Federal authorities continue to investigate after Bunnings removed Chinese millet brooms from its shelves last week. A concerned customer noticed the item, suggesting it posed a “mammoth” biosecurity risk to Australia with one expert telling Yahoo News the incident is a prime example of “something slipping through the cracks” of vital government systems.
The hardware retailer and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestries (DAFF) are now investigating how what appeared to be rice plants from China, which could carry pests and disease, were in the head of the brooms which made their way into Australia. A customer, who was a former rice farmer, sounded the alarm at a store in the NSW Riverina region.
“It took a smart, concerned citizen who had experience in rice farming to see [and] know it was something that shouldn’t be there and to go to Bunnings,” Lyall Grieve from the Invasive Species Council told Yahoo News. “That was a really concerning incident, and it’s a really good case of something slipping through the cracks of the government systems, and all the things they have in place to control the risks.”
Australia is known for its extensive biosecurity measures, and while they hold the country in good stead by significantly mitigating risks, “they can’t get a dog to sniff every single envelope”, Grieve said.
Bunnings millet brooms investigation continues
Bunnings told Yahoo News last week the items went through a “fumigation” treatment before they were put out on store floors, and removing them from shelves was purely a precautionary step. It has not been confirmed whether rice plants were present or not.
“DAFF is still conducting investigations,” a DAFF spokesperson told Yahoo News this week. “Numerous samples have been collected and confirmatory diagnosis is in progress.”
There should be ‘no limit to funding’ biosecurity in Australia
The federal government has funded more than $1 billion over the last four years to biosecurity but Grieve believes there truly is “no limit to funding” biosecurity in the country, as there is “always a return on investment” — calling for retailers to invest in the process too.
“When you put money into the system, it will always come back and save money… it’s just incredible damage to the economy if we let it go,” he said. “It’s actually on businesses and retailers like Bunnings to do more for their own practices and have better policies in place to check and understand biosecurity requirements… the plants still shouldn’t have come through.”
Grieve explained “we all need to do our part” and reporting something that doesn’t look right can go a long way in keeping everyone safe.
“We don’t say every single person in Australia needs to know what should or shouldn’t be in a store, but as a community as a whole, biosecurity is a shared responsibility… we all enjoy the benefits of it.”
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