The Albanese government has ordered that parcels from China and Indonesia be checked in mail centres as part of extraordinary biosecurity measures imposed to reduce the risks of any domestic outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.
As the opposition issued conflicting messages on Monday about whether or not Australia should close the border with Indonesia, the agriculture minister, Murray Watt, warned any preemptory border closure could be “a massive own goal for Australia’s agricultural industry” because it could provoke trade reprisals from our near neighbour.
Watt told Guardian Australia the government had not shut the border with Indonesia because the science didn’t support that and local agricultural producers thought that would be “a disproportionately drastic measure to take”.
“There are 70 countries around the world that have foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks at the moment and we’ve never shut the borders to any of them, so it’s unclear why we would do that now,” Watt said.
“We never shut the borders when the UK had an outbreak in 2001. We haven’t shut the borders for any of the countries that had outbreaks while the former government was in office – whether that be Vietnam, China, India, South Africa and a whole bunch of others.
“The biosecurity advice is the current risk doesn’t demand that. It would be a massive blow to our trade and diplomatic relationship with Indonesia which is not justified by the level of risk.
“The reason farm leaders don’t support it is Indonesia is our largest market for live cattle and wheat exports, it’s our third to fifth-biggest market for a whole range of agricultural products, and I think we are kidding ourselves if we think we could close our borders – which would have a huge economic cost to Indonesia – and they wouldn’t consider taking action themselves.
“That could be a massive own goal for Australia’s agricultural industry”.
On Monday the Liberal leader, Peter Dutton, called on the government to shut Australia’s border to Indonesia, unless there is “some significant piece of intelligence that this is under control”.
“I believe the borders should be closed, absent the information the government’s got,” Dutton told 2GB Radio. “If there’s an argument why the border shouldn’t be closed, that’s for the prime minister to make. If he’s got a reason, then let him explain it.”
But the Nationals leader, David Littleproud, and the shadow employment minister, Michaelia Cash, failed to back Dutton’s call. Cash told reporters in Canberra it was a decision for Labor whether to close the border.
Littleproud said the opposition is not ignoring industry’s call to keep the border open, but was “asking for the science to demonstrate it, to remove the vacuum of information [the government] have left”.
Littleproud accused the government of not sharing “the risk profile” of keeping the border open, causing “anxiety across regional and rural Australia”.
Last week the shadow home affairs minister, Karen Andrews, and the former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce called for the border closure – despite the Meat Industry Council and National Farmers’ Federation opposing the move.
Last week, fragments of the virus were detected in an undeclared beef product at Adelaide airport. Watt said viral fragments had been detected on seven previous occasions over the past three years through routine surveillance operations.
Watt said of the Coalition: “They have not got a good record on biosecurity”.
Patrick Hutchinson, the chief executive of the Australian Meat Industry Council, said Australia should “absolutely not shut the border” to Indonesia and that “cooler heads have to prevail”.
The National Farmers’ Federation president, Fiona Simson, has said shutting the border will not remove the risk of FMD entirely and given the damage to the Australia-Indonesia relationship, to do so would “do more harm than good”.
Dutton also called on Anthony Albanese to “take the lead, not the hapless [agriculture] minister in Murray Watt, the most junior minister, who I don’t think instills anyone with confidence”.
Dutton noted that despite the government ordering biosecurity response zones to be set up at airports for shoes to be checked and cleaned, there was “evidence that’s not happening”.
Dutton said the government was “playing with a loaded gun” because if FMD gets into Australia, hundreds of thousands of livestock will be slaughtered, an $80bn export industry will shut down, it will take years to recover and prices of meat at the checkout will be “through the roof”.
Foot-and-mouth is not dangerous to humans, but its detection could force the widespread destruction of livestock.
A local outbreak would trigger a significant biosecurity containment response from Canberra and the states, beginning with a 72-hour stand still for all livestock movements in Australia. A severe outbreak would require vaccinating herds or culling animals.
