Press conference in Cairns, QLD

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
PRESS CONFERENCE
CAIRNS
FRIDAY, 21 JULY 2023 

SUBJECTS: Torres Strait trip; fisheries; biosecurity; cheaper medicines

MURRAY WATT: Well, thanks very much for coming along this morning, and I know it is Cairns Show Day so particularly thank you for coming out on a public holiday. I’m here with Queensland Minister Mark Furner at the end of what’s been a very successful two-day visit to the Torres Strait to investigate some of the issues that are being dealt with in the Torres Strait around fisheries and biosecurity.

Obviously, the Torres Strait is a very important fishery for commercial fishers, rec fishers and importantly, for traditional owners of the Torres Strait for whom seafood is a very staple part of their diet. So, it was very useful for us to be briefed and have a meeting with the Fisheries Management Authority, to understand better some of the issues that the fishery is dealing with so we can make better decisions as ministers going forward.

But the other key issue that we were dealing with in the Torres Strait, is biosecurity. Now, I think everyone in Northern Australia by now recognises that Northern Australia is a potential gateway for some diseases for plants and animals that we simply do not want in this country. Last year, we obviously had a big scare to our livestock industry around foot and mouth disease, and that issue hasn’t gone away and in addition, there’s things like lumpy skin disease, which affects the cattle industry, and a whole range of different plant-based diseases as well that we need to be taking firm action on. And the government is working together with local communities to make sure that we keep those pests and diseases out, because the damage they will wreak to our agricultural sector and our environment is not even possible to calculate, it is so huge. So, it was very good to see some of the work that has been done, including by some of our Indigenous rangers, our Indigenous biosecurity staff in the Torres Strait, to keep us safe from those diseases.

And in addition, today I’m very pleased to announce the next round of funding in our Northern Australia Biosecurity Strategy. Today I’m announcing $2.8 million in federal funding for the NAPCaRN network, which is the Northern Australia Plant Capacity and Response Network. What that really is about is putting more frontline biosecurity officers on the frontline to try to combat some plant-based diseases, which again would be a big threat to our banana industry, our citrus industry and a range of other horticultural industries here in Australia.
Now, that funding will go towards supporting an existing network between the federal, Queensland and Northern Territory and Western Australian Governments. It will be coordinated out of the Northern Territory, but it will be supporting biosecurity preparedness and response work in North Queensland, in the Northern Territory and northern Western Australia as well. So as a Federal Government, we’re determined to do everything we possibly can to keep Northern Australia and the rest of the country safe from these diseases, and to close the door on some of those diseases to make sure they don’t get into our north and don’t get into the rest of our country.

The last thing I’ll say before I hand over to Mark is that it’s terrific to see Leanne and Lido. Lido is one of our great detector dogs who was actually brought into the Cairns Airport last year in response to the foot and mouth disease outbreak. I thank Leanne for the tremendous work that she does with Lido to again, keep us safe. And airports also are a big gateway for diseases and that’s why we need people like Leanne and dogs like Lido out there. Our government went to the election committing to funding 20 new detector dogs and handlers. We’re in the process of rolling them out around the country at the moment. But it’s great to see that we’ve already got one here in Cairns and an even better handler as well. So thanks, and we’ll be able to talk about that a bit further if you’d like.

So, I’ll hand over to Mark.

MARK FURNER: Thanks Murray, and it’s great to be here in Far North Queensland with Murray Watt, my federal counterpart for agriculture, biosecurity, fisheries and forestry as well. So, we complement each other in terms of announcements like this today.

But NAPCaRN, it will complement many of the outcomes that the Palaszczuk Government is making in terms of biosecurity right throughout Queensland. We’ve committed to close on $45 million over the next five years in combating plant and pest diseases as well as emergency animal diseases for that five-year period, and thereafter, more than $5 million year after year in respect to combatting biosecurity. It also adds to the additional 15 biosecurity officers we’ve put in place in terms of Queensland.

And it really brings it home when you’re up in the Torres Straits, like Murray and I were over the last couple of days, when you see how close you are to Papua New Guinea where, you know, African swine fever is in those regions up there. So, it is so important that the Commonwealth works with the state government, and that’s what we’re doing right through the sector.

Just yesterday at Horn Island, we saw a new radar screening in terms of combatting any sort of disease, whether it be through fruit or plant, that might be coming through the mainland. So, it’s a huge commitment the Commonwealth Government has made in terms of combating pests and diseases and emergency animal diseases coming in from the north into the mainland, through those measures that we’ve demonstrated and seen over the last couple of days.

So, well done, Murray, and I welcome you. We much appreciate your assistance and a clear demonstration of a collaboration of commonwealth and state working together to combat biosecurity risk.

JOURNALIST: Can you just expand on how the funding program will work?

MURRAY WATT: Yep. So this new NAPCaRN network, as Mark says, complements state funding and complements a range of federal initiatives underway to protect Northern Australia from these diseases. Basically, this funding will now go to employ a number of new frontline staff who can be out in the field making detections of things that don’t look quite right, reporting them in, responding to them if there is an outbreak and of course, also working with local communities across Northern Australia to make sure that they are much better prepared for biosecurity matters if they happen in the future.

I think the thing - and Mark touched on this - I think the thing that is worth noting about Northern Australia and why it is such a potential gateway for these diseases, is partly about the proximity to places like Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and the traditional travel movements that happen from people in those communities into the Torres Strait. And, you know, they won’t necessarily be doing the wrong thing. They might just not know that they can’t bring in particular food items that actually present a risk to Australia. So, it’s partly about those traditional movements of humans potentially bringing diseases in, but it’s also simply weather factors. We have big monsoonal winds in Far North Queensland and across the Torres Strait, and literally things can be blown in on those winds, whether it be brought by mosquitoes, by seeds. And that’s why we do need to make sure that we close the door to Northern Australia for those biosecurity matters.

The other people I just wanted to thank are our biosecurity team who are here today. They’ve put in a huge amount of work to get this NAPCaRN network up and running, along with a number of other biosecurity protections.

JOURNALIST: And those new staff that you just mentioned, is there a goal for how many you would like to add to the network, and when will we see those boots on the ground getting work done?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, that’s the kind of work that we’ve now got to work through. Having secured the funding, we’ll need to work out exactly how many people that can fund, but I do know that we are intending to put people into nine different regions across Northern Australia. I would suspect that Far North Queensland would benefit from that, but that kind of detail will be worked out now.

JOURNALIST: Is the expectation to increase the restrictions and rules, regulations in place to prevent some of these diseases and stuff coming into the country.

MURRAY WATT: Yeah. In addition to funding new programs like this one, the Albanese Government has taken a lot of steps to stiffen the penalties that can be imposed on people if they do the wrong thing and, in fact, we’re about to introduce legislation into the Parliament to take that even further. But for instance, last year we introduced a new offence with a very stiff fine on people who deliberately conceal food items in their luggage when they’re coming in through an airport. Unfortunately, there are people who do the wrong thing. Yeah, there are people who just make a mistake, forget to declare something, but there are also people who deliberately conceal items by sewing them into their luggage and things like that, and those people now face much stiffer fines than they did in the past.

So, it’s a range of things we have got to do: fines, penalties, putting on more staff at our airports and our seaports, putting on more detector dogs. We’re determined to do everything we can to keep Northern Australia safe.

JOURNALIST: In reality, just how much can the wrong thing getting in cripple industry here – just through that example – what kind of effect it would have?

MURRAY WATT: Well, Australia’s agriculture industry is worth billions of dollars and it supports rural communities right around our country. If one of these diseases were to get in, it would create a devastating blow to different types of agriculture industries. We estimated when we were at risk of foot and mouth disease, particularly last year, that the impact would be in the billions of dollars to Australia’s livestock industry. Because if foot and mouth disease got into Australia, that would pretty much, overnight, end our exports of our beef, our sheepmeat, our pork - all sorts of livestock that would not be able to be exported, and that would be a cruel blow to producers and to rural Australia.

So, we are talking about big dollars here that are at risk, and that’s why we’re very satisfied to put more money into this to protect those industries going forward.

JOURNALIST: Can either of you just talk about the detector dogs and what their main goal is and role?

MURRAY WATT: So, detector dogs I think people are used to seeing at airports, but what they’re going to be doing is seeing a lot more of them. And the detector dogs’ role is obviously to go around and sniff people, sniff their bags, to see if there’s something in those bags and on the people’s pockets and things like that that mightn’t be allowed into Australia. They’re very well trained. They go through extensive training, as do their handlers, and the detector dogs are a really critical part of our response to biosecurity to keep us safe.

As I say, we’re in the process of increasing the number of detector dogs because we know they’re an effective mechanism, as is the x-ray screening that Mark was talking about that’s now in place at Horn Island. But yeah, we like the detector dogs and we’d like to see more of them.

JOURNALIST: I just have a quick question about something else.

MURRAY WATT: Sure.

JOURNALIST: So, there’s been serious concerns raised about the financial impacts on small regional pharmacies when the federal Labor’s impending 60-day dispensing policy begins. What’s your response to this concern?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, I’m certainly conscious that there are concerns from pharmacists, including here in North Queensland. But the Albanese government is determined to do everything we can to keep helping Australians with cost of living pressures, and that includes medicine costs. We have now brought in two changes just this calendar year which are driving down the price of medicines, and that’s good for people’s hip pockets to be able to help them with those cost of living pressures.

On 1 January this year, we reduced the maximum payment that people have to make to receive a wide range of pharmaceuticals to $30, rather than $42.50. That’s saving Queenslanders hundreds of dollars every year, which is really needed. Now, we know that the pharmacists are not entirely happy about some of these changes, and we’ll keep working with them. But as a government we need to do everything we can to relieve those cost of living pressures on people.

JOURNALIST: So, what’s your message to the small regional pharmacy owners who are worried about the impact of these changes?  

MURRAY WATT: I’m confident that as we work through these changes, that we can make them work in a way that works for pharmacists and for consumers. I’m confident that we can have this system work so that we do retain our regional pharmacists who play a really important role in regional communities, but at the same time deliver those cost of living relief to consumers which is desperately needed.