Ms CHESTERS (Bendigo) (12:55): I want to echo some of the comments that were made by the member for Lyons. I too was in northern Tasmania when the fruit fly outbreak occurred. I happened to be convening a round table with local farmers to talk about workforce planning just as the first outbreak occurred, and there was a lot of anger at the slow reaction that occurred from the state and federal governments on how to manage the issue. When managing biosecurity, we have to get better in this country at having a rapid response, making sure that we're on the ground. When we have outbreaks, when we have biosecurity threats, we should have a rapid response team that is able to collaboratively work with locals, work with industry and work with state and federal governments to stop them from spreading. As a result of the slow reaction that occurred in northern Tasmania, many growers have lost a lot this season. Recently I was back there meeting with the same growers and just learning about the impact that the fruit fly outbreak had had on their businesses. Those who were inside the quarantine zone—whether they were tomato growers or they were strawberry growers, berry growers, cherry growers or apple growers—have all been affected. It's important to highlight, because it highlights that we always have to be vigilant about biosecurity and why we need to continue to make sure that biosecurity and legislation are front and centre. When I met with a tomato grower, he said that at one stage, until they had a facility established in the area, his product had to go to Melbourne to be fumigated to come back to be sold in local markets. It took months for a local facility to be established so that the fumigation process did not have to occur in Melbourne. The cost involved in that is just extraordinary. Yes, that grower was able to recoup some of that cost through the package that was established jointly by the state and federal governments. However, we could have avoided the extra cost involved, which cost the taxpayers, if we had just had the facility on the ground and established sooner. This is a grower whose tomatoes we all know. He grows hydroponic tomatoes, and you can buy them from Coles all year round. He is an innovative grower who knows his obligations in regard to biosecurity and has some practical steps that we could adopt in this place to ensure we have better biosecurity measures, particularly in northern Tasmania. He's not the only one who has been affected by the fruit fly crisis in northern Tasmania. With Justine Keay, who is working hard in the area, I also met a cherry grower-producer who had literally packed his cherries—they were on their way to China. China heard about the outbreak and just said, 'No more cherries from that region of Tasmania.' He was able to get a second buyer, but the value dropped. His box of cherries went from $21 per box down to $9. That's a huge cut for a grower to cop. That's a huge cut, and that is a huge loss. That turned that crop from a crop that would yield good profits for the grower to just breaking even. That is something that that particular grower will never be able to make back. However, they're now asking questions about what will happen next year. As we know, it's winter now in Tasmania, but there's a fear that this winter will not be cold enough to kill off the fruit fly. The clock on days free before detecting fruit fly hasn't even started. And now we have strawberry growers and berry growers in northern Tasmania debating whether or not to plant next year's strawberries and proceed with next year's crop because of the fact that the clock on the fruit fly biosecurity threat has not started. We now know the source of the fruit fly outbreak, after months of investigation into where it came from. Sadly, it came from my home state of Victoria, where fruit fly continues to be an ongoing biosecurity problem. Growers in my part of the world have told me how particularly bad it is this year. There are lots of local solutions on how our communities and our growers wish to combat such pests and biosecurity threats as fruit fly, yet they struggle to get any kind of engagement at a federal level. Locally, in parts of central Victoria, there are growers who are trying to work with local government, local communities and local constituents on managing their own trees. You may have a grower who is on board and doing everything they can with their crop. But, right next door, you may have three or four households who have a couple of fruit trees and don't know how to manage, because they haven't been engaged or educated or provided with the tools they need to combat fruit fly, and then the problem is exacerbated. This is an opportunity for us, and this is where the government is letting the agricultural sector down. There isn't enough forward planning or investment in and empowerment of communities in fruit-growing districts to combat issues such as fruit fly. This bill, the Biosecurity Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2018, is supported by Labor because it strengthens Australia's biosecurity system through a number of measures. It proposes new information gathering under chapter 6 of the act, which will deal with some of the issues that I've raised—monitoring, controlling and responding to biosecurity risks within Australia. However, I believe we need to go much further. The bill proposes enabling instruments under the act to incorporate publicly available information as amended from time to time. This will go towards helping the situation that I outlined at the beginning of my contribution; however, I believe we also need to match that with funding and having a triage system in place so local communities can engage quickly with what they need to do to combat the problem. The situation we had in northern Tasmania earlier this year and late last year was crazy. There was no coordination to tackle the crisis. Signs went up saying, 'Drop your fruit before crossing this street,' but there were no bins. People coming across on the Spirit of Tasmania could buy a Victorian apple on the ferry, but there was nobody taking the apple off them if they hadn't eaten it by the time they got off. There was a real drop in biosecurity. We should all learn from the fruit fly experience in Tasmania and commit to never letting it happen again in other parts of Australia. It's not the only biosecurity risk we've had in this country under the government's watch. We know of the problem we've had with imported prawns and how that has spread the white spot disease to local prawns, devastating local prawn industries. Again, it's something that could've been avoided. The government has taken over 12 months to put this bill forward, and in that time we've seen the suspension of imported uncooked prawns and the closure of several prawn farms on the Logan River in Queensland because of the outbreak I just referred to. On 17 February 2017, the Inspector-General of Biosecurity undertook a review of this issue and has suggested a way forward, making 22 recommendations in the report. The government has accepted 21 of 22, in full or in principle. The one recommendation that was noted was the adequate funding of biosecurity resources. I can't believe that the government kind of squibbed on one of the most critical, fundamental, ongoing, continuing and long-term funding measures for biosecurity resources to empower communities, businesses and industries to tackle these outbreaks when they occur. When it comes to biosecurity, we need to come from the premise where it will happen. It will happen in our country at some stage and it's how we react to it. It's our readiness to react to the biosecurity outbreaks when they occur, so we have the triage system in place to manage the biosecurity risk when it breaks out. This bill aims to improve and implement greater information gathering powers and will allow fast, and more accurate, identification of risk. However, where we need to go further is ensuring, once the risk is identified, that there is funding to ensure that we act quickly. Biosecurity in our country, if we are serious about our clean, green image of our agricultural product, needs to be front and centre. We know that consumers are increasingly asking the question, whether it be the berries that they're buying and consuming or whether it be the seafood that they're eating, 'is their food is safe?' It's not just in the prawn and in the fruit industry where we have issues in relation to biosecurity. It was not that long ago that we had a biosecurity problem and threat in the pork industry when some cheeky importers were trying to import ham that was off the bone, and the bone, into Australia, and then trying to put them back together and sell them as ham on the bone. I know it sounds ridiculous and why would somebody try and do it? But there was that threat. That put jobs in my part of the world at risk at Don KR Castlemaine, who is the biggest private employer in central Victoria. Because of biosecurity reasons in Australia, you can only buy ham that is on the bone—so your Christmas ham, or the hams you buy in the delis—from Australian pork. That's important for the pork industry. It's also important for biosecurity reasons. It is to do with way back when a disease occurred within pork, within the bone. It was only through quick reaction of the then Labor government, and the minister at the time—the member for Watson—that that issue was dealt with quickly and that practice of bringing in ham, or pork, and the bone, and putting it back together was stopped. It's an example of why we need to move quickly and swiftly when we're tackling issues of biosecurity. It is great that we've now got this legislation before us; however, it doesn't go far enough. We need to match the legislation with funding. We need to match the legislation with a proactive and robust commitment, through COAG, of the states and federal governments working together. We need to encourage our states to work collaboratively together to deal with biosecurity risks quickly and take responsibility. I do believe the state government of Victoria needs to take more responsibility for what happened in Tasmania. With proper consultation, and with proper leadership from federal government, there could be a way that Tassie and Victoria could work together, not just on issues like fruit fly but on all issues in relation to biosecurity.