{"id":2557,"date":"2012-07-26T10:16:52","date_gmt":"2012-07-26T00:16:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/?p=2557"},"modified":"2015-02-23T16:01:03","modified_gmt":"2015-02-23T06:01:03","slug":"townsville-biosecurity-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/townsville-biosecurity-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"Townsville Biosecurity Lab – scrapped"},"content":{"rendered":"

The risk of catastrophic quarantine breaches in northern Australia is far greater than ever before.<\/strong> This is directly due to increasing numbers of illegal arrivals by boat (not all of whom call for Navy Taxis) and the steady depopulation of Cape York Peninsula (pastoral families leaving due to increasing areas of National Parks and indigenous-owned land (often unoccupied or erratically occupied). It would only take just one person to bring in just one pest to cause the decimation of\u00a0 people, plants and animals.<\/p>\n

So it would seem to be a no-brainer that tropical North Queensland must have a modern, fully functioning biosecurity laboratory. The only other biosecurity lab located in the top 1\/3 of Australia – where feral pest and disease incursions are most likely to occur –\u00a0 is more than 2,000km northwest, in Darwin.\u00a0 Unfortunately however, the Queensland State Government yesterday announced that no, it was not a priority, even though building of the new biosecurity lab here in Townsville has commenced.<\/p>\n

Anyone who has run a household budget with any degree of competence understands prioritising expenditure is vital, irrespective of how large or small the income is.\u00a0 But it’s also understood you don’t cut costs by dropping your insurance policy covering your most valuable asset. Yet that’s effectively what Campbell Newman’s LNP State Government has just done. Best-quality biosecurity helps ensure farmers can continue to produce good quality food at an affordable price, long-term, by identifying and eliminating devastating pests and diseases introduced into Australia before they spread beyond control.\u00a0 Good biosecurity also helps prevent the decimation of native Australian plant and animal life and helps protect public health.\u00a0 As it is we can’t control feral scourges such as feral pigs and cats – once a disease spreads to feral animals such as these, it would be virtually impossible to stop.<\/p>\n

A few years ago I attended a DPI open day here in Townsville. Set on a large area of land right beside the Ross River and one of the largest new real estate developments, I asked DPI staff how long they thought it would be before the State Labor Government would be unable to resist the temptation to resume the land and flog it off for real estate.\u00a0 My enquiry was met with blank looks but it wasn’t long after that Anna Bligh’s government announced the closure of the DPI facility and the river side land – though close to tidal mangroves and exceedingly flood prone – was earmarked for housing development. Townsvillean complaints were partly placated by the promise of a brand new Biosecurity Laboratory in close proximity to James Cook University and CSIRO. Some money has finally been spent and building the new biosecurity lab has commenced. But now it’s got the chop.\u00a0 Is saving $18 million to help protect what’s worth billions, sensible budgeting?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The introduction of just one serious pest or disease, many of which are located in countries just a rock’s throw from Australia’s northern coastline, would permanently decimate native wildlife and agricultural industries right across northern Australia.\u00a0 It’s vital we are as well prepared as possible for the inevitable incursions (such as fire ants, which apparently have finally been eliminated from the Cairns area).\u00a0 Our best defence is to have a biosecurity lab in the tropical north, in Australia’s most decentralised state, not something located in the sub tropics more than 1,300km south or more than 2,000 km to the northwest.<\/p>\n

Predictably, it has now been said the existing old lab on the ex-DPI land would be ‘too expensive to renovate’.\u00a0 Effectively, yet again, money (from the multi-million dollar DPI land sale) is effectively being ripped out of the north and sent south.\u00a0 This was a long-term habit of the previous Labor State Government and voters had expected the new LNP government would reverse this\u00a0 southeastern-centric pattern.<\/p>\n

Good quality biosecurity is like insurance – not an exciting thing to be spending cash on but the sort of thing you fervently wish you’d had, and which looks like a ridiculously cheap investment, in retrospect. A stitch in time just doesn’t save nine, in this case, it could prevent the permanent desecration of whole species, long-term detrimental health effects on people and whole industries (primarily agricultural).\u00a0 To not proceed with the new biosecurity lab in northern Australia is simply madness.<\/p>\n

Tim Mulherin states in his media release calling for tenders:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new lab will be a PC3 biosecurity facility, and will have the capability to carry out those tests, making it a far more efficient and timely process than having to send samples south to Brisbane.\u00a0 In any outbreak, it\u2019s critical that testing occurs as rapidly as possible. Having this type of lab in the north means we\u2019ll be able to increase our ability to act on any incursion quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Urgent tests are just that, urgent, and it’s obviously sensible to reduce the travel time and risk associated with carting feral pest and disease samples around the countryside, as much as possible.<\/p>\n

A map of the ex-DPI land at Oonomba (Townsville) can be seen on the Urban Land Development Authority website.\u00a0 Check out the DAFF information on Screw Worm Fly, for a graphic example of the sorts of devastating threats to humans and animals, that exist just off the coast of northern Australia.<\/p>\n

What has been the most surprising about the government’s decision to scrap the Townsville biosecurity lab? The lack of public outcry.<\/strong> Googling ‘Townsville Biosecurity Lab’ today brings up just 5 articles on the scrapping of the lab – one in the Townsville Bulletin, Victoria’s Weekly Times and Herald-Sun, Sydney’s Australian newspaper and the ABC.\u00a0 And they’re all shorter than one page with no background research or discussion at all. By contrast, the government’s decision to scrap funding of a music programme, announced at the same time, caused a lot of public complaint and a review of the decision!\u00a0 It reminds me of people who eat out weekly, holiday regularly and always drive late-model cars,\u00a0 complaining that their electricity bill and rates are too high.\u00a0 The saying ‘fiddling while Rome burns’ has never seemed more apt. Are we a state full of grasshoppers?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The risk of catastrophic quarantine breaches in northern Australia is far greater than ever before. This is directly due to increasing numbers of illegal arrivals by boat (not all of whom call for Navy Taxis) and the steady depopulation of Cape York Peninsula (pastoral families leaving due to increasing areas of National Parks and indigenous-owned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6,7],"tags":[176,220],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2557"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2557"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4236,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2557\/revisions\/4236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}