative and we’ll keep doing more.”

AgForce Cattle president Will Wilson said while every step taken to prevent incursions of FMD or LSD were good steps, it would never be the last.

“We need to continue to evolve,” he said.

“Us as producers now, we’re at the cutting edge of what we can do to protect ourselves, and we appreciate what the community and people travelling are doing that are now aware of what the biosecurity threat is.

“It’s a very valuable industry and hopefully we can protect ourselves and the Australian public.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and AgForce Cattle president Will Wilson.

Mr Wilson said continuing to help Indonesia, where there were current outbreaks, would be important going forward.

“There will be more that we will need to do in the future and part of it is to improve our biosecurity with what’re doing on our properties, as well as into the market into the country - so looking after the Indonesians, they’re a very important customer of ours and a very important trading partner of us as a country,” he said.

“I think it’s important we recognise that in these conversations because they’re the ones that have the threat at the moment and we need to really care for them.

“From us as producers in Australia to them as producers in Indonesia, we need to show we’re reaching out and caring for them as much as possible because we’re scared of it, but they’ve got it so we need to show care for them and help them get out of the problem, because their learnings are going are going to help us be more prepared.”