The Queensland Government has announced it’s ramping up its response to foot-and-mouth and lumpy skin disease currently wreaking havoc in Indonesia.
The State Government has pledged $22 million towards new measures to strengthen action against the serious and highly contagious animal disease.
It includes $7 million for 10 “specially trained” front-line officers.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk confirmed Cabinet will be briefed on the package to tackle the new threats today, describing the diseases as “unprecedented new biosecurity risks”.
“We will recruit a specialised squad of trained biosecurity officers to boost our frontline defence against the diseases,” Palaszczuk said.
It’s understood the officers will be located throughout regional and rural Queensland.
“We will hire 15 new staff to support preparedness efforts, including 10 specially-trained biosecurity officers who will be deployed to the regions,” the Premier said.
“Our livestock industries are an essential part of the Queensland economy and represent thousands of good, secure jobs in every region of this state.
“Primary producers are fighting to protect every single one of those jobs and my government is behind them 100%.”
It’s estimated an outbreak of foot and mouth disease outbreak would cost Australia $80 billion, with fears just one case on an Australian farm could shut the entire livestock export trade down for a significant amount of time.
