19 December 2025
Biosecurity Queensland
Department of Primary Industries
GPO Box 46
BRISBANE QLD 4000
By email: bqconsultation@dpi.qld.gov.au
To Whom It May Concern,
Re: Queensland Biosecurity Regulation 2016 Sunset Review
AgForce Queensland Farmers Ltd is the peak representative body for Queensland’s cane, cattle, grain, and sheep, wool and goat producers. Together, these industries generated approximately $11.2 billion in on-farm value of production in 2022-23. AgForce's purpose is to advance sustainable agribusiness and to support the long-term growth, viability, competitiveness and profitability of Queensland agriculture. More than 6,000 farmers, individuals and agribusinesses support AgForce through membership, collectively owning and managing approximately one-third of Queensland’s land area. Queensland producers supply high-quality food and fibre to domestic and international markets, contribute significantly to the social and economic fabric of regional, rural and remote communities, and play a central role in stewardship of the state’s natural environment.
Biosecurity is a constant and practical consideration for Queensland producers. It remains a core organisational priority for AgForce and is overseen through a dedicated Biosecurity Committee comprising of dedicated AgForce members, Electeds, and industry partners. AgForce has maintained a productive working relationship with the Department of Primary Industries and Biosecurity Queensland in addressing biosecurity risks and advancing outcomes that protect Queensland’s agricultural assets.
For producers, biosecurity is a daily operational responsibility. Concerns span animal and plant diseases, invasive weed species, and the impacts of pest vertebrates on production and land condition. Against this backdrop, AgForce welcomes the opportunity to provide feedback as part of the sunset review of the Biosecurity Regulation 2016 (Qld) (‘the Regulation’).
This submission follows and reinforces the points raised in the initial consultation discussion between AgForce and Biosecurity Queensland regarding the Sunset review on September 17, 2025.
AgForce considers that the Regulation remains necessary and should be continued. The Regulation provides essential operational detail to support the Biosecurity Act 2014 and underpins Queensland’s capacity to manage biosecurity risks in a practical and enforceable way. Allowing the Regulation to lapse would materially weaken the biosecurity system and remove certainty around obligations relied upon by both landholders and regulators.
In broad terms, the Regulation is functioning as intended and AgForce does not have large concerns with its overall structure or policy intent. However, it is evident that gaps do exist in how the Regulation can apply to third parties that require access to private land, including how meticulous those third parties adhere to their own General Biosecurity Obligation (GBO).
Section 94H - Requirement to Comply with Biosecurity Management Plan
A central issue for AgForce is the operation of section 94H, which establishes a requirement to comply with a biosecurity management plan but exempts persons who are required or permitted to enter land under another Act. In practice, this exemption significantly weakens the effectiveness of property-level biosecurity planning and increases risk of exposure to biosecurity hazards in new jurisdictions. While such entities retain a GBO, the absence of a clear, enforceable requirement to comply with farm biosecurity plans shifts risk onto landowners while removing their ability to require reasonable and proportionate mitigation measures.
Section 94G - Biosecurity Management Plans
Section 94G refers to “Biosecurity Management Plans”. In practical terms, the wording of section 94G unnecessarily narrows the scope of what constitutes a biosecurity management plan. As currently drafted, the provision states that the document must be explicitly titled a “biosecurity management plan” to be enforceable under the Regulation. AgForce submits that this approach is impractical and risks undermining
compliance. Many landholders maintain robust property biosecurity plans that are embedded within whole-of-farm management systems, quality assurance programmes, or risk management frameworks, but which may not carry the specific title “biosecurity management plan”. It should therefore be a requirement that any property biosecurity plan meeting prescribed minimum standards is recognised for the purposes of the Regulation, regardless of naming conventions. This would remove ambiguity, support consistent compliance by persons and companies accessing land, and ensure that biosecurity obligations are clearly understood and enforceable in practice.
To build on this, section 94G(4)(c) currently requires that any signage displayed at a property must state that a “biosecurity management plan” applies to the place. While signage is important for awareness, this wording again is narrow in scope and disregards existing property biosecurity plans. AgForce requests section 94G(4)(C) be amended, with consideration for the reasons outlined here and above.
AgForce reiterates that any reference to a property biosecurity plan should be sufficient, regardless of whether the plan is titled a “biosecurity management plan”.
Section 94H(2)(c) - Adherence to Property Biosecurity Management Plans
Section 94H(2)(c) of the Regulation provides that the requirement to comply with a biosecurity management plan does not apply where a person is required or permitted, under another Act, to enter a management area. This exemption has the effect of allowing persons and entities with statutory or legislative access rights to disregard property biosecurity management plans, despite undertaking activities that pose a material biosecurity risk. In doing so, section 94H(2)(c) effectively overrides property-level biosecurity controls in circumstances where access is frequent, compulsory, or operationally intensive.
While such entities continue to hold a GBO under section 23 of the Biosecurity Act 2014 (Qld), the absence of an express requirement to comply with property biosecurity plans removes any practical enforcement mechanism. As a result, biosecurity risk is transferred to landholders, without providing them with the authority to manage or mitigate that risk.
The lack of a legislative instrument to enforce compliance by companies with legal access rights to property biosecurity plans poses significant risks to primary production and undermines a landholder’s ability to negotiate and implement appropriate biosecurity risk mitigation procedures.
Cooperation from Third Parties
To build on the above point, AgForce members consistently report that mining companies, infrastructure operators, renewable energy proponents, contractors, and service providers refuse to adhere to property biosecurity management plans. In some cases, landholders have been refused cooperation when attempting to discuss biosecurity practices. This is particularly concerning where access is frequent, compulsory, or involves movement across multiple paddocks or along linear easements and rights of way.
Remoteness is no longer a protective factor. Agricultural land across Queensland is being accessed with increasing frequency by third parties whose workforces are highly mobile. FIFO arrangements associated with energy and mining sectors, and pre-work activity, for example, drill testing and green fielding, involve personnel moving between properties, regions and international destinations, including areas recognised as foot-and-mouth disease or lumpy skin disease hotspots. Landholders are not able to enforce entry conditions on such personnel and therefore are unable to manage this risk as there is currently no effective regulatory mechanism to seek assurances or declarations with companies that have legal access under another Act despite bearing the economic, regulatory and reputational consequences of any incursion.
Conduct and Compensation Agreements
Landholders also report that the labour, time and cost of access agreements, and preliminary activities, have increased significantly, while biosecurity protections within those agreements have weakened due to intentional stalling and push back from the third-party requiring access. Entry often occurs with limited notice, incomplete information, and no practical ability for the landholder to review or approve proposed activities. Compliance with inter property clean down procedures and decontamination are also either unknown or not followed.
The Regulation should better support the principle that the value of natural capital assets, property infrastructure, pasture, and productive land is determined by the landholder. Decisions about acceptable risk, mitigation measures, and land use impacts should not be overridden by third-party operational convenience. Biosecurity is inseparable from production, and landowners must retain meaningful control over how risk is managed on their land.
Chemical Use by Third Parties
Related concerns arise from the absence of enforceable obligations requiring third parties (contractors, Councils, renewables, utilities, etc.) to provide spray records and activity notifications. Landowners frequently report that spraying is undertaken under powerlines, around gas infrastructure, or along access corridors without notice and without provision of chemical records. This has implications for producers in reef and water quality management areas, with potential to cause breach notices, e.g., producers have been flagged for chemicals in water ways, despite this NOT being part of a farmer’s agricultural production system. This places landowners at risk of breaching withholding periods, export slaughter intervals, and quality assurance requirements under the Livestock Production Assurance Scheme and other schemes. The current framework does not adequately support landowners to meet their downstream compliance obligations.
Part 3, Division 1, Category 3 and Category 7 Restricted Matter
Further, AgForce supports amendments to allow greater flexibility in the disposal reuse of Category 3 and Category 7 restricted matter, where biosecurity risk can be appropriately managed. Enabling cost-effective reuse for bioenergy or other beneficial purposes would reduce compliance costs.
AgForce recommends that local government and DPI be given stronger prosecution powers towards State land management, including, for example, national parks, state forests and main roads, as they have equivalent obligations to manage listed biosecurity matter, including red imported fire ants, similar to private landholders.
Similarly, AgForce supports clearer and more explicit requirements relating to the movement of machinery from fire ant suppression zones. Machinery operating in soil and carrier material should be required to be cleaned and verified as free of carrier material before leaving a suppression zone. Clear regulatory requirements would provide certainty and reduce the likelihood of inadvertent spread.
AgForce notes ongoing frustration among members regarding repeated non-compliance with cattle tick movement rules and limited enforcement action. Consistent enforcement is essential to maintain confidence in the regulatory framework.
Conclusion
The Biosecurity Regulation 2016 is required to support effective biosecurity management across all land uses within Queensland; and AgForce supports the continuation of the Regulation. However, the Regulation is only effective when there is consistent enforcement; and where AgForce recommends targeted amendments to address exemptions that undermine property-level biosecurity. Such amendment will empower landholder authority to improve risk management over land access, providing fit-for-purpose regulation that recognises property level management.
AgForce welcomes continued engagement with Biosecurity Queensland as the review progresses.
If you have any questions or require further information please contact Daniel Counsell, Cattle Policy Director by email counselld@agforceqld.org.au or mobile 0429 649 881.
Sincerely,
Niki Ford
Chief Executive Officer