To the House of Representatives
Petition Request:
We the people of Australia and advocates for our animals request immediate action be taken to install mandatory disinfecting baths set up at airports for all footwear, thorough luggage inspections, and warning announcements on outgoing and incoming flights for people to not bring soiled items back to Australia from Indonesia as a matter of national urgency.
Petition Reason:
The Federal Government estimates an outbreak of foot and mouth disease (FMD) in Australia would cost $50 billion over a decade. A FMD outbreak in Australia would not be controllable as it would in a nation such as the United Kingdom.
Our 24 million feral pig population has the potential to destroy the viability of Australian agriculture for a generation. The FMD vaccine has efficacy limitations and implementation challenges.
Pigs act as super spreaders for FMD, it is estimated an outbreak in Darwin would reach Melbourne in a matter of 12 weeks travelling in the feral pig population.
The Australian agricultural industry feeds between 60-70 million people annually, an FMD outbreak would instantly close us from all of our export market's, 72% of the meat we produce is exported.
FMD has the potential of reaching and risking our:
• 28 million cattle,
• 104 million sheep,
• 4.8 million commercial pigs
• 2 million deer and
• 2.6 million goats
Bali is also unique in that tourists are directly exposed to animals which roam in many village streets. Worse still the rural nature of the towns, many with dirt streets, makes every returning tourist a potential FMD carrier.
Protecting our boarders and the Australian public from this risk should be the federal government's number one priority. If Australian's are worried about cost of living pressures imagine how much more expensive it would be importing substandard protein and dairy at enormous premiums.
The devastation to our protein and dairy herds would be indescribable - mass burials of euthanised animals, years of virtually no domestically available meat, milk and cheese, and the overnight end to a $70 billion industry.
