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.
We conduct various types of risk analyses including:
- import risk analyses for plant commodity/country
- pest risk analyses
- group pest risk analyses
- biological control agent risk analyses
- weed assessments.
We collectively refer to these as ‘plant risk analyses’.
Types of plant risk analyses
Import risk analyses for a plant commodity/country
We do an import risk analysis for a plant commodity/country to determine if a plant or plant product is safe to import to Australia. We assess the biosecurity risks associated with importing the plant or plant product. Where required, we determine whether there are ways to manage the risks to an acceptable level.
Learn about how we conduct a plant import risk analysis.
Find lists of current, finalised and ceased plant commodity/country risk analyses,
Pest risk analyses
We conduct a pest risk analysis to assess the risk of a specific pest or disease across multiple import pathways. Where required, we identify risk management options.
Find lists of current, finalised and ceased pest risk analyses.
Group pest risk analyses
We conduct a group pest risk analysis to assess groups of pests across many import pathways. We also address new and emerging risks.
Find information on how we conduct group pest risk analyses and a list of completed risk analyses.
Biological control agent risk analyses
A biological control agent is an organism, such as an insect or plant disease, that is used to control a pest species.
Before a biological control agent is released into the Australian environment, we conduct a risk analysis. This is to establish that the risk associated with release is very low or negligible, consistent with Australia’s appropriate level of protection (ALOP).
Find information on how we conduct biological control agent risk analyses and a list of current and completed risk analyses.
Weed risk assessments
Before new plant species are allowed into Australia, they must be assessed for their potential to become weeds. We do this by performing a weed risk assessment. We do this for all new plant species proposed for introduction into Australia as:
- seeds
- tissue culture
- any other material for propagation.
Find information on how we conduct weed risk assessments.
Get updates
We invite stakeholders interested in receiving information and updates on biosecurity risk analyses to subscribe via our online subscription service. By subscribing to ‘Biosecurity Risk Analysis Plant’, you will receive Biosecurity Advice and other notifications relating to plant biosecurity policy.