Biosecurity Business Pledge

The Biosecurity Business Pledge Australia Launch webinar: Program overview transcript

(Duration 56 mins)

7 November 2025

Introduction

This is the transcript of the webinar for the launch of Biosecurity Business Pledge Australia. It was presented by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.  The online event aimed to inform participants about the pledge’s role in promoting proactive biosecurity practices across businesses and their operations and supply chains.  It targeted individuals, representatives from state and local government, industry representatives, business owners and supply chain managers.

Transcript

[Webinar begins]

Philippe Frost: Hello. Good morning, everyone. 

I think we are now live for the Biosecurity Business Pledge Australia launch.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I'd like to begin this morning's proceedings by acknowledging the traditional custodians and owners of the land and waters on which we meet today. For me, I'm joining you from Ngunnawal country here in Canberra. I'd also like to acknowledge their elders, past and present, and any other Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people who may be present here today.

I'm Philippe Frost, your host for today, and I'm honoured to launch the Biosecurity Business Pledge Australia with you. This programme is an important initiative for enhancing our nation's biosecurity and supporting business to embed good biosecurity practices.

Today, you'll hear from the team at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, otherwise known as DAFF, who are coordinating the pledge programme. You'll also hear from our New Zealand counterparts who will share insights from their successful programme and how this connects to the department's other initiatives to support industry. For any questions, please use the Q and A function at the top right-hand corner of your Teams screen and we will respond to you towards the end of today's presentation.

Now, to provide an overview of the new pledge programme, I would love to hand over to Damien Jeffs from the Department's Biosecurity, Education and Engagement section here at DAFF. Damien, I'll pass over to you. Thank you.

Damien Jeffs: Thank you Philippe, and good morning, everyone.

My name is Damien Jeffs. I'm an Assistant Director at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, and I'm leading the Biosecurity Business Pledge Australia program. We really appreciate you joining us for the launch of the Biosecurity Business Pledge Australia program, and we're excited to partner with industry on this initiative. The aim of the pledge programme is for you to protect your business, strengthen your industry, and ultimately safeguard Australia and our way of life. This will be achieved by participating businesses proactively incorporating biosecurity practises into their operations and supply chains.

It's also about recognising biosecurity is a shared responsibility and that risks are best managed before they reach Australian shores. The pledge program incorporates two activities. The first is taking the Biosecurity Business Pledge Australia. The second is joining the Biosecurity Business Network. By joining the biosecurity business network, you can participate in educational information sharing activities such as webinars on biosecurity risk management topics and practises and gain access to tools and resources. The pledge also focuses on promoting the importance of biosecurity to your customers, employees, suppliers, and stakeholders. This will have the added benefit of increasing the general awareness of biosecurity and why it matters to the broader community.

So, in summary, our objective is to reduce risk by implementing biosecurity measures to help protect your business from costly disruptions caused by pests, diseases and other threats. Support continuity with strong biosecurity practises that ensure smoother operations and greater confidence across your supply chain. Lead by example through the biosecurity Business Network and access practical tools to strengthen your management of biosecurity risk and promote your commitment by showcasing your biosecurity practises and share your experience to inspire others in your industry with branded materials.

Our focus is on education and information. We will be providing you with tools, resources to best manage biosecurity risk and support you in sharing the message about a shared biosecurity culture. With that in mind, the program isn't linked to any regulatory functions or will involve any form of audits. However, we are anticipating that by taking part in the pledge program, your audit compliance will improve in other audit activities carried out by the department. It's also important to note that there's no cost in taking the pledge or in joining the biosecurity business network. You choose your level of involvement depending on your own particular needs and your areas of interest.

We have developed the pledge program with a focus on industry. This co-design approach involved engaging with you early and committing to further development after listening to your business needs related to best practise biosecurity risk management, but we do have to give credit to our colleagues from New Zealand. We have been inspired by the biosecurity business pledge. In fact, we've modelled our programme to closely align with the New Zealand Biosecurity business pledge, and we'll continue to closely work with the New Zealand pledge team to develop shared tools and resources. 

It's also my great pleasure to have Debbie Teale, the executive director of the New Zealand Biosecurity Business Pledge, joining us today to talk about their journey, the program's value, and its successes.

The pledge program is also linked to the National Biosecurity strategy. The National Biosecurity strategy provides a collective vision for Australia's future biosecurity system, which is a biosecurity system that protects Australia's way of life. The pledge programme is an activity in the National Biosecurity Strategy Action Plan 2024.

Co-leading this initiative with us is Biosecurity Tasmania, who we work closely with. So, the pledge programme really is a collective effort for the benefit of Australia.  So, what is the pledge and how did we select the undertaking? We engaged with industry, including many of you here today, to create a biosecurity business pledge for Australia. This resulted in the Biosecurity Business Pledge Australia, a pledge developed for industry, with industry, for industry.

So, what does the pledge involve? The pledge has six undertakings. It covers topics on shared responsibility for biosecurity management, looking for and addressing risks across all aspects of your operations, taking a proactive approach to biosecurity risk management including best practise biosecurity measures in procurement processes, helping customers, employees, suppliers, and stakeholders recognise the importance of biosecurity, and working closely with the Australian government to strengthen biosecurity.

For some businesses, you may already be doing this. For other businesses, it's about undertaking that journey.  So how can you take the pledge and how can you join the Biosecurity business network? By visiting biosecurity.gov.au/pledge, you'll be able to find our landing page and information about the pledge program.

There you'll find that taking the pledge is easy. By clicking on the sign-up function, you'll be taken to a web form. The web form will capture your details, confirm that you are taking the pledge, and in doing so, agreeing to become part of the Biosecurity business network. On joining, we'll contact you to welcome you to the programme and outline next steps for participation. We'll also work with you to upload your company logo on our member page on biosecurity.gov.au. So, a key takeaway for you today is visit biosecurity.gov.au/pledge. We're really excited to start working with you.

So now I'll focus on some of the key benefits associated with the pledge program. By taking part in the pledge, your business will receive access to education materials through your participation with the Biosecurity Business Network. This will evolve and increase over time. Webinars around every two months that have topics addressing biosecurity risk and how it can be best managed, a CEO guide with insights on managing biosecurity risk, and a range of materials to promote the pledge programme. 

This includes merchandise that will assist you with promoting the pledge to your customers and supply chains. We'll also provide you with a digital toolkit to engage with customers and supply chains. The toolkit features the sub-brand we've created for the pledge, which you can see at the bottom of the screen there, and it will enable you to promote it more broadly. It should also be noted that program content will be guided by network members. We will listen to your feedback and shape the programme to meet your biosecurity business needs.

So, I'll conclude my overview by emphasising that we are looking forward to partnering with you and welcome your participation. We are also happy to discuss the pledge programme with you if you require further information or if you have any questions. To reach us, our email is BBN@aff.gov.au and remember to visit biosecurity.gov.au/pledge to sign up. Thank you. I'll now hand back to Philippe.

Phillipe Frost: Thank you, Damien.

Thank you for that great overview of the programme, it really sounds like there are many reasons to join. A reminder for everyone who is online, we have quite a few attendees out there. If you have any questions, please do feel free to submit them in the Q&A at any time, and our team will get them to us at the end so we can address them.

Now, I would like to hand over to our next presenter. We'll now hear from Debbie Teale, who is Executive Director of the New Zealand Biosecurity Business Pledge. She will share some insights into the development of the programme, and Debbie will discuss how the New Zealand Pledge has fostered collaboration between businesses and the government to enhance biosecurity practises across the industry. Thank you, Debbie.

Debbie Teale: Thank you, Philippe, and thank you also Damien.

And thank you all for being here today. It's very exciting to think that New Zealand and Australia can collaborate and work together to manage and really embed biosecurity risk inside of businesses. Damien, one of those messages you said right at the start is, you know, the best way to protect our shores is to keep pests, unwanted pests and diseases offshore, so supply chains are important.

Anyway, thank you very much for having me. This is very much an area where we don't compete. It's where we win together. This is about businesses being able to work together in a pre-competitive environment. So, I would like to talk a little bit about our journey, and I'm always open to lots of questions, so feel free to fire them through.

I'd like to acknowledge Jo Darby from Biosecurity New Zealand, Ministry of Primary Industries, who is also online today. She's here with us. Jo has actually been with the Pledge right from day one, so congratulations, Jo, all the good work we do. You were part of kicking it off.

We started in October 2019, and it kicked off in New Zealand. It's the same, we're after the same thing. Actually, here in New Zealand, it was initiated by a group of key businesses and there was a bunch of business association CEOs steered by, primarily Deakins, which is the Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand. And they got together a bunch of these business associations, and they were talking with Biosecurity New Zealand and they're saying, how do we keep biosecurity at the top table? How do you keep it in the company strategy? How should we keep this alive? What should we do?

So, a bunch of them formed themselves a steering group and Biosecurity New Zealand said, right, let's kick off a programme. This is what the pledge is today and that's what you are also looking at and launching officially.

So, we had a bunch of companies come along, and they really started with their knowledge of, this is about downsizing risk for my company. Continuity. No one wants to be the director of the company that imports the containers that have got the issues and brings it into the country. They also really understand that, you know, we're only as strong as our neighbours. So, if we all work together, we all do better. 

And whilst some companies, which I'll talk about probably somewhere later in the mix, will say, hey, it's not really us, this is all about port and egg and, you know, the meat companies and the dairy companies, it's actually about all of us. We'll go a bit further into that next.

So, what do our members love? Well, actually, our members love the fact that, with what we do, we have a singular focus on biosecurity, and that they get a real return on the investments that they make. Investment is not just about those dollars, of course, it's about the cost of even focusing efforts and having some of your team working on it. But our members really understand that if we have major incursions, even some smaller incursions—we've got a couple of things happening here at the moment—they could really impact individual industries or our economy as a whole. We're talking billions of dollars, and when you're as small as New Zealand, in an economy as small as us, it's huge. 

Our businesses come on, they're concerned about looking after their own organisation, their communities, the regions they live in, and the economy as a whole. They really value the fact that we've set up a network, and it's non-judgmental because we recognise that different companies are literally at different parts of their journey. Some have resourcing, others have nothing. Some of my most active members, to be honest, are the one and two person operations, the really small transitional facilities who say, we've got all these requirements. This is what we're doing. Can you find us some more tips on what we can do here? We really recognise that we're helping one another. That pre-competitive thing is really important.

I'll just give you one example. Fonterra, being our largest dairy company, created business travel tips. So, when you've got your people going offshore travelling for business, here are some tips reminding them what to do to downsize the biosecurity risks when they came back into the country. They did that, created the training, created everything, and supplied it and they gave it to us at the pledge, and we shared that with all our members. So, all the other dairy companies can pick it up. The whole thing about having this wonderful collaborative way of working is that you're supporting and you're equipping everybody, not just your own organisation.

I've got to say, our members really, really value having Biosecurity New Zealand, the regulator, as our key partner. We did actually begin as a programme inside Biosecurity New Zealand, and they've always supported us really deeply with both money. They share insights, they co-create resources with us, they give us access to different biosecurity spaces for tours for our members, because our members love to go and see things in person, because they like to keep it real and actually see something. While they're there, they talk to other members and go, “Hey, by the way, we had a terrible audit. We really don't know what we're doing about X, Y, Z. Can I come and talk to you?”

So, you're creating, at the same time as you're building capability within my members, my members are talking to one another and they're creating a network. So, we're increasing capabilities as well as capacity around the country, and with those people knowing who to contact in other businesses, they really appreciate it. Biosecurity New Zealand has been outstanding with us, they are, of course, the regulator. They sometimes come to our webinars, and they'll test something that they're developing, and business can give feedback.

We have this fabulous dialogue that can occur where business might say, “Yeah, but if you do that, you create X, Y, Z issue with us.” You know, that's a triple, that's a triple thing we've got to do now instead of one step. So, it's a really wonderful way of having government and business working together to strengthen the system together, and, in particular, our part. We know that Biosecurity New Zealand really values this work because they continue to support us today.

So here we are in 2025. Along the way, along our journeys, we started with 69 companies. Now, we were, it was voluntary. Our pledge and people signed up, much the same commitments as you're talking, so that's why I won't go over them. We built ourselves up to 450 members. We had a steering group, which was also volunteering, and it was on top of their day to day jobs.

Now, COVID, of course, came along and disrupted all of us. I was actually brought along to review the pledge. My background as a consultant means that I often conducted reviews. So in the middle of COVID, I took a look at it and saw this immense value because business was very much getting distracted, as we all were, with how to handle this inclusion, this health inclusion, which was, I have to say, advantageous for us because we used it really hard and fast as well to remind people don't drop biosecurity, this is what could happen, etc. So, I conducted the review and, very foolishly said, oh gosh, in New Zealand, the way that we work, the way that our budgets and governments work. If we don't find a way to stand this up as a stand-alone entity and resource it properly, it could get forgotten or changed.

It takes a change of a CEO, a change of a government, and we'd lose funding. So, for my sins, I delivered a report to Biosecurity New Zealand—hi, Joe, again—and the DDG at the time was Penny Nelson. I really encouraged them to, you know, go forth and multiply this pledge. Because when I was talking to companies, they genuinely were saying to me—and I always, I take fright at this—one huge brand that should know better, the person said to me, “Oh, we say we do, but we don't. Who can you put me on to? Because one day I'm going to get busted that, you know, in my area, we're not doing this properly. Where can we go?” So, I saw a real value in this pledge is that it's neutral. It's a neutral zone where people can come to. So, businesses do often ask me, “Where can we go?” 

What I was going to say is for my sins, and because I said, let's stand it up as a stand-alone entity, because if business wants it, it will also contribute. I suggested that we go forward. So, we are actually an incorporated society. We went down that pathway, and we registered in 2024.

I am now also the executive director, and I've had to learn a lot about biosecurity; it was not my background, but what I've been doing is helping get this network together where we build the tools, and we have that fabulous dialogue between business and government. So, we've got membership everywhere now, and as I said, we have small and we have large.

We've, we, what do they really value? We have webinars, roughly one per month now. Next year, we're doing a lot of regional events because our members want to get together in person. The different sorts of events we're doing—as we go to distribution centres, we go to the animal health labs, we go to the plant health lab, the airports, like we're going to Queenstown Airport and we're having the business associations join us. We've got a whole lot of things next year all around the regions.

The head of Biosecurity New Zealand is Stuart Anderson. What I've found is that if I collaborate with Stu's team in advance, as like we've already locked into Stuart's diary next year, that he can attend in person a range of our events. That's taken us a while to get there. Stuart has said it's a priority for him, because it's a great way for him to engage directly with business. So, we've got big businesses, small, we've got associations, we've got Science Institutes, so we've got a lot of knowledge there. Members love the fact that we co-develop resources. Damien mentioned earlier on, it was probably a couple of years ago now, maybe 18 months ago, I'm losing my timing, but we developed guides for CEOs and boards. We wanted to make sure you keep biosecurity at the top table.

What happened to our membership: when we moved to a stand-alone entity, we did lose a lot. We lost mainly the small ones that did not want to pay. And that's OK. Everything we developed, pretty much everything, still goes live on our website, so any business organisation can still access what we developed. Then we do have a members only section, which is for the presentations from webinars.

How do you, you know, one of the things that I get asked, is, how do you go from vision to action? So, I guess when I get this sort of question at me, there's two things. One is, when this concept came up in New Zealand—and congrats to those people that went for it and started it; I wasn't there—the 69 organisations and Biosecurity New Zealand, I don't think anyone at that time 100% knew what they were getting going. But they literally said, let's just start. Let's make a clear link to your business strategy. You know, let's make it real to business. So, we don't want an incursion. In New Zealand, directors' liabilities are pretty much equivalent to your health and safety liabilities. So, keep that clear link. If we can keep that clear link out there in a commercial case for action, as well as the greater good messaging, we found businesses started to really pick up and go, oh, yeah, we're in. OK, we're interested.

One of the things that also means is making sure that we've got resourcing. So, we've made sure now that we help our members deliver on their pledge commitments. One of the most exciting things that we've done this year was an idea around awareness. It came out of the way that we run our governance: we have a board, and then we have a member’s reference group. Members reference group said, let's have a biosecurity week. Let's do a whole lot of awareness stuff. Then all the industry groups fought over what that week would be, because we've got this week already in our calendars, we've got that, and we were listening, going, what do we do? Joe Darby—she's on the phone—texted me Friday night and said, “let's do a month.” So, we kicked off, soft launched one last year, this year, way more coordinated, and we had our Biosecurity Awareness month just before your Australian Biosecurity Awareness Week.

It was amazing to see all our big companies using all these social media channels, putting it out through their different newsletters, podcasts, like the awareness that we drove up, and then the traffic that went into our website. So, we know what tools then got downloaded. We've got posters and cards for this and that and all sorts.

So, look, I'm doing a heck of a lot of talking here, and I'm just really proud of you guys over on the other side of the Tasman. We are really looking forward to working with you, because we can develop and share tools for all of our companies—we're trading together so much. We've got members who will end up being your members and vice versa. It's a wonderful initiative. Business really, really value it. And I know that if the head of Biosecurity New Zealand is basically telling me a year out where he would like to have events and be able to come and engage with my members, that it's valuable to him as well.

I'm going to stop talking because I've just really went hard and fast at you. Would you like me to take questions now or later?

Philippe Frost: Oh, someone was going to say something, and I think we're going to do questions after, Debbie, but please feel free to put your questions in the Q&A.

I'd just like to say thank you very much to Debbie. That wasn't too much talking at all. It was really interesting to hear about what our colleagues are doing across the ditch in New Zealand. It's really inspiring to see the shared benefits that can be achieved from that open communication and working together to protect biosecurity. So, fantastic.

I will move on to our next speaker. It is my pleasure to introduce our next speaker who is Ben Rowntree. Ben is the director of Sea Cargo Policy and Strategic Engagement here at DAFF. Ben will be speaking on biosecurity interventions and detections, highlighting the critical role they play in safeguarding Australia. So, I'll hand over to Ben now, thank you.

Ben Rowntree: Thank you, Philippe, and I do want to thank Damien for inviting me along today and giving me an opportunity to present.

The Biosecurity Business Pledge Australia launch is very exciting to me within biosecurity. For me, I hope it brings biosecurity to the front of mind to more people, particularly those that are not typically impacted by the department on a day-to-day basis.

It was interesting to see when Debbie put up some of those members, there are certainly entities in there which I am familiar with within my role in biosecurity, so that is exciting as well. As Philippe said, my name is Ben Rowntree. I'm the director of Sea Cargo Policy and Strategic Engagement from Cargo and Conveyance Policy Branch in Biosecurity Operations Division. I know that's a mouthful. I live and breathe biosecurity day in, day out.

Today I am presenting on what I have been calling the biosecurity detections and social contract, or what I really mean is how everyone who interacts with imported goods has some biosecurity responsibility. Australia has key exports in agriculture and horticultural goods, and for Australia's clean and green reputation for good products to be exported, we need to maintain a strong biosecurity border. It is a topic that I'm passionate about, as I have within my remit two primary functions, one being sea cargo policy with responsibilities for import conditions of inorganic goods that may contain biosecurity risk material, but also including non-commodity concerns such as shipping containers and managing rural risks.

I have an engagement function where I get to talk to industry on a range of topics, biosecurity related.  But before I dive in, I do want to provide a bit of context for why anyone that handles imported goods are in the business of biosecurity.

Australia is a trading country. I'm sure you are all very much aware of the increasing trade and imports coming into Australia year on year. According to Australian Border Force, they are predicting an increase in trade of 70% over the coming 5 to 10 years. For the 24-25 financial year there were 4.5 million declarations of goods coming into Australia, which was an increase of 3.7% over the previous financial year. The department conducted 365,000 document assessments and 167,000 inspections across all pathways, so not just cargo but mail and travellers. Cargo screening resulted in 19,400 pest and disease identifications. So those are things that we have found at the border and sent for identification.

Within these numbers, there were 2.6 million shipping containers imported, with 681,000 assessed, or roughly 26% of containers having some form of intervention by the department. That means there was over 1.9 million containers delivered to importers' premises without intervention. These are containers that the department has assessed as of a lower risk for biosecurity concerns, with the commodity not being of a biosecurity concern and the non-commodity being able to be managed by an accredited person within the department.

On these numbers, if we were to inspect all these containers, it would take us an additional 480,000 hours of resourcing to inspect every one of these containers. So, you can tell why we actually only inspect the high risk, and we look to allow the low risk to go, but that doesn't necessarily mean the low risk isn't without biosecurity concern.

To avoid the need to inspect every container that arrives in Australia, we put in place some mechanisms to remove the need of 100% intervention. The department assesses biosecurity risks posed by imported goods from two main perspectives: commodity and non-commodity concerns. Non-commodity concerns consider the container origin, packaging, transportation, unpacked destination, among other factors in determining the level of biosecurity risk posed. Nearly every imported container carrying goods has to meet the documentary requirements that the container and the shipments are clean and free of biosecurity risk material on arrival.

The department then has two lines of assurance: a documentary verification assurance across accredited persons, and a cargo compliance verification inspection assurance programme as well, where we intervene on containers at importer's premises. Ideally, this should be sufficient for entities to understand the non-commodity concerns of shipping containers arriving in Australia and therefore have acted appropriately in meeting these conditions prior to loading, and in most cases, that is the case.

However, as can be seen from these pictures, unfortunately these requirements are not always met. These are pictures of containers and goods found with biosecurity material at importer's premises or later. This is where the social contract comes in with importers and other entities that form part of supply chains.

The first two examples on the top left here show signs of soil and seed contamination. The soil contamination can come from previous consignments or from dirty pallets or packaging. Heavy seed contamination is most likely left over from previous consignments that that container has held. Seed and soil can be vectors for a range of significant plant and animal diseases, such as our number one and number five plant pests, Xylella and Karnal bunt, and soil can be a vector for animal diseases such as foot and mouth disease as well.

The next two pictures are khapra beetle larvae that have emerged from the bottom of a container and crawled into a commodity—in this case, nappies. But we've also seen them infest refrigerators and highchairs in separate incidents. Khapra beetle is our number two plant pest. Over the past five years, it has emerged as a hitchhiker pest, with the ability to live inside shipping containers for long periods of time. Infestation of shipping containers is usually caused by previous consignments of infested plant products such as seeds, grains, and nuts.

In instances khapra beetle has been detected, it has resulted in significant efforts by the department to track down goods at importers' premises and in some cases when delivered to people's homes. The importer and other parts of the supply chain should be able to manage these goods. However, it does create significant amount of work and in some cases the department has had to come in and manage goods, and manage premises, including transport as well.

The fourth picture is a bird's nest, which is fairly obvious, easy to spot, harder to control while a container is en-route. However, it is important to report if a container is received at a premises with this type of debris, as it is a vector for bird diseases such as highly pathogenic avian influenza among other things.

The last picture is a good one, but it is very difficult to see what it is. It may look like seed contamination, but these are brown marmorated stink bugs, or BMSB. This was a container that had a consignment infested at the time with live BMSB. Stink bugs such as BMSB and yellow spotted stink bug are number eight on our national priority plant pests.

So, as you can see, all these pests are significant to Australia. These are examples of risks, both contamination, infestation, and hitchhiker pests. These are not exhaustive but demonstrate the risks and how the department categorises the risk. Other hitchhikers can be present, such as various types of snails and ants, just to name a few.

When ordering goods or interacting with suppliers, it's important to remind exporters that Australia has strict biosecurity regulations that cover both commodity and non-commodity, and containers need to be free of risk material inside and out prior to loading.

Onto some of the pests that we do deal with in a more formal manner year in, year out. As mentioned previously, BMSB is number eight on our plant priority list. It is a seasonal pest and a hitchhiker pest. BMSB are native to northern Asia, so countries like China, Korea, and Japan. But over the past 15 years and more, have become an invasive species in 37 European and North American countries. The department has specific import conditions for goods subject to BMSB that are exported between 1 September to 30 April every year. The requirements to treat these goods, as they are likely vectors for the pest.

In colder months in their native countries, BMSBs seek warm, comfortable places to overwinter. They congregate in large numbers and are therefore susceptible in being transported easily around the globe. There is a great YouTube clip of a farming community in Maryland, USA—it's about 13 years old now—where there was a farmer being interviewed and the BMSB are flying around her and around her face similar to the way we have flies in the outback. It gives you an indication of how invasive the pest can be.

BMSB is a pest we have specifically tracked numbers of detections since the 2018-2019 season. Last season we had particularly high numbers of bugs being found post biosecurity in traps around approved arrangements, ports, and importers' premises. So, it is a key one to keep an eye out for when you are importing goods, particularly out of Europe, the US, and Northern Asia. This is a key pest to monitor as you unpack containers. As the pictures show, they may be found in significant numbers and usually are.

For more information on BMSB and the import conditions and regulations for managing BMSB, you can find it on our website at agriculture.gov.au/BMSB.

Another stink bug that we have started to monitor more formally due to increasing numbers of detections is the yellow spotted stink bug. Yellow spotted stink bug has been an emerging concern over the last few years. Where three or four years ago, we may have seen a handful of detections, but we're now seeing it often enough that we are reporting on the numbers that we are detecting. This is another stink bug that is native to Northern Asia, China, Korea, and Japan.

We tend to detect these early in the BMSB season, so from September, October, and November. They have similar behavioural instincts to BMSB although they do not congregate in such high numbers. The types of goods that you will see these on are similar to BMSB with machinery, equipment and vehicles being likely vectors. However, in the last few months we have had detections associated with furniture, and previously we've seen them detected with caravans as well.

With increased detections, this forum is a great opportunity for me to raise awareness of this pest, to remain vigilant when handling cargo containers, particularly at this time of year.

So, what does all this mean? With nearly two million containers and increasing every year, not receiving direct departmental intervention, it is a perfect reminder of the importance of industry as part of managing biosecurity at the border.

All imported goods have the possibility to have a biosecurity risk contamination. Some, such as shipping containers, may be more likely than others. If you handle imported goods, you are in the business of biosecurity. When handling containers and cargo, it is important to remain vigilant of live and dead animals, invertebrates and molluscs such as snails, including signs of them such as egg masses, frass around palettes, plant soil matter, which can contain all number of things.

When talking to suppliers, exporters and freight forwarders that pack your shipping containers, please ensure that they are aware of Australia's biosecurity regulations, particularly those relating to non-commodity concerns, such as cleaning shipping containers prior to loading and avoiding situations where infestation may occur, including where a container sits during packing. Then when unpacking a container, be aware and vigilant of signs of biosecurity material and contamination. If something is detected, close the container and contact the department as soon as is possible.

The department has a hotline for when detections are occurring, for all the public. So, if you do find something, reach out to the See Secure Report Hotline on 1-800-798-636, or there is an online form that can be found through the department's website. This will ensure that we can manage biosecurity with industry as is appropriate. Thank you.

Philippe Frost: Thank you, Ben, for those fantastic behind the scenes insights.

I think many people will be surprised to see what is found at our border in the most unlikely of places and the interruption that this has on business. The nappy example really puts a new spin on dirty nappies, and I've also seen the video you mentioned of the BMSB person just swatting their face and the house behind them is just covered with bugs. It is a real scary sight, but also a great reminder to all of us, at the end there to see, secure and report.

We do have a few questions lined up in our Q&A, so I will actually go straight ahead to Debbie for our first one, and that question is: how do pledge members, Debbie, take biosecurity best practise from vision to implementation?

Debbie Teale: Oh, thanks for that.

Gosh, that is a really good question because also what is “best biosecurity practice” when you're across all sorts of industries, large and small? Look, I think I'll keep it really practical and then I'll talk about how our members can really contribute to the success of all this.

It starts at the board table. The board table—whether that's a mother, father, family operation or one of our large organisations—really need to understand what risk is and what it means for their business. They need to look at what their interventions and measures are. When they're engaging with us at the pledge and being a member, they share their resources and case studies, what works and what hasn't worked, because our business members are conscious that they need to build a biosecurity culture within their own organisation and then outwards into the supply chains, etc.

One of the things our members do as a way to take it from best practise and absolutely implement it, is they actually help us co-develop materials because they say it gets pretty hard in isolation to be constantly bringing through new things to keep it alive inside your organisation.

So, we get asked all the time for awareness tools, quizzes, posters. We've been asked to do things for our workplace members, where they've got people with English as a second language. So, we're, you know, one of the things we may get to is translating in time some of our materials. We get asked all the time for stuff in training because again, it's just constantly keeping it fresh for the front line. The people at the front line are the ones that are literally opening the containers.

But equally, you've got to remember, for a lot of members—for us, we have a lot of the ports and the airports on our staff—they've got people coming onto their workplaces, going inside. So, you've also got to make sure you're really looking out and keeping the topic alive for your contractors, your visitors to your site. That stuff around taking it and implementing it and keeping it real is, sometimes it's just little steps that you learn from another business and you take it. We had a tour of the new Kmart distribution centre here in Hamilton recently, and it is the latest facility with robotics, etc., and their biosecurity work and what they're doing at that major distribution centre was fantastic, but we had members with us, looking, they saw the visual management board that Kmart is using. “Can we pick up that?” Kmart said yes and sent through the template.

Sometimes it's just encouraging businesses to all take another step and it so it can be a small thing to take it through to better practise within a business. Exactly what this looks like—we don't audit our members. We're not about that. What we're about is all of us working together, collaborating. Our members help us develop all our tools. We test them with our members before we go live. If business is active, business leans in, that's how we go well, and that I believe has been a key part of keeping our membership strong. We had a company sign up today—hey Joe, didn't tell you we've got a new member today—and you know we're not even out there trying to drive it at the moment. It's still coming to us.

So, look, I thought it was a really good question. We don't audit them, they tell us that they're doing things, that's great, we don't mind. We are here to encourage and improve awareness, capability, capacity.

I'll stop.

I'll hand it back to Philippe.

Philippe Frost: Thanks, Debbie.

It's really true what you say. A lot of those little things, when they're shared amongst businesses and people, and then multiplied, they really begin to have some powerful effects. It's brilliant to hear that it is quite easy for businesses to make impacts in their space.

Another question I have now is for Damien from DAFF. This one is about success. So how will success be measured and will there be metrics or reporting expectations for pledged businesses?

Damien Jeffs: Thanks, Philippe.

Looking at this program, our focus is about education and assisting companies and businesses, so there will be no formal audit of the programme, but we do want to show success.

When we look at the pledge, there's two parts: there's the information we provide and there's also the fact that you'll be promoting the business pledge itself. When we look at metrics, we'll be measuring the number of businesses that take the pledge and join the biosecurity business network. We will, with your consent, look at your audit scores for other non-related audits that are undertaken because what we're trying to show is participation in the audit is helping you achieve better results in other activities. That would be with your consent.

Other metrics we're looking at would be the amount of education resources that we put out there, and we'd also contact you to look at how the business network has impacted your ability to improve your biosecurity practises. We'd be doing surveys, and they'd be generally on how well you're doing and if you've seen an improvement. When we look at the Biosecurity Business Pledge Australia and its promotion, we'll be looking at how well that's received in the community, and that can be done through social media posts. 

Looking at the program, though, it's not about certification or accreditation, but ultimately, we're in the co-design process as we move forward. So what works for business will be incorporated into the program, we'll be agile and make sure that the programme is best developed to meet the needs of business. Thank you, Philippe.

Philippe Frost: Thanks, Damien.

I guess off the back of that question, I think there was another question there about accreditation or certification. You've answered that. So, in the meantime, it is not that, but I guess, eventually could it become something like that?

Damien Jeffs: So, accreditation, no.

What we really need to focus on is the fact that this is an education programme. It's there to provide support or resources, and it's also a way to feed into the right people in the department. So, if there is a question, we have an internal working group where I can ask that question and it can be answered. The business network team won't be answering, but it's a conduit into the department. But ultimately, the focus is on awareness and education.

Thanks, Philippe.

Philippe Frost: That's great, thank you, Damien.

We have another one in the chat which has just come through. What kind of practical support or tools will be provided to help businesses and improve their biosecurity on the pledge, for example, templates, checklists, or self-assessment tools?

Damien Jeffs: Thanks, Philippe.

First off, the first product we'll be releasing is a CEO guide on how to manage biosecurity risk. We've developed that and we'll be looking to socialise it with our first biosecurity business network members to make sure it meets their needs and amend if necessary. As I said, we'll be agile to making sure the resources are best fit for our network members.

Then moving forward, we're working with the New Zealand Biosecurity Business Pledge. As I said before, we'll be working very closely with the New Zealand pledge team, but ultimately, we'll be engaging with our biosecurity business network members and finding out what is the most needed thing, and that will be our focus. But obviously, it's got to be practical, and our focus is on what would be beneficial. Thank you, Philippe.

Philippe Frost: Thank you, Damien.

Sorry, we had a couple of technical issues there, so you may have just got a little snippet of what Damien was saying. Our apologies. We do have a couple of issues in the system. I just want to say there is a shout out in the chat from Joe Darby at Biosecurity New Zealand. She wants to thank Debbie and Damien for their fantastic work and, you know, to have followed their journey over the last couple of months. Biosecurity New Zealand really value the pledge and the connected network, the opportunity to share learnings and opportunities and test new processes. So not only is this a thing that's happening in Australia, working together, it's also across a couple of countries and we're really sharing these learnings.

I'll just have a look if there are any further questions. Perhaps there's one more, we do have time for one more for Gayle. This is just a simple one, but who can actually join the Biosecurity business network?

Gayle Holmik: Thanks, Philippe. Hopefully I've unmuted myself.

Anyone can join. It's obviously very targeted for businesses to help them with particularly importing anything coming into the country to support their biosecurity requirements. We are going to be working very closely with our jurisdictional contacts and help to expand it across some of the state-based considerations as well, but really, it's open for anybody who's interested in joining and learning more information. If you would like to know more, just reach out to the team, and as I said, when you become part of that business network, we'll be actively engaging with you and you'll be helping to inform what activities we actually roll out for you and what sort of education activities and awareness we raise through the webinar, so you'll be guiding a little bit of that process for us as well, working very much in partnership. Thanks, Philippe.

Philippe Frost: Thanks, Gayle.  We only have a couple of minutes left, so I think it is a good time to wrap that up. I would like to give a big thanks to our presenters for all of their insights, and a huge shout out to Debbie and all of our New Zealand colleagues for joining us today.

For everyone online, I'd like to thank you as well for joining us to hear about this fantastic engagement and education programme that our team at DAFF and also across the ditch—we will all closely together with business to shape. I encourage you to visit biosecurity.gov.au/pledge to take the pledge, read a little bit about it, sign up and join a network of like-minded businesses who will be committed to enhancing their biosecurity practises for a safer future. Together we can all make a meaningful difference towards a resilient future for Australia.

Thank you all for joining us today. From the team here at DAFF, we will definitely be in touch, and we look forward to seeing many, many of you join the Pledge. So have a lovely week and lovely weekend, and we will see you soon.

[Webinar ends]