Dear Minister Murray Watt,

Given the recent outbreak of Foot-and-Mouth disease (FMD) in Indonesia and in particular Bali, Australian farmers are calling for more biosecurity measures to be introduced at Australian airports to protect Australia from this disease.

At a minimum we want to see:

1. Biosecurity detector dogs to be rolled out at all international airports
   across Australia;
2. Screening and spraying of all check-in and carry-on luggage coming from Indonesia with a non-toxic
   disinfectant spray; and
3. All shoes being brought in from Indonesia via carry-on and check-in luggage and being worn by travellers are to be confiscated and disposed of by incineration.
4. All shoes (children's and adult's) are to be removed, cleaned of any dry matter and disinfected by biosecurity staff with virkon prior to entry to Australia. 

This needs to happen and happen fast. If FMD enters Australia, ABARES project it will cost $80 billion to the Australian economy, potentially causing a recession. 

Any animals with hoofs within a certain radius of a positive case will have to be slaughtered and incinerated and yet we cannot kill the wild pigs and deer at present so it will be almost impossible to stop its spread.

Minister Watt, please introduce the above measures ASAP and protect Australia agriculture. 

To see the impact of the FMD outbreak in England, please click here.