Drop the opposition-style rhetoric on foot-and-mouth disease

Like the Covid-19 pandemic it is better to overreact initially than underreact because the spread and devastation of foot-and-mouth is immediate and catastrophic, writes Dennis Shanahan. Picture: Getty Images

When it comes to foot-and-mouth disease, Anthony Albanese only has two jobs – quarantine and vaccinations.

Quarantine measures to prevent the disease with the potential to stop dead – literally – Australia’s livestock industry and exports to the tune of $80 billion over 10 years and make a reality of the $150 leg lamb to go with the $10 head of lettuce.

Failure on FMD is too devastating to contemplate, especially after three-years of the global Covid pandemic.

There should be help for vaccinations for the vast 65 million livestock in Indonesia where there is a fatal shortage, and vaccination stores for Australia’s herd should the virus breach quarantine for the first time in 150 years. It should also be noted that once Australia vaccinates its own herd large markets for our meat – Japan and South Korea – will close.

Like the Covid-19 pandemic it is better to overreact initially than underreact because the spread and devastation of FMD is immediate and catastrophic.

On Monday morning, 10 days after returning from Indonesia, Agriculture Minister Murray Watt declared that “increased compliance” would be coming into effect “as airports that receive direct flights from Indonesia will begin to roll out sanitisation foot mats this week”.

In a statement Watt said: “Darwin, Adelaide, Perth, Sydney and Melbourne Airports have all taken delivery of the foot mats with some having started testing them prior to use, with other airports expected to follow in the coming days.”

“In coming days” – that will be two weeks since he returned from Jakarta.

On July 15 at Sydney Airport on his return from Indonesia and going through what he described as a “mock trial” of security measures where he was treated a high-risk passenger, Watt said: “I’ve just returned from Indonesia on a direct flight from Jakarta to Sydney, and I’ve personally just been through the biosecurity process that is in place now at Sydney International Airport as well as a number of other international airports that take flights inbound from Indonesia.”

Agriculture Minister Murray Watt. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Sarah Marshall

Watt has argued there is no need to close the borders yet, that meat products sent through the mail are a bigger threat, that biosecurity measures – giving border officials greater power of direction – are the strongest in Australian history and that the opposition’s naysaying was not matched by border closures for FMD from other countries.

But Watt, a highly effective critic of Coalition ministers when in opposition, needs to care less about the politics and more about delivery and implementation of the quarantine measures with continuing reports that sanitation mats are still not in place.

Watt said on Monday that the rate of seizure of high-risk goods, undeclared items and contaminated clothing were way “drastically down” on the previous week because of the biosecurity measures and border demands.

But he formally conceded the sanitation mats, a more convenient form of the old foot bath, were all still not in place and were still being tested at airports with direct flights from Bali.

Former Morrison government minister and Coalition immigration shadow, Michaelia Cash, supported claims from tourists that people were entering Australia from Bali without testing or checking.

On July 17, two days after Watt’s mock trial of sanitation procedures in Sydney, Cash entered Perth Airport, direct from Bali after a week’s holiday, “with no checks whatsoever” on a busy and popular flight from Indonesia.

Watt needs to forget the politics of distraction and seeking to attack the opposition’s record and ensure that he actually does what the new Prime Minister has declared is the priority for his government and that is to deliver what it promises.

There are legitimate arguments to be had about closing the border with Indonesia but there is no argument that the first job of the Albanese government on the potential catastrophe of foot-and-mouth disease entering Australia is using quarantine to prevent it happening.

Some political embarrassment for over-reaction now will be a small political price to pay defending the Australian economy and Watt needs to forget his opposition-style rhetoric and take the risk and do the job of government.