Western Australian Biosecurity Strategy 2016-2025.

The purpose of the Western Australian Biosecurity Strategy 2016-2025 (the Strategy) is to set the overall direction for the management of emerging and ongoing biosecurity issues within Western Australia (WA) from 2016 to 2025. The Strategy covers animal and plant pests, diseases and weeds, and zoonotic diseases that can be transmitted between animals and humans. These have the potential to negatively affect WA’s economy, terrestrial and aquatic environments, biodiversity, agricultural resources, human health and social amenity. Chemical issues (including contamination or residue issues), animal welfare, food safety, human health (except issues associated with zoonoses), and GMO fall outside the scope of this Strategy.
The Biosecurity Goals are: 1) Enhanced partnerships and collaboration. Industry, government and the community are partners who understand and respect each other’s roles and responsibilities and Industry and the community play a greater role in decision making and biosecurity management. 2) Enhanced engagement. Increased industry and community awareness of biosecurity risks and participation in biosecurity. 3) Increasing use of evidence and agreed principles to inform decision making and investment. Government, industry and the community understand and apply the investment principles outlined by the Australia’s Intergovernmental Agreement on Biosecurity (IGAB) and State government resources are targeted to provide the greatest public benefit, and for agriculture, this is prevention and eradication of priority pests and diseases. 4) Effective legislation, regulation and policy. Effective and appropriate state biosecurity legislation exists and is understood by stakeholders, as well as the compliance framework is well understood, effective and efficient, and there is an effective control of established priority pests and diseases on land and water assets managed by government agencies. 5) More effective preparedness and capacity to detect, respond and recover from new incursions (risk pathways; surveillance; and emergency preparedness, response and recovery). 6) Community and industry understand and increasingly use available mechanisms for managing priority pests and diseases. 7) Biosecurity management is underpinned by science and technology based innovative solutions (research)