National Biosecurity Committee
On 1 July 2008 the National Biosecurity Committee (NBC) became the new advisory committee to the:
- Primary Industries Standing Committee (PISC)
- Primary Industries Ministerial Council (PIMC)
- Natural Resource Management Standing Committee (NRMSC)
- Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council (NRMMC).
The NBC was established to provide strategic leadership in managing national approaches to emerging and ongoing biosecurity policy issues across jurisdictions and sectors. NBC will take an overarching, cross-sectoral approach to national biosecurity policy, and will work collaboratively to achieve national policy objectives for biosecurity in Australia.
All biosecurity issues, including environmental, animal and plant biosecurity issues, will be considered by the NBC, with a view to resolution or for the development of advice to PISC/NRMSC and PIMC/NRMMC as appropriate. Given that the membership of the NRMSC and NRMMC represents both primary production and environmental, most issues will be directed to the NRMSC/NRMMC.
The NBC anticipates meeting three times a year in February, July and October/November.
For further information contact the NBC Secretariat.
NBC Update
The National Biosecurity Committee (NBC) met for the seventh time in Sydney on 3-4 February 2010. The meeting was chaired by Dr Conall O’Connell, Secretary, Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.
The meeting initially focused on the NBC’s sectoral committees’ work priorities and whether they align with current national biosecurity policies, including the Intergovernmental Agreement on Biosecurity. To start these discussions the chair of each sectoral committee (National Introduced Marine Pest Coordination Group, Australian Weeds Committee, Vertebrate Pests Committee, Environmental Biosecurity Committee, Plant Health Committee and the Animal Health Committee) outlined their committee’s key work activities, priorities, and challenges. There was also discussion as to whether the administrative and operational arrangements support sectoral committees in achieving their objectives.
Overall the work and operation of the sectoral committees were considered to align with and support national biosecurity priorities although a number of enhancements to the institutional arrangements were identified.
The meeting also discussed other key national biosecurity policies either finalised or under development, including the National Environmental Biosecurity Response Agreement, cost-sharing arrangements for transition programs, administrative arrangements for low budget national emergency responses, assistance for jurisdictions in response planning and policy activities, and a process to resolve interstate quarantine trade disputes.
The next meeting of the NBC is on 29 July 2010.