Biosecurity

24 March 2023

Is biosecurity affecting new cars? Yes. Globally, about 80 million cars are made a year and COVID-19 caused huge disruptions in the supply chain. 

Australia has rigorous biosecurity laws, and that’s good for agriculture and for the broader community. But we’re finding some countries (China is high on the list) are now sending over cars that have bugs and seeds, and all sorts of stuff on them. 

Some reasons for this are electronic parts shortages in car manufacturing, and supply chain issues over the COVID-19 years. These factors meant many cars produced overseas sat in outside storage areas in their country of manufacture, waiting for extended periods to have parts added or shipped. Some through a spring or summer period. 

The downstream effects of this in Australia are devastating, for consumers and industry. 

In Victoria alone, we have multiple freight ships sitting out in the bay waiting for bio-security checks to take place on a glut of affected vehicles. Bio security vehicle checks are laborious and a lack of human resources has meant waiting times for many cars is out by weeks – sometimes months. This is a federal matter and even though the Port of Melbourne has its own minister here in Victoria, bio security in all Australian ports is a federal matter.

While consumers wait for their vehicles, we have major new-car dealerships looking at dwindling floor stock. What’s worse is a lack of government intervention, in the form of additional resources to speed up this process.

And why is it in some Australian ports a car can get through an inspection process in five days, yet in Victoria the same process can take weeks?

This isn’t about the good work of the local bio security teams, it’s a need for the feds to get more people in there right now… or this ship is going down.

Words: VACC CEO Geoff Gwilym. As featured in the Herald Sun on 24 March 2023.