We develop policies that allow people to safely import plants and plant products into Australia.
Why we do risk analyses
When people want to import plants or plant products from overseas, we need to consider the biosecurity risks. Part of our analysis includes identifying the best ways to manage risks.
This helps us balance our international obligations against the biosecurity risks of importing plants and plant products.
Types of plant risk analyses
Plant commodity/country and pest risk analyses
Listings of current, finalised and ceased plant commodity and pest risk analyses.
Read more about plant commodity/country and pest risk analyses
Biological control agent risk analyses
Biological control agents are used to control pest and weed species in Australia.
Weed risk assessments
Exotic plant species have potential to become weeds.
Conducting a biosecurity risk analysis
We conduct biosecurity risk analyses under the Biosecurity Act 2015. There are 2 types of biosecurity risk analyses for the assessment of plant commodities
- Biosecurity Import Risk Analysis (BIRA)
- Import risk analysis for country/commodity assessment.
Biosecurity import risk analysis
This will be conducted if:
- the Minister for Agriculture or Director of Biosecurity believe it is necessary
- there are no risk management measures established
- there are existing risk management measures for a similar good and pest combination, but the biosecurity risk could differ from what was assessed.
Country/commodity assessment
If the criteria to conduct a BIRA is not met, we will conduct an import risk analysis for country/commodity assessment. Examples include:
- scientific reviews of existing policy or import conditions
- reviews of biosecurity measures due to new scientific information.
Find out more about:
How we conduct plant risk analyses
There’s a process for assessing the biosecurity risks of importing plants into Australia. Through 5 steps, we determine:
- the risk of importing plants and plant products
- whether they can be imported safely into Australia.
Get updates
Stakeholders interested in receiving information and updates on biosecurity risk analyses are invited to subscribe via the department’s online subscription service. By subscribing to Biosecurity Risk Analysis Plant, you will receive Biosecurity Advice and other notifications relating to plant biosecurity policy.