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Minister Watt continues to duck and weave on Foot and Mouth Disease

The PM has made a mistake in giving the Agriculture ministry to an accountant and lawyer from the Gold Coast. Even so, the country still needs to be ready for the worst. Our agriculture and economy depends on it.

Transcript

In serving the people of Queensland and Australia, my intention in advancing this motion was to protect the people’s interests from the economic devastation that will result from foot-and-mouth disease if it enters Australia. There is no time to waste. It is a distinct possibility that, given the substandard response from this government, foot-and-mouth may be in Australia before the next sitting. Suspending standing orders to debate this matter today was essential, and I thank Senator Gallagher and the government for this.

Senator Whish-Wilson yesterday suggested that this matter could wait for discussion at the inquiry into the government’s foot-and-mouth response. No, it can’t. That’s weeks away. We need to act now to get these vaccines into Australia.

I know the minister appeared on radio earlier this week and alluded to the ‘scaremongering’ coming from some people around this issue. It is not scaremongering to want to save the life blood of hundreds of communities in rural Australia. It is not scaremongering to want to preserve $80 billion in exports. It is not scaremongering to want Australia to provide our beautiful red-meat protein into the international market to feed the world. It is not scaremongering to want to protect the thousands of jobs, including union jobs in transport, that the livestock industry supports.

Why on earth did the Prime Minister give the job of agriculture minister to an accountant and lawyer from the city? That decision was a gross insult to the Australian agriculture sector. The minister’s actions in his very first test show that the minister hasn’t a clue. The minister misleads and uses false slurs to cover up his own deficiencies and to divert attention from his deficiencies. The minister misled the Senate and the public when he answered my question on bringing vaccines to Australia just in case. The minister replied that this would cause Australia to be considered as ‘having foot-and-mouth disease’—rubbish! Having the vaccines here is not considered having foot-and-mouth. Using them is, and clearly these vaccines would not be used unless we had an actual outbreak. I’ve repeatedly called on the minister to correct his reply, and he continues to ignore that request. Truth doesn’t matter.

The minister misled the Senate when saying vaccine production had to wait until we knew the strain that had arrived in Australia. That specious reply ignores the likelihood that the strain we could have in Australia is going to be the same strain present now in Bali. If we’re making vaccines for Bali, make some more for us and store those vaccines in Australia, ready for any outbreak that comes here from Bali. Minister Watt’s answer ignores the simple question: if we need to know the strain before making a vaccine, what are the million doses of foot-and-mouth vaccine Australia is storing in the UK right now that he told us about?

The minister called into question my support for vaccines yesterday in another diversion. The minister was clearly not listening. In my question last Thursday, I did reassure the public that these vaccines are safe. The first thing I did in drafting my questions was to check that and to add the fact that it does look after people’s safety. I have never spoken against vaccination. I have spoken strongly against, and will continue to speak strongly against, experimental gene based treatments for humans, with grossly inadequate safety testing. Experimental vaccine injections have caused so many horrendous human injuries and deaths the government has had to implement a compensation scheme. In contrast, the foot-and-mouth vaccine is not an mRNA gene based vaccine. It is a normal vaccine, a real vaccine. According to New Zealand health authorities, it’s safe to consume meat and milk from a vaccinated animal.

So once again for clarity, before the minister misrepresents me again, I’m suggesting we get these one million doses of vaccine that we already own, and any others we need to produce for this strain, stored here in Australia, ready to vaccinate 48 hours after a foot-and-mouth outbreak occurs, should one occur. Taking this precaution will meet the procedure in the minister’s own manual. It’s on page 18 of the foot-and-mouth AUSVETPLAN edition 3 manual, in case the minister wants to look it up.

I asked the minister to explain why these vaccines are being stored in the UK rather than Australia. The minister has failed to explain this very strange decision, despite repeated requests. In the event of an outbreak, it will take seven days to get the vaccines here from the UK. Yet vaccination is supposed to start after 48 hours. After one week it will be too late. The livestock industry will be done for. He said he had tabled a response. He did, but it was scant and did not answer my basic questions. Was he really badly advised or did he lie? We need the truth. People need the truth. There are two issues now thanks to Senator Watt: foot-and-mouth and trust and truth, because of what he has done and not done and what he’s said and not said.

The minister’s briefing on foot-and-mouth last Tuesday appears to have made a factual error. It was in a casual reply, so I’m only going to mention this in passing. The comment was made that foot-and-mouth disease stays resident on hard surfaces for hours. The American College of Veterinary Pathologists briefing sheet on foot-and-mouth puts the residence period at one month. Between hours and one month, there is a hell of a difference—a huge difference. If it’s indeed one month then the protocols we’re following for foot-and-mouth need to be much stronger, more like the disinfectant protocols the government rushed to implement for COVID.

Some of these issues can be covered during the Senate inquiry. Vaccines, though, cannot wait. We must have them here now. We must have stronger airport screening now. How can it be that, after all these weeks the virus has been in Indonesia, we still have several international flights arriving directly from Indonesia all at the same time and then no flights for hours? If you do not have the staff to check every passenger from infected areas, Minister, here’s an idea: work with the airlines to stagger their arrivals so we can screen every single person.

I have no confidence that this minister, in being in charge of the department, is working from a set of protocols that are designed to stop foot-and-mouth. Rather, these protocols seem to be about looking as if government tried to stop foot-and-mouth. Perhaps this has something to do with the Left’s policy to reduce livestock to save on carbon dioxide production. A 43 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide output below 2005 levels by 2030 must include substantial reductions from agriculture. I’ll speak to this absolute nonsense, this garbage, on many occasions in the years ahead. For today, let me say that cows are not climate vandals. Graziers are wonderful custodians of the land, as Senator Nampijinpa Price just pointed out. The government is not a wonderful custodian of the land.

I’m aware there is work that suggests that foot-and-mouth will not spread amongst feral pigs and other feral animals that can get foot-and-mouth because of the sparse population. What utter rubbish! These researchers-for-hire clearly have not been to the national parks I’ve have been to. Nobody in the government seems to care that infestations of pests in national parks encroach on farmland, putting hardworking farmers under enormous strain, when all they want to do is grow food and fibre to feed and clothe the world. Why the political Left want to stop farmers feeding and clothing the world is beyond me—and it’s clearly beyond Senator Nampijinpa Price. I know your climate gods need the ritual sacrifice of farmers to reach a target that makes no scientific sense, no moral or ethical sense, no human sense. And, really, how can rewilding productive farmland be more desirable than feeding and clothing the world and the people on our planet?

This agenda dovetails very nicely with Premier Andrews’s recent agriculture bill, which allows the Premier to declare quarantine on part or all of rural Victoria based on the threat of a disease outbreak. Animals can be culled on the threat of getting a disease. Farmers can be told what they can and can’t produce. Lockdowns can be hard border lockdowns extending for years. Victoria is coming for their graziers in the name of sustainability. All it will take is one disease outbreak. What could that outbreak be? If every rural media outlet in the bush is not getting onto their local Labor member or Greens candidates and asking them, ‘What is the go here?’ then I don’t know why they’re not doing it.

There’s a story here. It’s a story that is so much more than an inexperienced minister with no knowledge of his portfolio tripping over the first hurdle. It’s more than a minister who refuses to accept he’s made a mistake and, as a result, refuses to fix it. That’s not honest. It’s more than Australian farmers being thrown under the sustainability bus by wealthy city dwellers anxious to make others pay for their climate religion. It is about the very future of our Australian agricultural sector, and that’s terrifying.

Minister Watt made this an issue by misleading the Senate. Quoting others about foot-and-mouth disease does not change a thing with what’s happening with the government. Continually derailing the discussion and diverting the discussion onto what other people are doing or not doing does not answer questions. It shows the man lacks accountability and responsibility. And I will continue to do my job for the people. I’ve been elected by the people—not the people that Senator Watt quoted. It’s easier to get a human being vaccinated in this country than to get a cow vaccinated. We have one flag above this parliament. We are one community and we are one nation. Labor, in its policy on foot-and-mouth disease, is a clear and present danger to agriculture.

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Minister to front up and explain potentially misleading the Senate – Foot and Mouth Disease

https://youtu.be/SkE4j44_wcw

If Foot and Mouth disease enters Australia it will cost the industry an estimated $80 billion. Minister Watt’s response to foot-and-mouth disease has been half-baked and dangerous.

Transcript

I move:

That—

(a) the Senate requires the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to attend the Senate at 9.30 am on Thursday, 4 August 2022 to provide an explanation of not more than 10 minutes as to:

(i) answers provided to Senator Roberts after question time on Thursday, 28 July 2022 which appear to have misled the Senate, as detailed in Senator Roberts’ letter hand delivered to the Minister on Friday, 29 July 2022,

(ii) the failure by the Minister to bring foot and mouth disease vaccines to Australia ready for an outbreak should one occur, and

(iii) the failure by the Minister to provide suitable biosecurity precautions at Australian airports to prevent foot and mouth disease entering Australia;

(b) any senator may move to take note of the explanation required by paragraph (a); and

(c) any motion under paragraph (b) may be debated for no longer than one hour, shall have precedence over all business until determined, and senators may speak to the motion for not more than 10 minutes each.

Motion moved by Senator Roberts 3 August 2022 and agreed to by the Senate

Foot-and-mouth disease is a clear and present danger to the Australian livestock industry. If foot-and-mouth disease enters Australia, our exports will be suspended for several years, which will cost the industry $80 billion. This will be devastating to rural communities. Farmers will not survive. Regions will be decimated. The country will suffer as a whole. The federal government will be on the hook for huge social security and assistance packages, as well as for compensation for culled animals. The animals would like to express their desire to not be shot and burned.

This will not only bankrupt farmers; it will negatively impact the affordability of meat protein. If you think meat is expensive now—once we destroy a large part of the Australian beef industry, prices will go beyond the means of everyday Australians to afford meat. This is not a rural issue. Foot-and-mouth disease will affect every Australian through the cost of meat and dairy and through the additional burdens on the taxpayers to meet compensation and social security expenses.

Minister Watt’s response to foot-and-mouth disease has been half-baked and, quite honestly, dangerous. He has also, I believe, misled the Senate. I gave the minister a chance to correct and clarify his remarks, in a letter hand delivered to the minister last Friday requesting an attendance by close of business last Monday. The minister ignored that letter. The minister must attend the Senate to explain answers that he has given to my question without notice; they could constitute a misleading of the Senate.

Last Wednesday, 27 July, in questions without notice, my first question was in respect to the foot-and-mouth disease vaccine being held in the UK and read, in part: ‘If foot-and-mouth disease arrives in Australia, the short-term response would be to start vaccination.’ The minister’s reply included the statement: ‘The reason you don’t vaccinate is that you are then deemed by the rest of the world as having foot-and-mouth disease.’

As a result of that misleading reply from Minister Watt, I have had to contend with suggestions on social media that I was advocating for a measure that would destroy our beef industry. I said no such thing. The minister was given an opportunity to correct the record, and he has not.

Minister Watt also stated that ‘what we are actually prioritising in relation to the supply of vaccines at the moment is providing them to Indonesia to keep the disease out, and that is why we want to support the vaccine rollout in Indonesia’. I of course support assisting Indonesia with their foot-and-mouth disease response. They’re neighbours of ours. We need to support them. We also need to support them for humanitarian reasons. However, I might make the observation that this response presupposes that we know the strain in Indonesia and can access that vaccine if suitable. If we know the Bali strain, then why are we not placing the same vaccine we are giving to Indonesia here in Australia right now, in case one of the travellers returning from Bali has brought foot-and-mouth disease with them?

Minister Watt went on and made the statement that ‘we don’t necessarily know what strain of disease we would have in Australia’ and that we need to know the strain before we order the vaccine. If we need to know the strain before ordering the vaccine, then what about the million doses we already have in the UK? What strain do they protect us against, and at what cost? I received a call from the minister’s office last Thursday advising that we would receiver an answer to the question the minister took on notice regarding how many vaccines Australia has stored in the UK, to which the minister gave an indicative answer of one million. That answer did not arrive, and it’s been a week now.

Why are these vaccines being stored in the UK? How much are we paying to store them in the UK, when they should be stored here in Australia? Page 18 of the foot-and-mouth disease AUSVETPLAN, edition 3, states that vaccination is recommended to start within 48 hours of the first detected case, and this may include protective vaccination of livestock in the area surrounding the infection. In question time Minister Watt suggested that the vaccines could be here from the UK in seven days and that this was sufficient. However, the government’s own manual indicates that vaccination would be an appropriate response after just 48 hours. Australia is currently holding tens of millions of vaccines for COVID in complete safety. If we are unable to hold foot-and-mouth vaccines in a similar way, then why not? It seems to be proving easier to get a human vaccinated in this country than a cow.

I’d just consider some other points as well. I note that the briefing last week by Minister Watt’s staff said that the virus stays for just hours on surfaces. Other sources in the United States reliably say that the virus stays on surfaces for a month. Therefore, if quarantine measures are not adequate—and it means they are not—then we need the protection of a vaccine. This is about food security for the people in this country—fellow Australians. It is about food prices and cost of living. It is about humanitarian support for the Indonesians. It is about support for our farmers, for our whole agricultural sector. As I said, if foot-and-mouth disease breaks out here it will cost us a suspension that is estimated to be around three years, costing $80 billion in lost exports. It also will gut our agricultural sector and tarnish our reputation—all because we are not being told the truth and we are being misled, and that compares with a few million dollars on a vaccine, which is the lowest-cost option for us to protect our farming industry and our farmers.

How much does it cost us to store these vaccines in the United Kingdom? This is about Minister Watt looking good, not doing good—all mouth and no substance.

Minister forced to explain potentially misleading Senate about Foot and Mouth disease
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Minister forced to explain potentially misleading Senate about Foot and Mouth disease

The Senate this morning has voted in favour of my motion requiring Senator Murray Watt, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to explain how he hasn’t misled the Senate in answers regarding foot and mouth disease.

The Minister must attend the Senate at 9:30am Thursday to explain.

In a hand delivered letter which he did not respond to, I asked the Minister to consider how his answers were not misleading the Senate. Official Government biosecurity measures state that vaccination of affected and proximate livestock should occur within 2 days of an outbreak.

Despite this, Minister Watt appears to maintain that holding 1 million non-mRNA cow vaccines in the United Kingdom, which would take 7 days to get here, is good enough. It isn’t.

It begs the question, why does it seem to be easier to get a human vaccinated in this country than a cow?

We also have to ask, why is the Government colluding with the Greens to keep a non-mRNA vaccine for Foot and Mouth disease out of the country? Why is Labor being so slow to act on keeping Foot and Mouth out of the country?

Do they want a Foot and Mouth disease outbreak in the country to destroy our livestock industry so we all have to eat the bugs?

Minister to front up and explain potentially misleading the Senate – Foot and Mouth Disease
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Letter to Minister Murray Watt: Potentially misleading the Senate on Foot and Mouth

The Hon. Murray Watt

Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry

MG 61

Australian Parliament House

Dear Minister

Minister I am writing to ask you to reconsider answers given during question time on Wednesday July 27th and ask you to consider how your answers were not misleading the Senate.

Last Wednesday July 27th in questions without notice, my first question was in respect of the Foot and Mouth Disease vaccine being held in the UK and read in part “If foot and mouth disease arrives in Australia the short-term response would be to start vaccination”.

Your reply included the statement “the reason you don’t vaccinate is that you are then deemed by the rest of the world as having foot and mouth disease”.

I did not say vaccinate livestock now, I said IF foot and mouth does arrive then start vaccinating.

As a result of your reply I have had to contend with suggestions on social media I was advocating for a measure that would destroy our export industry. I said no such thing.

  1. Please correct the record.

Minister my first supplemental question went to the adequacy of the vaccine stockpile. Your reply included the statement “what we are actually prioritising in relation to the supply of vaccines at the moment is providing them to Indonesia, to keep the disease out and that is why we want to support the vaccine rollout in Indonesia.”

I of course support assisting Indonesia with their Foot and Mouth disease response. However I might make the observation this response presupposes we now know the strain in Indonesia and can access a vaccine that is suitable.

  1. If we know the Bali strain then why are we not placing the same vaccine we are giving Indonesia here in Australia in case one of the travellers returning from Bali has brought FMD with them?

If we ultimately do not need those vaccines I am sure Indonesia will be appreciative of receiving our stockpile to assist with their outbreak. One Nation are happy to be good neighbours.

Minister your reply to my second supplemental, which asked why the FMD vaccines could not be stored in Australia ready for an outbreak, included the statement “we don’t necessarily know what strain of the disease we would have in Australia and (paraphrasing), we need to know the strain before we order the vaccine”.

  1. If as you said, we do need to know the strain before making the vaccine what are the million doses we already have in the UK?

I acknowledge the call from your office on Thursday advising we would receive an answer to the question you took on notice regarding how many vaccines we have in the UK – to which you gave an indicative answer of one million.

  1. This response has not been received yet and I would ask that it contains details of strains for which we have completed vaccines stored in the UK together with respective quantities.

On page 18 of the FMD AUSVETPLAN Edition 3 it states that vaccination is recommended to start within 48 hours of the first detected case, and this may include protective vaccination of livestock in the area surrounding the infection;

  1. Minister why did you suggest the vaccines could be here from the UK in 7 days and this was sufficient, when your own manual indicates vaccination would be an appropriate option after just 48 hours?
  2. Australia is currently holding tens of millions of vaccines for COVID in complete safety. If we are unable to hold FMD vaccines in a similar manner please provide an explanation as to why.

Minister, I make the observation that it is proving easier to get a human vaccinated in this country than a cow.

I thank you for your attention to this matter and would request a response by COB Monday 1st August 2022.

Yours Sincerely

Malcolm Roberts

Senator for Queensland

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Government isn’t doing enough to stop Foot and Mouth disease

Yesterday the Minister for Agriculture Murray Watt gave Parliamentary members a briefing on the Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) threat to the $80 billion Australian livestock industry.  The threat assessment from FMD has been raised from 9% to 11% because the disease has arrived in Bali.
 
One Nation is concerned that the measures at airports to ensure FMD does not come through arrivals is insufficient.  Minister Watt has announced that our measures are 90% effective but are based mostly on passengers’ self-assessment honest.
 
We are concerned that vaccines needed to control the outbreak are stored in the UK and, despite Agriculture Minister Watt’s misleading answer during Question Time, we do know the strain likely to arrive in Australia.  We have no reason not to place vaccines in Australia now so we can be ready for any outbreak.
 
Under Australian regulations it is perfectly safe to eat the meat from livestock that have been vaccinated against FMD.  If FMD does enter Australia, our meat and related exports will be prevented from leaving the country for many years.  The viability of the industry is at risk and under threat.

Transcript

My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Senator Watt. Thank you for your briefing this afternoon on foot-and-mouth disease. Minister, if foot-and-mouth disease does enter Australia, the short-term response would be to start vaccination. Food and Safety Australia and New Zealand says vaccines are safe for human consumption. Having said that, Australia owns foot-and-mouth disease vaccines located in the United Kingdom. How many vaccines does Australia own in the United Kingdom?

Senator WATT (Queensland—Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Minister for Emergency Management) (14:39): Thank you, Senator Roberts. I’m pleased that you were able to come along to that briefing. The feedback that I had was that it was very informative for the members who attended. We are approaching this in a bipartisan manner, and we would welcome the opposition joining us in that, as I know you are, Senator Roberts.

Opposition senators interjecting—

The PRESIDENT: Order!

Just to pick you up on one point: if, God forbid, foot-and-mouth disease were to enter Australia despite the measures that we are putting in place, we have a well-developed plan known as AUSVETPLAN, which is prepared between the federal government and states and territories, about how we respond to biosecurity outbreaks. Biosecurity outbreaks are managed and led by state governments with the support of the federal government, and we have seen that occur in relation to the Varroa mite outbreak recently, where we have been supporting the New South Wales government. The point about vaccines is that biosecurity advice that I have received is that we would not immediately vaccinate all livestock or even a large segment of livestock immediately in Australia, and that is because if you vaccinate your livestock—

Opposition senators interjecting—

Senator WATT: It’s unfortunate that the opposition don’t want to understand and listen to the measures of preparing for the outbreak. The reason you don’t vaccinate, Senator Roberts, is that you are then deemed by the rest of the world as having foot-and-mouth disease, and that is what prevents the export of our product overseas. It’s effectively the same as having the outbreak here when you vaccinate. The idea would be that in the first instance you would impose a 72-hour livestock standstill to limit the movement of animals, and only if the outbreak got further would you consider vaccines. My advice, and I will get this checked, is that we have approximately one million vaccines available to us in a stockpile and they are available within one week’s notice.

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, first supplementary?

Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (14:41): We have 25 million cattle and 2.5 million pigs. How is one million enough?

Senator WATT (Queensland—Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Minister for Emergency Management) (14:41): As I said, the first move, should we have an outbreak here, is not to just run out and vaccinate every herd of cattle, sheep, pigs or goats across the country—or buffaloes, for that matter. What we would actually do is try to control the outbreak in the localised area that it is in so that it didn’t spread further afield. If it did spread further afield, that is when we would look to vaccinations as an alternative. It is not the only alternative that we would have, but it is certainly one, and we would be able to access other vaccines at very short notice. What we are actually prioritising in relation to the supply of vaccines at the moment is providing them to Indonesia, and the reason we are doing that is that, if we can bring that outbreak under control in Indonesia, not only is that in their national interest; it is in our national interest. We have continued to have very productive discussions with the Indonesian government about what other vaccines and other assistance we can provide. But my priority right now is keeping the disease out, and that is why we want to support the vaccine rollout in Indonesia.

T he PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, second supplementary?

Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (14:42): Why are these vaccines not already in Australia? We are one of the largest cattle and related product producers in the world. Speed of response is critical to protecting our biosecurity. Why are these not being brought to Australia now as a precaution?

Senator WATT (Queensland—Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Minister for Emergency Management) (14:42): As I said, vaccination is not the first measure that you would undertake if there were an outbreak, but there are a couple of other reasons why we have got those vaccines here now, the first of which is that there are sometimes issues about the bringing of live virus into a country, and the responsible members of the opposition understand this. In addition, though, we don’t necessarily know what strain of the disease we would have in Australia, and we want to make sure that the vaccines that we obtain would actually be effective for the strain of the virus that we would get if we were to get it. In fact some of the technical support we have started providing to Indonesia was actually to help them diagnose the strain of virus that they had so that we could then go out and procure the vaccines that would deal with that particular strain. There’s no point sending vaccines to people if they don’t work for a particular strain of the virus, and we would need a little bit of time to diagnose the strain that we have here in Australia so that we could then very quickly obtain the correct vaccines to deal with the version of the virus that we got.

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