Food smugglers sent packing in bid to keep swine fever at bay

Australia’s new defence against African swine fever has led to six international passengers having their visas cancelled.

Australia’s new defence against devastating African swine fever has led to six international passengers having their visas cancelled after they failed to declare food products in their luggage.

The offences occurred in the month following tighter restrictions that permit Customs officers to refer passengers posing a bio­security risk to Border Force for visa cancellation under the ­Migration Act.

African swine fever, not present in Australia, has devastated pig industries in several countries, including China where it is estimated half of its pig population is infected.

The disease kills almost all ­infected animals. There is no vaccine or cure. It is not harmful to humans but would have a substantial impact on Australia’s $5.2bn pork industry.

The latest visa cancellation was of a Polish national who failed to declare nearly 3.4kg of pork products when he arrived at Brisbane airport in mid-November.

Poland has had a series of African swine fever outbreaks, most recently on a farm with 8000 pigs.

The first case in which a visa was cancelled was on October 12 at Sydney airport, when a Vietnamese woman was discovered carrying 4.5kg of raw pork in her luggage, as well as other meats and fresh squid totalling 10kg.

Two people had their visitor visas cancelled on arrival in Perth, one in Melbourne and a second in Sydney.

As well as being forced to return home without entering Australia, they cannot apply for another visa for three years.

Robyn Martin, who heads the biosecurity animal group at the Department of Agriculture, said the visa cancellations were a serious deterrent.

Tour operators and airlines have been provided with information about the dangers of African swine fever, and signs have been put up at Australia’s international airports. “Any way we can get the messages out to travellers about not bringing food into Australia is very helpful for us,” Ms Martin said.

Items posted from high-risk countries are being scanned at Melbourne airport’s mail gateway facility in a trial of 3D X-ray technology that will better detect suspect items. “It’s looking very promising. We’re looking to develop an algorithm so that it can pick up meat products easily, ” Ms Martin said.

She added that East Timor, which declared an outbreak in September, was the closest source of African swine fever to Australia. East Timor’s swine herd is estimated at 400,000, with reports of 100 individual outbreaks that have killed 405 pigs at farms near Dili.