Dobbo Chats – The tick line (9 March)

0:00Welcome back to Rural Queensland today, Ben Dobin with you this morning, 9th of March. And there is a line drawn across Queensland that most people in the metropolitan areas, the cities, don't even know exists. It's not on a map, it's not on any GPS. You can't see it from the air. But for the rural community who raised cattle across this state, it's without doubt the most important boundary in this state, it's called the Queensland tick line. And right at this present moment, regardless of what people say, it's under threat. See, in the last few months, there's been a string of cattle outbreaks, cattle tick outbreaks that have shown a harsh light on just how messed up our biosecurity system is. It's fundamentally broken, not under pressure, broken.

1:04As of February this year, 212 properties within the tick freeze zone had been identified as restricted recorded, and only 39 were successfully cleared. And where ground zero is, is the Taroum district in Western Queensland. Now, we've talked about the cattle producers, the Pacta local haul that were furious to confront biosecurity Queensland officers and what they described as a broken, cattle tick system. Every time someone got up to speak, the applause was deafening. They were challenging the department's handling of the situation, and they said everything that need to be said. But let's go back to what the tick line actually means. And to understand the gravity of the situation, you first need to understand what it does. To put it simple, it separates two zones. Tick-free, tick-infested.

2:07Now, the cattle tick and the endemic was managed through ongoing control programs. And the freeze zones, where the ticks are not meant to exist, at all. So the line just isn't a regulatory boundary. It's a foundation for the whole southern and Queensland cattle industries, and it's been built off the back of that. Cattle raised in tick-free areas have no natural immunity to tick fever. When the ticks breach the freeze zone, and in fact, a naive herd, the consequences can be catastrophic. Now this is the worst case scenario, tick fever, caused primarily by a blood parasite. It causes a fever, and then it causes destruction. Now I can tell you of an incident where one by-man family in North of Roma watched more than 50 head die on Christmas Eve, as tick fever took over.

3:08This is an industry that needs to protect him. Now to the cost, the Australian cattle industry, from tick-related impacts, runs at in excess of $160 million a year. The figure alone, that $160 million, should demand government attention to be like fire ants. But the risks extend well beyond the financial. We've had Gareth Christensen on here many, many times, the Taroum producer. He delivered one of the strongest messages when, at that meeting in Taroum, by drawing a direct line between ticks and future disease threats. He said, quote, if you can't control ticks, how is biosecurity going to be able to control lumpy skin disease, foot and mouth disease, if it comes to Queensland? And that's the question that every single agricultural policymaker in this country should

4:10be thinking about at night. And it should be worrying them more than anything else. The tick line is not just about the ticks. It's a test on whether or not our biosecurity works at all. Now the decision, and this, all stems back to 2016. That was the year, 2016, when the Queensland Government, under the Palachate Minister, made sweeping changes to the tick, states tick management line. The buffer zone between infested and tick-free zones was eliminated, and Queensland moved to a simpler two-zone model. Now, the system of government regulated inspectors, backed by the department's stock inspectors, was replaced with a self-inspection model. So how do I think about that? The biosecurity system that had been built up for years, had been worked on, had worked,

5:12was supported by boots on the ground government expertise, was dismantled and replaced with a model that asked producers to police it themselves. It was destined for failure. To room in one day on areas who opposed this change at the time, have been 100% vindicated . A long time producer who wishes to remain anonymous said that they'd once successfully cleared all their properties of ticks and moved the tick line, but that effort was backed by a set of inspections and clearance under the department's stock inspectors. Now we have a self-inspection system, and it was never going to work. The government at the time, were they promised to maintain surveillance programs, to compensate for removal of buffer zones, virtually everyone working in the industry has not been kept. There's not enough DPI staff in the field, there's not enough proactive surveillance, there's

6:17no longer medical safety margins of infested and free zones, and tick outbreaks are occurring all the time. Now, this is a system that punishes the honest. One of the most troubling aspects is, if you're honest and you clear cattle properly, there's no incentive, and that's the drama. You move cattle after a single treatment and inspection, it's not strong enough. The path forward is not complicated, and this is the thing the government need to understand. Self-inspection models need an urgent review, the single treatment and inspection before crossing the tick line is not adequate enough, and safeguards need to be put back in place. We need government regulated inspections backed by properly trained, resourced, departmental staff, and they have to return.

7:22Meaningful, proactive surveillance also needs to be restored. Now, Doug Stewart is an accredited certifier. He warned that in the absence of the systematic inspections of surrounding properties, means low infestations could persist unnoticed for months. Ticks don't explode overnight. They slowly melt the fly over time, and before you know it, we've got a problem, and that's where we are today. Now, the financial burden on producers, who report outbreaks, must be addressed. Since changes were made to the Biosecurity Act, most of the owners are on the cost as managers and ticks belongs with the owner of the stock, apart from rebates or chemical costs. So you're isolating and punishing those who do the right thing in the fastest way to build a culture of non-reporting, and a culture of non-reporting is existing threat to any Biosecurity system. We need to reinstate some form of a buffer zone, and the decision to abolish it in 2016 has not worked.

8:22The industry said so at the time, and the evidence now is clear. So this is just not a worry about the tick line. It's a story about what happens when the government slowly and quietly withdraw from the hard unglamorous work of rural Biosecurity, and when policy is made in Brisbane for communities living a thousand kilometres away. It's a warning that if lumpy skin or foot and mouth arrives on our shores, then we're in trouble. Now, the DPI are trying their hardest, but they just don't have the resources. It's time to make a change. The Queensland tick line has held for decades because generations of producers, inspectors and policy makers understood what was at stake, and they did the hard work maintaining it. The institutional commitment has been allowed to fray, and rebuilding it will take resources,

9:25honesty and courage. We need the tick line. That means investing in it properly in people, a process, changing the Biosecurity Act, and managing it properly. This is our biggest threat. This is our biggest challenge. The Premier, it's up to you. We're going to take a short break, come back, plenty more to get through. This is Royal Queensland today.