After a huge increase in exotic pests and diseases, Australian agriculture and environmentalists are demanding more focus on biosecurity.

The past five years of failures ranges from the attacking red fire ants, banana diseases, myrtle rust and a melon disease to an exotic disease in Queensland's prawn farms.

Global movement of goods and people is partly to blame, but the blame is also being levelled at reduced spending and staff cutbacks by state and federal governments.

White spot destroys prawn farms

It has taken less than three months for white spot disease to infect all seven prawn farms on the Logan River in Queensland, between Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

A devastated Serena Zipf watched authorities sterilise her the ponds with chlorine.

"What happens after this is that we have to assess what future we have, if any, in this industry," she said.

While white spot is harmless to people, it has now wiped out all prawn farms in south-east Queensland — the farms have a combined sale value of $25 million.

The area supplies a third of Australia's farmed prawns.

Authorities have traced the disease back to imported frozen Asian prawns.

Despite that, it took two months from the first outbreak in November for the Federal Government to ban imports of these prawns.

That angered the industry, which said it had warned authorities about the risk for decades.

"The department is relying on a 2009 import risk assessment," Ms Zipf said.

"We questioned them about that and they categorically said there would be no review."

A Senate inquiry will now ask biosecurity officials to account for the outbreak.

Global movements and funding cuts a threat to biosecurity

The global movement of goods, food and people has increased at the same time as there have been cuts to scientific research and staff in biosecurity.

A review of Australia's Intergovernmental Agreement on Biosecurity, the so-called IGAB review that received submissions from government, industry, researchers and the community, analysed the past five years.

"There's broad concern that existing funding and resourcing are inadequate and ad hoc, and if continued won't support the national biosecurity system into the future," the IGAB report stated.

Plant Biosecurity Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) chief executive Michael Robinson said the review had confirmed funding cuts were having an impact on biosecurity.

"We have a tight economic environment. Our Commonwealth and states are not strengthening the biosecurity system," he said.

"We have capacity decline, with age profile and lack of renewal in technical skills and globalisation, which increases the risk of pests entering the country."

Dr Robinson said there was "a significant cliff looming" with research funding ending for the Plant Biosecurity CRC in mid-2018.

He said the federal Department of Agriculture and Water Resources (DAWR) had told him a serious pest threat was stopped at the border each week.

The tomato potato psyllid is impacting potato growers. ( Supplied: Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia )

State Government cuts result in loss of specialists

The IGAB review found there had been a 26 per cent cut in staff numbers in Queensland during Campbell Newman's time as premier between 2012-2015.

Between 2009-2015 there was a 49 per cent cut to Victoria's recurrent funding to core livestock biosecurity activities, which resulted in a loss of staff and specialists.

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A Senate committee in 2015 suggested the effective operation of national biosecurity system was threatened by a lack of resources, including within the Federal Government departments of agriculture and environment, and the CSIRO.

The International Organisation for Animal Health in May identified inadequate veterinary staffing levels in Australia.

Within that time, eastern states have built state-of-the-art biosecurity research facilities.

These include the Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural Institute in NSW, Victoria's AgriBio centre for agricultural biosciences linked with the Department of Primary Industries and La Trobe University, and Queensland's $270m Ecoscience facility for more than 1,000 scientists with the CSIRO, Queensland Government and University of Queensland.

But Dr Robinson said many of the offices were empty, and needed recurrent funding.

"On paper it looks fantastic, but the biosecurity community's concerns is that there is not the operational funding to fully utilise those facilities," he said.

"Secondly, we've got three really high-quality national facilities up and down the east coast that were developed without national coordination."

Authorities imposed quarantine conditions after an outbreak of cucumber green mottle mosaic virus in the Northern Territory. ( ABC Rural: Daniel Fitzgerald )

Agricultural industries demand greater role in biosecurity

Governments and agriculture industries spend about $650 million on biosecurity, the IGAB review found.

That figure includes $300 million in cost-recovered funds, which are collected by governments in biosecurity services to industry.

But the total picture is unclear and the report recommends that a stocktake be done each year.

Since 2012, Australia's system of biosecurity has been based on shared responsibility, but recent cases of hostility between the DAWR and industry demonstrate stakeholders want a greater say.

The Australian Horticultural Exporters Association (AHEA) is furious that DAWR has not properly consulted it on phasing out offshore pest inspectors (OPI).

ABC Rural has seen a letter from the department, which states:

"The department does not view OPI in itself as a biosecurity measure. Risk profiles are well understood … and non-compliances can be managed on arrival in Australia."

Industry based on pre-clearance programs

Fruit importer and head of the AHEA Joseph Saina said it caused congestion and costly delays, and there were risks from importing from other countries.

"The plan by the department is to withdraw their offshore pre-clearance inspectors who pre-clear fresh fruits and vegetables intended for Australia from three countries — New Zealand, USA and China," Mr Saina said.

"It's not all items, but most. Those pre-clearance programs are very efficient. Our industry is based on them.

"We feel they do a great job in keeping pest risks and disease risks away from our shores.

"For example, the US has a glassy wing sharpshooter which carries infection, and the psyllid carries citrus greening disease.

"There are some serious bugs in the US that we don't want."

The Invasive Species Council says the response to the fungal disease myrtle rust has been inadequate. ( Supplied: Biosecurity Tasmania/DPIPWE )

Call for permanent biosecurity research institute

There is a growing call for a permanent institute to coordinate research into exotic pest and disease threats.

It comes as the funding for the Plant Biosecurity CRC is due to end in 2018.

"The proposal we have put is on plant biosecurity, based on a $40m entity, of which the Commonwealth would provide $10 million," Dr Robinson said.

"Industry would provide another $10 million, states would provide another $10 million [and] research organisations like CSIRO and universities and overseas would provide another $10 million."

Environment also at risk

Agriculture biosecurity gets industry funding, but the environment falls through the cracks, according to the IGAB review.

Andrew Cox, from advocacy group the Invasive Species Council, is pleased there is that recognition regarding the environment.

"There's a serious threat from acacia rust. We've already seen myrtle rust arrive and the response has been very inadequate — it affects our eucalypts," he said.

"We're worried about acacia rust. There's no response plan ready to go for that, and Australia could lose many of its acacia species.

"There was a new invasive species in Victoria called the smooth newt. It's a totally new type of amphibian.

"The response was to do nothing.

"Unlike the very quick and very expensive response the Queensland Government has made to the white spot disease for prawns, the smooth newt could rival cane toads, yet nothing happens.

"It's just pathetic."

Public comment on the review into biosecurity is open until the end of February.