Act now or pay forever: Australia’s escalating biosecurity crisis 

Australia spends at least $25 billion every year dealing with invasive species and the damages they cause. But the biosecurity threats and environmental risks facing us are growing faster than we can respond to them. We need an urgent overhaul or risk our country being even more exposed over the next few decades than we were even a few years ago.

Imagine a future where our farmland is so overrun with pests and noxious weeds that farmers can’t produce crops to supply domestic and trade food demand. Supermarket shelves would sit bare and we’d have little to sell to overseas markets.

Or picture a future where Australia’s unique environment that today brings millions of tourists to our shores every year was so damaged that visitors stayed away.

Either scenario alone would cripple our economy, let alone both acting in unison.  

This dark future could be the reality if Australia doesn’t improve how we handle our biosecurity to keep our country safe. 

Currently, we spend at least $25 billion every year dealing with invasive species alone and the damage they cause. And this estimate doesn’t include what we already spend across the entire biosecurity sector. 

In 2021 alone more than $250 billion worth of Australian assets, such as agriculture, forestry and seafood, were at risk from biosecurity threats – representing around 12 per cent of Australia’s entire economy that year. And that figure doesn’t even count the priceless value of our natural environment. 

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Despite those figures, the environmental risks to Australia are growing faster than we can respond to them. Even with what is arguably the most responsive, efficient and well-funded biosecurity system compared........

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