QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Ms COLLINS (Franklin—Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) (14:12): I thank the member for New England for that question. I know as a former minister for agriculture he does understand how serious the red imported fire ants are. I would also say to the member that my office has reached out to him today and offered him a briefing.

I look forward to having those discussions with him or my department briefing him. I advise that the detection of the red imported fire ants at the Enfield Intermodal Logistics Centre at Strathfield is something that we are taking very seriously. We have acted with the New South Wales government.

As he would know as a former minister, under the biosecurity arrangements, the New South Wales government is responsible for managing the on-ground response and also for providing the public with updates, which I understand they did do yesterday. This logistics centre is a privately run facility and is responsible for upholding strict biosecurity standards in line with Commonwealth requirements.

The detection of the suspected fire ants was made on 23 September by biosecurity officers of my department as part of their routine surveillance work. The next day, 24 September, my department notified the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development of this detection. Following testing, the ants were confirmed to be red imported fire ants on 25 September—that is, two days from the first sighting—and all of the treatment works on the one ants nest that was located in between a crack in the concrete and the immediate surrounding area were completed by 28 September.

So we are taking this detection incredibly seriously, as you would expect us to, and working very closely with the New South Wales department. We've also invested more than $296 million in the current national eradication program, a program which I would note under the former government was being cut and had had cuts to it. Ms COLLINS: I say to the member for New England: he does understand how this works because there were similar detections under the former government, of which he was a member, and he would understand how this works as a private facility.

He would understand routine checks are done by my department. He would also perhaps be interested that we've added an additional $2 billion in investments to biosecurity because we will never compromise on biosecurity, unlike the former government that he was a member of.