Strict new airport biosecurity screening for foot and mouth could begin today

International passengers arriving in Australia could be compelled to hand over their shoes or walk over sanitation mats in ramped up biosecurity measures that could be confirmed today – as the federal government looks for ways to prevent a local outbreak of foot and mouth disease.

Agriculture Minister Murray Watt said tougher new measures, which had never been deployed before, were currently under consideration and may be confirmed as soon as today.

Federal Agriculture Minister Murray Watt with his Indonesian counterpart Syahrul Yasin Limpo during a joint press conference in Jakarta, Indonesia, last week.Credit:AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana

He said the new controls would include biosecurity zones in airports where all passengers may be required to comply with new measures, including cleaning their shoes.

The government announced earlier this week that sanitation foot mats would be rolled out in airports where passengers coming from Indonesia were disembarking.

“The difference with these new powers is that rather than having the ability to ask individual passengers to do certain things and relying on their agreement, these new powers if introduced, would apply to all passengers were circumstances required,” Watt said.

An outbreak of foot and mouth disease, which causes lesions and lameness in livestock, would devastate Australia’s agriculture sector. A single local case detected could result in widespread animal culling and a halt to livestock movements to contain the disease.

It would also shut down the international meat trade until Australia was disease-free again.

Watt said the proposed measures, which could include the installation of new biosecurity infrastructure at airports, had never been rolled out before in Australia.

“Now, this is the first time that these powers would be used under Section 365 of the federal Biosecurity Act. These powers have been available to the Australian government for the last seven years and they have never been used. Once introduced, we would be the first government in Australian history to use these powers to direct all passengers to comply with biosecurity requirements.”

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.

Most Viewed in Politics

Source: Read Full Article