AS part of its latest budget, the Federal government has announced a revamp of biosecurity funding in Australia.
While we do not yet have all of the detail of this plan, it is clear that farmers are going to be asked to pay more via a new biosecurity levy.
As part of the new funding scheme, the Federal government will contribute significantly more money to biosecurity.
With serious biosecurity threats on our doorstep, such as foot and mouth disease and lumpy skin disease, this is as important as it is timely.
Another key aspect of the new funding scheme is that importers will be asked to pay more and some will be asked to contribute for the first time.
Given that importers are responsible for creating most of the biosecurity risks - particularly the container trade - this is long overdue, but is nevertheless welcome.
The final plank of the Federal government's funding plan is that farmers will be required to contribute on the basis that they are the main beneficiary of the biosecurity system.
This will be via a new levy that will be equivalent to 10 per cent of levies currently paid on a commodity-by-commodity basis.
The WAFarmers Grain Council (WAFarmersGrains) has concerns with this logic.
Firstly, as a matter of principle, the cost of managing this risk - outside of government - should be 100pc borne by the industries that cause or contribute to that risk, namely importers.
Why should farmers pay for a risk created by another sector?
Farmers already bear the cost of biosecurity failures.
By way of example, we have seen the cut flower industry introduce fall army worm and Russian wheat aphids, both of which now need to be controlled in broadacre crops.
And graingrowers are already paying for biosecurity through their levies paid to GRDC and Plant Health Australia.
We note the budget actually increases costs to farmers ($47.5m) more than it increases costs to importers ($45.4m).
This is bizarre logic given importers are the ones responsible for creating this risk.
Secondly, we think WA graingrowers are being asked to pay an unfair proportion of those farmer levies.
This has several strands.
Of the $47m of new farmer levies, the grains industry will pay about $20m of that.
That is almost half of the new levy take.
This does not fairly reflect the composition of Australian agriculture, nor is it reflective of where the risk lies.
Will that money be quarantined to be spent on grains biosecurity, or will it be used for all agricultural sectors, such as livestock?
Will it even be quarantined for direct spending on biosecurity, or will it go into consolidated revenue to prop up the poorly managed Federal agriculture department, which needed a $127m bailout as part of the budget?
These are questions that need answering.
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Graingrowers already pay an enormous amount of levies, some of which cannot even be used for their intended purpose - including biosecurity via Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) - because they are tied up in inaccessible reserves which government is using as part of consolidated revenue.
Maybe these should be used first?
WA graingrowers already pay a disproportionate share of Federal grain levies - because we export about half of the country's grain and do not get back a corresponding share of services and because, unlike WA, the east has a large domestic grains industry which has a poor record of declaring and paying Federal levies.
This announcement amplifies this structural unfairness.
So WA graingrowers will be paying a disproportionate share of an already disproportionate share.
Our third concern is that levies are usually a joint initiative between government and industry with a mechanism in place to ensure industry money - that is, our money - is spent most effectively, like in relation to the levies funding the GRDC and Plant Health Australia.
There has been no such engagement with industry in this case, nor does it seem to be contemplated.
That makes it a tax, not a levy.
So, while we welcome the Federal government's push on biosecurity, WAFarmersGrains do not think that it is either fair or appropriate for farmers to pay the costs of another industry.
Accordingly, we would urge the government to rethink this aspect.
