Oliver Petersen: Australian correspondent as Anthony Albanese urged to shut border to Indonesia over FMD fears

Peter Dutton has slammed Anthony Albanese for not suspending travel to Bali, warning the Prime Minister “needs to explain” what’s going on.

Calling on Australia to close its border to Indonesia to stop the spread of foot and mouth disease, Mr Dutton warned any spread of the illness could devastate Australia’s livestock industry.

“I believe we should shut the border,’’ Mr Dutton said.

“I think the Prime Minister needs to explain why that has not happened.”

Australia remains foot and mouth disease-free for now, although fragments have been discovered in imported meat products. They did not include live virus.

New measures have been introduced which ensure travellers arriving from Indonesia will have to walk across mats to sanitise their shoes.

But the Agriculture Minister Murray Watt has accused Mr Dutton of playing politics with the issue.

He also defended the decision not to screen all tourists returning from Indonesia.

“We have never said that every single passenger returning from Indonesia is being thoroughly screened, taken away for questioning, having their luggage searched,’’ he said.

“You can imagine the chaos that would cause at airports. But what we are doing is risk profiling every single passenger who comes back into the country, and I’ve got some figures from my department over the weekend in response to those reports.

“Just in Melbourne Airport alone, just on Saturday, there were over there around 3,700 passengers coming in from Indonesia, who were questioned, who were screened, who had [their] shoes cleaned.”

Mr Watt said high risk travellers were being targeted.

An officer prepares to spray disinfectant on a cattle farm that has been infected with foot and mouth disease on July 22, 2022 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images

“And the reason those passengers were chosen is that they either declared that they had been on a farm, been near livestock, were carrying a product or something like that, or they didn’t declare it and for some reason in our risk profiling system they were picked up as a possible risk,” he said.

“So I know there were some reports about people who just roll in through the airport [who] didn’t see anything, nothing happened … I think they confirmed that they heard this specific message that we’re now playing on every flight coming back in from Indonesia, about the foot-and-mouth disease risks … but we don’t bother searching every single passenger because they’re low risk.

“What we try to do is make sure that our resources are targeted at people who are at the highest risk.”

Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce told 2GB radio that “it’s just negligent incompetence”.

“If the risk is there, you must stop it. You must close the borders. The alternative is that there is no alternative,” he said.

“People will think this is just about farmers – it’s not, it is about you and your cost of living.”

Mr Watt said Australia was trying to “target our resources at the importation of meat products, because – as I’ve said all the way along – while there is a risk that a traveller could bring this back from Bali, that risk is much lower than meat products being brought into the country.”

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