The LNP has announced it will, if elected, allocate an additional $50 million over 4 years to the biosecurity frontline.
The funding boost is part of a plan to tackle emerging threats of foot and mouth disease, Japanese encephalitis, African swine fever, avian influenza, varroa mite and other pests and diseases that pose a significant risk to Queensland’s world-class agricultural production.
Strong biosecurity is critical to the ongoing success of Queensland’s $23.6 billion agricultural industry, with disease and pests able to decimate crops and herds within days of a major biosecurity breach.
The flow on effects of biosecurity outbreaks are significant, with ramifications across the supply chain, like increased cost of meat that Queenslanders pay at the butcher or supermarket.
In the past decade, Labor has overseen a long list of biosecurity failures including closing the State’s most northern biosecurity checkpoint and allowing fire ants to march past containment lines.
Concerningly, Labor has ignored key recommendations from three scathing independent reviews of the Government’s bungled fire ant eradication program.
Our farmers work hard to produce food and fibre for Australia and the world. They employ hundreds of local people. That’s why I will always stand up for them – on power prices, wild dog and pig baiting by councils, access to water, the failed fire ant program and unfair vegetation management rules.
Investing in biosecurity protections is key to growing production and a stronger Scenic Rim economy.
