A performance audit of the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment has found the Department lacking in its efforts to stop plant and animal pests and diseases entering Australia.
Auditor-General, Grant Hehir found in his report Responding to Non-Compliance with Biosecurity Requirements, the Department’s response to non-compliance with biosecurity requirements was “largely inappropriate”.
Mr Hehir also found the Department’s compliance framework “largely inappropriate”; its arrangements for detecting non-compliance “partially appropriate”; its use of regulatory tools in response to non-compliance “partially effective”; and that it “does not use the full suite of available regulatory tools”.
“In the absence of frameworks, plans or targets to determine the desired outcomes of its regulation, the Department is unable to demonstrate that its response to non-compliance is effective at managing biosecurity risks,” Mr Hehir said.
“The targeting of detection activities is not supported by a framework to allocate resources to pathways or emerging threats proportionately to risk, but there are partially appropriate processes to target individual items and entities within pathways,” he said.
“Departmental estimates indicate that some detection activities may have become more effectively targeted, but that undetected non-compliance is increasing.”
Mr Hehir made eight recommendations to the Department, including that it implement a strategy for its use of intelligence in regulating biosecurity; a framework to assess and manage risk across the entire biosecurity system; improved governance arrangements for information system developments; a framework to support the effective use of available regulatory tools; implement and publish a planning framework; ensure resources allocated to pathways and threats is proportionate to the level of risk; establish a performance framework for biosecurity regulation; and put in place governance arrangements to oversee the implementation of recommendations.
Secretary of the Department, Andrew Metcalfe said the Department agreed with all recommendations of the audit Report and was already pursuing actions to address their implementation.
“The Department acknowledges the Report’s assessment and recommendations and is committed to continuing to strengthen regulatory maturity to meet Australia’s evolving biosecurity requirements,” Mr Metcalfe said.
“I have established a Biosecurity Strategy and Reform Division which will be responsible for overseeing and coordinating the implementation of the Australian National Audit Office’s recommendations, along with related recommendations made by the Inspector General of Biosecurity,” he said.
Mr Metcalfe said he was confident the Department was well-positioned to implement the Auditor-General’s recommendations and advance the biosecurity risk management outcomes it had achieved to date.
The Auditor-General’s Report can be viewed online at this PS News link and his 85-page printed Report can be found at this link.
The audit team was Jacqueline Hedditch, Isaac Gravolin, Sam Khaw, Ben Thomson, Corne Labuschagne and Michael White.
