Building a stronger biosecurity system to manage growing pest and disease risks

Detect and Protect – Episode 2 – Transcript

Building a stronger biosecurity system to manage growing pest and disease risks

Guest: Andrew Tongue

Steve:

Hello, everyone and welcome to Detect and Protect the Australian Biosecurity Podcast. This podcast series is all about sharing information about biosecurity in Australia and the difference that this makes to our daily lives. My name is Steve Peios, host of the podcast, and in today's episode we'll be discussing Australia's biosecurity system and why it is so important for our country. We'll be discussing some of our biosecurity challenges, including the growing pest and disease risks that we're facing. We'll also chat about the opportunities that we have to address these challenges to further strengthen our biosecurity system. Joining me today is a very special guest, Mr. Andrew Tongue, PSM. He is the Deputy Secretary of Biosecurity and Compliance at the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment. Andrew, my absolute pleasure to have you today. Thank you very much for joining us.

Andrew:

Thanks very much. Really looking forward to it.

Steve:

Looking forward to a great chat with you today, Andrew. As I mentioned, we'll be talking about all of those wonderful issues about biosecurity. We'll also be talking about challenges and innovation. I also want to touch on a very important document as well, which is Australia's strategic roadmap for protecting Australia's environment, economy, and way of life. It has some great figures in there and some great information to really educate the public about why biosecurity is so important. First of all, Andrew, how are you today everything going well?

Andrew:

Yeah. Yeah. Biosecurity keeps me fresh.

Steve:

That's what we want to hear. Andrew, from your point of view, if you could just explain for us why is biosecurity is so important for Australia, in your own words?

Andrew:

So I could quote a lot of numbers at you. The biosecurity system is worth about $300 billion. That's the asset that is the biosecurity system. For me, it turns to something that the people I work with talk about a lot. The people that the public meet at airports or when they're traveling internationally or might see in the media. They talk about protecting our way of life. And I think the reason they do that is biosecurity protects what is Australia, it protects the natural world. It protects agriculture. It protects jobs and livelihoods. And for individual members of the public, you can't go for a picnic if red imported fire Ant means that your kids are going to get bitten with a horribly sharp bite, you won't go for a picnic.

Bees, nobody, everybody sort of thinks bees are about honey. Bees are actually about pollination. You don't get fruit if you don't have bees. Well, part of our job is to stop a thing called the varroa mite because it's a thing that will kill all our bees. And so for me, there's so much that we take for granted. We've got a precious, fragile continent that we're trying to defend and protect from pests and diseases from the rest of the world. And that, for me, turns on way of life. I think it's about protecting all the things that Australians value, about being Australians in our wonderful continent and flowing on from that.

Steve:

Andrew, there's been a lot of prominence about this recently at federal government level and also throughout the Department. It's becoming an issue that's synonymous with everybody now. So I'm not going to say that it shouldn't have taken the amount of time that it has. But it's fantastic, from my point of view, to see the importance placed on this and this actually getting the credit that it deserves and people actually being visible to those issues. And it's going further than what you say about the day to day, about the people on the border and basic imports and exports. Or, as my father would say, from his days back in primary industries here, it was just the basics of money in money out, products in products out. There's so much more to it. So is there any reason that you think in particular it has become more prominent. Or is it just an issue that Australians are taking a lot more of a view on?

Andrew:

The government's given us $400 million to invest in the biosecurity system. And the reason that's occurred is our threat environments changing. Once Australia was protected from a biosecurity point of view because it was a long way from anywhere. We're not a long way from anywhere anymore.

Steve:

That's very true.

Andrew:

And it's a combination of growth, you know, number of people in Australia, we're sucking in more imports. It's changing global trading patterns. It's climate change, which is changing the host range of pests and diseases and all that come together. And what we've really put to the government and they've accepted is we're in a different operating environment now and we've really got to change how we deliver biosecurity and engage the public more. Otherwise, we're at risk of getting some really serious pest and disease incursions in Australia that can fundamentally change agriculture, fundamentally affect the environment and really begin to undermine many of the things we take for granted under the heading of our way of life.

Steve:

Speaking about some of those interceptions and pest risks that we've had of late. We've had some significant and disease interceptions of late. Can you tell us a little bit about those and also what the challenges are to our biosecurity system that we've had to face recently because I know of a couple of fantastic ones. But please tell us all about it.

Andrew:

So I've got a couple that I'd like to talk about, Steve. One involves African swine fever. So African swine fever, naturally enough, is a disease of pigs. We have about 4 million farm pigs in Australia and we have millions and millions of feral pigs. African swine fever is in Papua New Guinea, so 4 km from the northernmost point of Australia and it's in many countries that we trade with. The government's given us money to address the threat of African swine fever. Since November 2018, we've seized more than 50 tons of pork products out of the passenger stream and the mailstream. So out of international mail and international passengers. And don't forget, in 2009, because of COVID, not a lot of people traveled. And when we sample what we're finding in the mail or from passengers, sometimes up to 20% to 30% of the samples we take show evidence of fragments of African swine fever. And I find that pretty amazing. Eleven tons of pork products out of mail out of international mail and we take samples out of those products and 20 to up to 30% have evidence of African swine fever.

You know, it's us doing our job, but I think it's pretty worrying, you know, and the 4 million farm pigs in Australia, they support a lot of jobs, they support a lot of livelihoods, a lot of good Australians get up every day and go to work and that can all be taken away if this disease comes into Australia.

My other example involves thing called the Khapra beetle. Mr. Brett Burdett, who lives in Canberra, contacted us and highlighted that he found some larvae in some fridge packaging of all things. And when we investigated, it was Khapra larvae. Khapra beetle is a storage pest. So if Australia had Khapra beetle, the value of our grain crop, we've just had one of our biggest grain crop of $16 billion worth of export opportunity for the Australian economy. That value halves or is almost forced to zero. If we could sell it. And Mr Burdett as an aware member of the public highlighted the existence of this and we tracked it back to a load of fridges from Thailand in a container that had spent time in Africa some time ago.

Steve:

And what had happened?

Andrew:

The Khapra beetle larvae live under the floor of the container, in the dirty underfloor area of the container. They can stay dormant for up to eight years. Something wakes them up. They migrate into the packaging. They're a storage pest that likes rice. And a lot of packaging is made with rice based gloom, and they chew away on that. And then we unpack the container in Australia. And so we've found that with both fridges and some baby high chairs. So those two examples, you know, that's two in the last twelve months that had potentially really serious consequences for agricultural industries, for our economy and for people's jobs and the communities in which they live.

Steve:

I'm so glad you've touched on that, Andrew, because that was one thing where you've just gone into explain that circumstance of the public helping the public. I mean, we are the public service, of course, and we look after the people when it comes to this specific element of the government, but it's the public out there knowing what to look for and all that sort of thing as well. So is there a specific message on top of Mr. Burdett story that you'd like to give to the public, because this is one thing that we wanted to do as well.

Andrew:

I think the key message is it's a big continent and the pest and disease pressure. I describe it as pest and disease pressure. The pests absolutely just want to come to Australia because that's how it works. We can work as hard as we can, but we need the public engaged. We need 24 million sets of eyeballs helping us. And if we get the 24 million sets of eyeballs, we can continue to protect Australia from pests and diseases. If we don't, it just makes it harder. And we're going to basically the money the government's given us the 400 million is to change how we deliver biosecurity to create what I call defence in depth to help us protect the continent and the people and the jobs and the environment and agriculture.

So, yeah, look, it's really important that the public buy into biosecurity. I know the public gets lots of messages about all the things that they should be participating in. This is a biggie, you know, and it's really important that people pay attention, not buy food from overseas unless they know they're getting it from a reputable supply who has a permit from is not trying to get around the system because they really, really want a cutting from their old country, those sorts of things. It's not okay. Livelihoods and jobs depend on the biosecurity.

Steve:

And it's so great to see the awareness of this growing. As I mentioned at the start of our chat today, the awareness of this is growing, and it's becoming very common in people in their faces for people to see and get an understanding of what to do, which is something that is very impressive to me. And something that I'm finding is becoming more popular as well. I mean, some people traditionally think of that imports, base, exports, base, a lot of things like guns and drugs and all of the fancy stuff. But the effects of this, that's not taking anything away from those elements, the effects, as you mentioned in dollar terms, and the effect that it'll have on people's livelihoods, what we can eat, how we can live is absolutely massive.

Moving on from that, Andrew, and just quickly with that, I'm glad you raised the dormant issue of the khapra beetle as well, because, I mean, I know I'd love to have an eight year sleep. Sometimes we don't quite get that luxury, but that's the thing to remember is that a lot of these bugs, whether it's BMSB or khapra beetle, they remain dormant for a long time. They spark up out of nowhere. Sometimes we don't exactly know why. Well, we do know why, but it's varied as to as to the reasons, when and because of that, it's something we need to keep our eyes on. So for all of our listeners out there, please remember, if you see anything odd, you see anything strange in your backyard, in your house, in new products that you've purchased. Make sure you're keeping your eyes on that.

Moving forward, Andrew. A very interesting time is ahead of us at the moment. We've just been struck down by a pandemic over the last 18 months, and Australia has remained very staunch with our view on that and being careful with what happens and the interests into our country, which I think is very, very important. Touching on this document that I referenced before our biosecurity roadmap. There's some really important things here that I'd like to touch on, and I'd love for you to expand on them. My question is around the main challenges for our system over the next five to ten years. And I note in this document that we really heavily talk about things like climate change, global disruptions, illegal activity, exotic pests and diseases arriving, and also greater volumes and more complex supply chains like you've talked about in there as well, is also unexpected things like a pandemic at the moment. So please, Andrew, if you could expand on that, our main challenges over the next five to ten years and how we're looking at factoring in all of those pressures on the system moving forward?

Andrew:

Sure. So we've got a range of key challenges. One is volume. So we deal with about 2.4 million or so containers coming to Australia every year that's just going to grow. The number of containers coming to Australia grows at a faster rate than the economy grows, believe it or not, it's incredible. And every one of those containers can contain any one of 14 hitchhiker pests that we worry about. We call them hitchhikers, but they can be brown marmorated stink bug, khapra beetle and so on. So volume is a concern.

The complexity of where trade is coming from. Global supply chains are very integrated. And you might think that it's a toy that's made in, I'll pick somewhere where in Asia, but it might have components that come from other places in the world. The packaging might be sourced from somewhere in the world. The containers coming from somewhere else. The ship that it's on, even the ship we look at the ship. We have about 20,000 vessel movements a year. We found vessels that have brought bees with them that we don't have in Australia, and that's where the varroa mite that I mentioned comes in. So where are vessels coming from? What we call natural pathways.

So there's a thing called a fall army worm. It just blew in on the wind, literally. Yeah. And it can fly 100 or more kilometres a night. And it basically was detected on Thursday Island, and twelve months later it was here. And so there's natural pathways into Australia. Some of the money the government's given us will enable us to work more closely with countries in our region. We're going to be a really good neighbor with countries in our region. We have to help them have strong biosecurity systems, and their strength is our strength and vice versa. So that's very important.

Steve:

So that will be a capacity building aspect that we have as responsible biosecurity citizens. I know that in my specific work area, where I work in compliance partnerships, we have a heavy focus on capacity building, on teaching them how to manage their systems appropriately as well. So that must be an opportunity too.

Andrew:

It's a huge opportunity for us as an organization. But for us as a country, being a good neighbor has a real payback, you know, and so doing some work, there’s the story of volume complexity. Climate change listeners may have heard of a thing called the Brown dog tick and a disease called Ehrlichiosis. Once that disease wouldn't have got further south than the Tropic of Capricorn, but as result of a warming climate in Australia, that disease probably now gets to Adelaide. And if things continue on their path, it'll probably get to Melbourne. Left untreated dogs die. It's one more thing we have to manage.

Steve:

But let's also make the point there as well, Andrew, that that has, for example, for those that are dog lovers or have pets in their families, these are the things that really affect your day to day life. And I mean, I know there's these broader issues that we talk about here with economy and figures and our primary produce. But there's an example where it actually affects your day to day, where things like that. Well, what could be so innocuous will have a really hard effect on your family.

Andrew:

Exactly. And that's why I come back to way of life. If we don't focus on these issues, we'll turn around one day and everything that we take for granted that's precious and special about Australia, many aspects of it might not be there. So there's a story of volume complexity, change and all of that happening at one time. So it's kind of built up, and now what we're facing is a big shift of gear. So there's a few diseases poised to our north that we're particularly worried about. African horse sickness, lumpy skin disease, which is a cattle disease. I've mentioned African swine fever, rabies is to our north. You know, there's some bad gear and that's before we get to foot and mouth disease and some of our sampling, we've even found fragments of foot and mouth. So that’s just a couple.

Steve:

How much does that, if I can just quickly ask, how much does that scare us? I mean, I know, for example, I've seen a lot of conjecture in the media. I'm just trying to make a quick relationship here with the way that COVID-19 has been. You see your headlines that it has been found in the fragments it has been found in the wastewater. It's obviously very serious when you know that something is there and there's remnants of something and that's existed. So how much does that scare us?  How much does that put you on alert? Noting that we're finding these things in certain elements of places where we might not thought they’d be.

Andrew:

Yeah, look a good point. It does point to the fact that our risk profiles change and events that we might have thought once we're highly unlikely with massive consequences, are becoming rather more likely with even bigger consequences. And so hence the federal government's investment. We're going to be working with our state and territory colleagues to develop a national biosecurity strategy. The reason we need a national biosecurity strategy is biosecurity isn't about just what the commonwealth does. States and territories historically and continue to have a very big role in the biosecurity system because they're managing the endemic pests and weeds that you can read the newspaper in New South Wales and fruit fly in South Australia, States and territories have a huge role, and then industry and the community have a big role. And so what's the nation's path forward? The nation's path forward is to build defence in depth, starting at overseas before goods of even left.

Steve:

Talk about this, Andrew, if you don't mind, please, those three levels we have of our defence system because that's a key component in this document. Have a look, as I mentioned in the link of this podcast. But Andrew, please go on and talk about that, because in here we talk about those three lines of biosecurity defence. So please go on.

Andrew:

Yeah, sure. So it's really important that we have a view for goods, people, objects, ships, planes about their biosecurity status. And some of that is handrail. It's about what people do. It's about what our staff do. It's about how we're working, a lot of it's to do with data and analytics. And we’ve received a big investment to improve our understanding of the world around us from a biosecurity point of view, like a view on where any one of the containers coming to Australia is coming from. But in the last eight years, that's actually a big challenge. So that's that kind of pretty board view of working with our near neighbours, building their strength to deal with biosecurity.

Then here's what's happening at the border. And that's the traditional role that I'm sure many listeners are familiar with. The old quarantine function. The border is very different now and again, we're going to apply data and analytics and new technology. We've got a world first 3D Xray technology that we're starting to screen mail with. That's what's helping us find pork products through the mail. So we're going to change up the border. We'll have a different experience over time our dogs are still there, our dogs, they're fantastic. If I could use this analogy, if your handkerchief was representative of what you can smell, a dog's nose would be like a tennis court. That's how good they are. And so we're going to have the latest tech alongside the dogs. So we're going to double down and then post border.

There is our ability to detect and manage anything that might defeat us at the border or pre border. The reason that's important, we'll be judged in international trading markets and in the international community about our ability to contain anything that we think is a threat. And so that post border area, working with our state and territory colleagues in industry, that's where we get our resilience from. That's where we get our ability to respond and bounce back and keep trading. And that's where we really get to the meat potatoes of protecting everything we take for granted, and about the Australian way of life. So those three levels before the border at the border, after the border, and they've all got to talk to one another. So hence the need for national biosecurity strategy and talking about that connection.

Steve:

Andrew, if you don't mind, that role of the state and territories as well is very, very important. And having that as a Commonwealth Department, we're on the ground, of course. And then the state and territories have their role to play in that management on the ground, too. So flowing on from what you're talking about there, those three pillars. Is it fair to say we've talked about the opportunities, but when it comes to priorities, if you could expand on that, please, because I feel like this is a difficult one to answer. But I'm going to throw you the difficult question, because that's what we're here to do is to tell the public how we feel and what we're thinking about the best way to manage this. But priority wise, getting that framework set up will be very important. But what do you see as the priorities when it comes to not specifically the importance of the three layers, because they're all just as important. But what's the priority for actually attacking all of these threats and how do we go about managing it from that holistic point of view.

Andrew:

So there's a couple of priorities that emerge out of all of this. One is the people priority and that's people in the organization that I'm part of, it's people in state and territory agriculture departments or primary industries departments, it's the public, it's people in industry, and it's about awareness. It's about the skills that we need to develop as a country to manage the threats that we face. And a lot of it is to do with communication. A lot of it is to do with ensuring that we all understand that the world's changed and everything that went before is not much of a guide to what's going to come next.

So there's a people element. There's a partnership element. So how do we protect a continent from size of ours with a small population. How do we do that? Well, a key way is partnerships. And it could be partnerships with Indigenous ranges in Northern Australia who are setting flytraps and doing monitoring for us. It could be partnerships with particular agricultural industries. It could be partnerships with environment groups, partnerships with States and territories. This notion that we've got to build partnerships and recognize that we might all play slightly different roles. Together, we're strong, divided, we're weak. It really is as simple as that.

Then there's a kind of technology element here. We can use new technologies in ways that mean that we can do a much better job in sifting through the 770 combinations of goods and countries coming to Australia.

Steve:

I love these figures. I do. It's just incredible.

Andrew:

And the tens of millions of mail items, when travel returns, post COVID hundreds of thousands of passengers every week. We can use technology in a different way. And we can use technology to be really smart. So one of the things we're working on is a fish identification app. Believe it or not.

Steve:

Beautiful, nothing surprises me anymore. That's great.

Andrew:

This is a clever piece of technology developed inside the Department in our supervising scientist branch in Darwin. It uses images of fish and artificial intelligence to detect what they are. Why would we care about fish? Well, the ornamental fish market in Australia is worth about a hundred million dollars, a lot of livelihoods attached to it. We worry about fish because ornamental fish can bring diseases to Australia that we don't have in freshwater fish or saltwater fish. So, if we can use artificial intelligence, we can enable the import of exotic fish.

But at the same time, we can keep fish species out that might carry risks for Australia. So there's lots of ways we can use technology. And then finally, for us, for the Department of Agriculture, water in the environment, large part of our biosecurity effort is cost recovered. And that means there's a pier. And the pier is usually in the agriculture sector. And we need to do some further work about funding. And this is an expensive business, in the next twelve months, we'll be spending in the order of, I guess, $1.4 million a day just to run the biosecurity system at a commonwealth level.

And, you know, the taxpayer makes a big injection, industry makes an injection. We've got to do further work on how we sustain that as a nation over time, over decades. I think the continents worth protecting. I think it's very precious and special. I got 24 million people in agreement with me, but we got to fund it, and we got to fund it for the long term. And the other thing we need to fund is the management of pests and diseases when they're here, rabbits, mice, weeds, etc.  

There's a payer always. And so continued long-term commitment in funding to the biosecurity system. So that'd be my four key elements.

Steve:

Fantastic. And talking about that, we know that prevention is greater than the cure all the time. So that's something that's very important to give that information to our listeners and to the public that we don't want to get in that response or management or recovery phase. It's about making sure that we're in prevention at all times and looking ahead to that.

Andrew:

My favourite story is about the northernmost fly trap in Australia. It's a fly trap that hangs on a mango tree on Saibai island. It's tended by our staff in the Torres Strait local offices. And the reason that fly trap is important is it's intercepting flies that are coming down, particularly, but not solely, from Papa New Guinea. And some of those flies can really damage agriculture from Cape York all the way down in that kind of wet tropics zone.

That fly trap gives a return of about 30 to one, for every dollar we spend on it’s saving $30. That is a return on investment. If you could get that out of your own share portfolio, you say, you know, you'd be like cheese. And what it takes to sustain that fly trap involves staff on Saibai, helicopters, entomologists, laboratories, the Australian Tenfold Disease Prevention, our level four laboratory. There's a handful of them in the world. It takes a huge effort to merely sustain it.

But that fly trap, $30 for every dollar we spend on it.

Steve:

Incredible story.

Andrew:

That's not a bad return on investment for our country. I reckon I can stand behind that and be accountable.

Steve:

Absolutely. And a lot of the money that we're putting in is seeing these benefits. When we talk about the figures here that you just mentioned about those protection figures, I want to touch on as well. You gave a great example then on innovation and how important that is. So what I don't want to do here is ask the dumb question about how important innovation is, because we all know that it's the way that the world is moving. We know how big of a role that technology is playing, but what I do want to speak about Andrew and ask you is, where do you see innovation evolving over the next five to ten years?

We're talking about things like apps now, the x-ray technology you've talked about as well. And I know that's a little bit of an open-air question because the future is changing so rapidly now. But how do you see that innovation evolving over the next five to ten years for us to be able to help our biosecurity system, help our partners and plan for the future beyond, for example, this report and the information where we talk about beyond 2030.

Andrew:

So I see innovation affecting every area of biosecurity. There's new technologies emerging in our application of science, we’re a huge public sector employer of scientists, the government has given us money for new scientific equipment. And the key there the innovation there is the equipment being connected effectively to the cloud and us being able to make really rapid identification of things that we find at the border so that we know what we're dealing with, so we can transmit that to industry into States and territories and say, we're seeing this and we know 100%.

It looks like that. So I see real innovation in science, real innovation in our ability to conduct surveillance. There's a 10,000km coastline in Northern Australia. We're working with Indigenous Ranger groups up there, but we can put new, cheap but very effective tech in their hands, and we'll be able to do a much better job at surveillance for that coastline.

I see innovation in how people move through airports. We're working with the new Western Sydney airport about what will biosecurity look like at that airport when it opens. It'll be a different experience. We're working with New Zealand on new algorithms, new x-ray technologies. How can we work together to share information? We're putting special computer glasses with our staff so that a staff member can be inspecting a container and somebody in a capital city somewhere can be looking at those images. We can collect those images and put them in the cloud and an artificial intelligence. So it's amazing.

Steve:

This reminds me of a Schwarzenegger movie in the 90s with the glasses. But that's magnificent.

Andrew:

So we're starting we're doing it. We're working on some of these.

Steve:

See, is there a relationship there as well with the ICT sector then? And how important that is for our Department when we talk about, because I know the cloud, it's the way of the future is what I understand from people I know in that industry. So this type of stuff where we must obviously be seeing an investment in ICT as well, to be able to transmit this information to the cloud, to be able to get it to people and scientists to look at straight away.

Andrew:

Yeah. Look, one of the things that the government's invested in in the recent budget is our maritime arrival and reporting system. That's the system that helps us manage all the vessels coming to Australia.

Steve:

The famous Mars.

Andrew:

We’re going to be upgrading our maritime arrival and reporting system, extending its operation, doing a better job at sharing information out of that system with our partners in state government and imports over time, we will build that system out and we will add imagery of vessels and imagery of containers. And we will start to do all this data and analytics over the top that allows us to build better risk profile. So everything that's coming towards Australia, and that's where innovation takes us. Frankly, there are just so many possibilities out there.

It comes back to your earlier question about where's the priority? Well, early on, we've set priorities. We know what we need to do in mail. We know what we need to do for passengers. We think we can get on top of their cargo using this new tech, we've got to move to shipping containers and cargo, of course, cargo, you know, that's a big area for us. But even there, we're out scanning the world for technologies that might help us. I guess your point about the ICT sector, we are open for ideas. We are open for clever things that anybody listening might want to chip in to help us sift through all the things that are coming to Australia, things and people to help keep us be secure.

Steve:

I know that we've had a lot of fantastic submissions and also fantastic businesses and entrepreneurial actions from a lot of the people out there that have come to us with proposals under our innovation network, which has seen an expansion in our relationships with a private sector as well, to go ahead and do this. And by having senior executives such as yourself with that open mind is what we need to actually progress this and get these things out there and working on a day to day basis.

So that's a hugely popular thing I see there as well is that our wonderful men and women at the top of this department and doing such a great job in expanding your own Horizons to go, you know what things do change. Let's get this on board.

Andrew:

Yeah. Look, I think it's a real challenge. Earlier in my career, I was responsible for the aviation security system. And even in sort of decades since that the technology has advanced, our ability to analyse and collect data is advanced and we have to be open. And I can't stress enough how much we, as Australians tend to take what we have for granted. Donald Horn was right. We are a lucky country, but we have to work to make our own luck and to keep it that way.

Steve:

Andrew. Fantastic chat so far. We really appreciate your time. I want to talk about how you started referencing our international partners as well a moment ago. So I’d just like to talk to you about how we're utilizing our relationships with those partners to ensure that we manage those biosecurity risks. And I know that, for example, as I mentioned before the section that I work in has a huge focus on international capacity building and improving the strength of biosecurity systems and sharing information as well.

I mean, we recently had a quarantine regulators meeting with over 30 agencies and 800 delegates that all came in virtually, of course, because of the world that we're living in, but that ability to share information and have them ask questions of us as a biosecurity expert, I think, is something that we're really proud of. But in your opinion, what are the things that we're doing to help those relationships, to use those relationships in our favour and also help our partners to manage biosecurity?

Andrew:

So one of the things we're doing is we're setting ourselves to work with our Pacific neighbours and friends to develop a Pacific biosecurity strategy. And the reason that's important, the pest and diseases that hurt Australia can also hurt Pacific Island Nations. There's animal diseases that kill coconuts and no coconut trees on a tropical island seems like a bad thing. African swine fever, pigs are important in many Pacific Island cultures. African swine fever will kill the pigs. And so there's a real opportunity there for us to bring not just what we're about at the Commonwealth now, but particularly what our colleagues at state and territory is now about and to work with partners in the region to support them and build skills and capability.

The other point I'd make is that biosecurity is governed globally by a set of international organizations and the OIE, which is the World Organization for Animal Welfare, which was recently chaired by Dr. Mark Schipp, our Chief Vet, Australia's Chief Vet that I work with very closely, international Plant Protection Organization, which we’re represented on by Dr. Gabrielle Vivian-Smith, who is our Chief Plant Protection Officer. So there's international organizations and structures that we can work with, and then those are broken down into regional groupings. So again, we're going to put more effort into those organizations, more effort into talking about how the spread of pest and diseases affect every country, not just Australia, every country.

And we're going to try and be a really good neighbour and friend in our own part of the world, and we certainly received investment. I think there's more we can do. I think it will create exciting opportunities for people working in biosecurity, and I think it'll create exciting opportunities for people in the region.

Steve:

That's fantastic. It really is. It's a hugely important area and something that I know that we've used and often pride ourselves on being those great educators and being there for our counterparts to help us in that system. One more thing, please, Andrew, it's been a magnificent chat, one that I've really enjoyed. What is your take home message to our listeners today and our audience? There's been so many of them today. I’ve written down a million of them. But if there is a single take home message, as hard as that might be.

Andrew:

Australia is a beautiful but fragile continent, and biosecurity contributes really significantly to protecting it. And we need everybody at every single stride, buying into the importance of our biosecurity because we’ve only got one continent. And if we don't protect Australia from pest and disease, many of the things we take for granted can go. And once they're gone, we won't get them back. And so I really I can't stress enough. The world has changed everything that we all thought we knew about, and our place in the world is being challenged, at least in terms of biosecurity.

And so I just ask people to buy in, even if buying in means not buying sausages from overseas, even if buying in just means keeping their eyes peeled and making a phone call or sending us an email. Even if buying in just means being conscious when you travel again, when we can all travel again, not bringing dirty boots when you've been on a farm somewhere back into the country, not taking a cutting from a friend's garden and trying to smuggle it back in because your success in beating us at the border is going to destroy jobs and livelihoods.

That is not who we are. So, I just ask people to buy in please, because failure too, has some pretty damning consequences for our beautiful continent.

Steve:

And some dire consequences they would be. Magnificent. Andrew, thank you very much for that. My take home listeners on that is to make sure that you are as invested in this as you are with anything in your daily life, as a traveller coming back into the country or someone who's importing, exporting, buying things involved in that industry. Then don't forget it affects everything that we do, whether that's eating, drinking, pets, your day to day life. Andrew, it's everything we do, it affects the biosecurity system.

So make sure you keep a strong focus on that. And I would like to say on behalf of myself and our producers a very big thank you for joining us on the podcast series. The series has been so informative, it's flying at the moment, so we really appreciate you taking the time out to talk to us. Thank you very much again. And hopefully we can get you back on in three to six months to talk about the next challenges after that.

Andrew:

Great. Thanks very much for your time, Steve. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about something that's so important to our country.

Steve:

Thank you so much, Andrew. It's great to have our senior executive available for the public as well listeners. So that is something that's very important to us is knowing that they're there, they're available. And there are wonderful faces to all the work that we do here as a government organization. Thanks again, Andrew. Thank you very much to all of our listeners for tuning into our podcast today, you can find more information on Australian biosecurity on the department's website. Links will be available in the episode description below. So have a look.

We'll also have our Commonwealth Biosecurity 2030 Roadmaps and more information about that as well. So make sure you subscribe to our podcast series to keep up to date and learn more about Australian Biosecurity. Thanks very much to our producers. Shane Faulkner and Sam Mckeon. As always, my name is Steve Peios and we'll see you on the next episode of Detect and protect.