TRANSCRIPT: PRESS CONFERENCE, WAGGA WAGGA, NEW SOUTH WALES, 12 JULY 2022
E&OE
Subjects: Foot and Mouth Disease
JOURNALIST
Foot and Mouth Disease obviously has spread to Bali and now it’s quite concerning with all the tourists going back and forth now with travel opened, so tell me a little bit about what the Government’s response is at this stage and what you hope to see come in the coming weeks or months?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, many Riverina farmers have told me and asked me and implored the Government to actually stop all travel to and from Bali. Now, I don’t necessarily disagree with that position, but I do think that the Government has a responsibility to follow up on the calls that the Agriculture Shadow Minister has made – David Littleproud – to the effect that footbaths should be in place at airports for passengers going to and from Bali.
Indeed, Labor Minister Murray Watt needs to pick up the phone to his Indonesian counterpart and the Labor Government should bring forward the $20 million that we put in place in the 2022 Budget for traceability measures which would make such an impact in this very worrying situation.
Bali hasn’t had a Foot and Mouth Disease case since 1986 and they’ve now got it, since the 12th of April and more than 16,800 animals are affected and this is a huge concern for not just Riverina farmers but, indeed, the nation’s farmers because this could just devastate livestock, it could devastate the entire agricultural industry and, of course, as a nation of food producers we rely heavily on agriculture both for exports and domestic supply and FMD in this country would be absolutely disastrous and so the Labor Government needs to very much come to the table and do everything it can.
It's all well and good for the Prime Minister to fly all over the world and I commend him for doing that and I commend him for what he has done on the international stage, but this is critical and it’s absolutely imperative that the Government gets it right. They’ve got the measures there that they can do straight away, and I urge them to do just that, to put in place those footbaths at airports right throughout Australia for customers coming in and going out, to make sure that the traceability measures are brought forward that we put in place in the Budget and for the Agriculture Minister Murray Watt to pick up the phone to his Indonesian counterpart. I hope that he has actually done that so far, but I haven’t heard, and he needs to do that and make sure that they know how very much of a priority we are placing on this.
JOURNALIST
Absolutely. Any message to tourists in the meantime about what they can or should be doing while travel is allowed still?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, take every measure and every step to clean the bottom of your shoes and very much if you’ve actually been to a farm, scrub them, absolutely scrub them. It’s so easy to bring in something on the sole of a shoe that you may not even realise is there, but to help Australia’s agriculture do your part, play your part, scrub your shoes, make sure that you reference the fact that you’ve been to a farm and make sure that you help out our agriculture industry. We can’t afford to have Foot and Mouth Disease here in Australia. We cannot afford it. Our biosecurity measures are such that they are of critical importance to our food production. We, as the Liberals and Nationals, put in record funding for biosecurity when we were in Government. It’s up to the Labor Government now to make sure that they absolutely, absolutely does everything it can to keep out FMD from Australia.
JOURNALIST
Fantastic, excellent. That’s all the questions I had. Is there anything else you would like to add?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
No, no, that’s all. I think you’ve covered it off.