Federal Agriculture Minister orders review into raw prawn import risks following white spot outbreaks ABC Rural / By Jennifer Nichols
Posted Yesterday at 6:28pm
The white spot virus doesn't harm humans but is deadly to prawns.(Supplied: DigsFish services)
The risks of importing raw prawns will be subject to review in response to warnings Australia is being left wide open to aquatic disease outbreaks.
Key points:
An independent advisory group has been appointed to review the federal agriculture department's work on risk analysis for raw prawns
Industry leaders and experts say that all imported prawns should be cooked as a precaution against white spot disease
The Commonwealth and three importers are being sued by one prawn company that has been badly affected by white spot virus entering Australia
Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud announced an independent advisory group will review his own department's work on the revised import risk analysis for raw prawns.
Mr Littleproud said he had "enough common sense to be concerned" about what his department "has done", after the devastating exotic white spot virus entered the country in 2016 because of biosecurity failures at Australia's international border.
Deputy Nationals leader David Littleproud announced a review into his own department's work following the white spot virus outbreak in the Australian prawn industry.(ABC News: Sean Davey) in the Logan River and has been found in waters 70 kilometres away from the original outbreak.
As the virus continues to persist and now appears established in Moreton Bay, one of Australia's largest prawn farming companies is taking importers and the Commonwealth government to the Federal Court.
Should all imported prawns be cooked?
Raw pork, poultry and beef are not allowed into Australia because of the high risk of introducing diseases that could decimate local food production industries.
In a draft review of biosecurity risks, federal government experts have not recommended cooking raw imported prawns.
This is despite recreational fishers continue to use potentially infected raw imported supermarket prawns and prawn products as bait and burley, as repeatedly shown in Queensland government surveys.
In October 2017 the Senate Committee released the findings of Operation Cattai, a government biosecurity blitz.
It found large quantities of imported infected raw prawns available for retail sale between Melbourne and Brisbane and deliberate evasion of biosecurity and quarantine controls by some seafood importers.
This including washing marinate off imported product and importing uncooked prawn meat in packages labelled as squid or octopus.
White spot has caused billions of dollars of losses to the prawn industry worldwide since it first emerged in China in 1992.
The experts appointed to review the department's work will report back by late April.
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