Hansard: Agriculture and Related Resources Protection Amendment Bill 2010, Gardiner
Author: Philip Gardiner
Published on: 20-October-2010
HON PHILIP GARDINER:The National Party will support the Agriculture and Related Resources Protection Amendment Bill 2010. As has been said before, the Agriculture Protection Board comes under the current Agriculture and Related Resources Protection Act 1976. This amending bill is simply to abolish the Agriculture Protection Board. It means that the APB is wound up, and in its place is the Biosecurity Council of Western Australia. The role of the APB was quite broad when it was first established in the 1950s. Not only did it identify pests that posed a threat to agricultural and pastoral communities throughout the state, but also it carried out a lot of the work. The Biosecurity and Agriculture Management Act—in short, the BAM act—was enacted in 2007. This act was enacted but could not be fully operational until the APB was dismantled, which will happen under this bill.
The Biosecurity Council of Western Australia will be the new body to replace the APB. The minister decides and declares which pests or organisms pose a biosecurity threat, and any other functions of the APB will be absorbed into the Department of Agriculture and Food. The bill increases the penalties. If, under the BAM act, growers, farmers and/or pastoralists subscribe with the minister to commit to eradicate or control a particular pest, those people will often have a financial commitment unless they opt out of the eradication program for that particular pest. In the past there have been very limited penalties for those who either do nothing or flout any direction about trying to control or eradicate declared pests.
I am not sure how many members may realise this, but it is very, very hard to find an agricultural or pastoral pest that is native to this great country or state of ours. They have nearly all been imported, even barley grass. All the broad leafs—radishes, doublegees, caltrops and Paterson’s curse—have all been imported from other countries. In a way it has been the fault of biosecurity, historically, that has allowed these pests to come into the country. The cost of the grass and broad-leafed pests alone is enormous for this state; it is probably around $400-odd million each year, as an estimate. The importance of biosecurity for the grasses and broad-leaf plants is significant, not to mention for other organisms such as wheat rusts and red-legged earth mites. Now the cane toads from the eastern states are coming into the country in the Kimberley area. Each of these has enormous costs to the country. Of course skeleton weed is another one, which I have not previously mentioned.
It is essential we have an effective biosecurity structure. It is also important that we change the way we manage the stick and the carrot. Do not forget that eradication is always the goal. We must have a stick to demonstrate that unless everyone does something to eradicate it, nothing will be achieved. Unless we have some stick that really influences behaviour to eradicate it, no-one is going to achieve any form of eradication. The cost of not eradicating is an ongoing cost of trying to gain control. That will be impossible unless there is the commitment by those who are exposed to these pests to act in a way so serious as to eliminate them.
Other invasive pests I have just recalled are paddymelons and Afghan melons. Why do farmers not clean these things up anyway? They have a go, but when they have a go and do not see their neighbours having the same go, what is the point? Farmers must have money, a surplus from their agricultural businesses, to have a go. I know firsthand, because I have a commitment to eradicate these kinds of pests, how much money has to be spent. At the end of the day chemicals can be used to a degree but the final step is always a hand job. One has to get out there with a pick, and chip these last pests out.
It is not as if there are two or three left in the paddock. There are still a lot left but the cost of spraying is not productive and the cost of the labour to get them out is high. We do not get them out within one year, even if we get them all out, because most of these pests are hard seeded. They last for years so we have to keep trying to get them out for years. I do know that if we do keep at it, we can eliminate a lot of them. Hence we have a Biosecurity Council which advises the minister on declaring which pests need to be controlled or eradicated. I think eradication is the only way to go on these things. Then it is a matter of getting everyone to come in and do it. Those who do not do it should be fined and punished.
That is the basis on which I am quite passionate about this kind of legislation. It is unfortunate that the cost of doing this is going back to the farmers who did not have a say in what was coming into the country. Society allowed that to happen either with the wrong decisions or faulty checking of procedures. This task has to be performed by the steward of the land—the farmer or the pastoralist. The way this is done will be a challenge to the agricultural industry but this bill gives us the mechanism to do so.
