Recommendations

Recommendation 1 (paragraph 2.16)

The risk assessment methodology should provide for assessing risk considered over ten years as well as one year.

Recommendation 2 (paragraph 2.24)

BA should investigate changing the risk assessment methodology to allow for the fact that the total risk is greater, the more pests there are of concern.

Recommendation 3 (paragraph 2.40)

The IRA guidelines should state a clearer policy on use of probability distributions, and should explain it better to allay the concerns of stakeholders.

Recommendation 4 (paragraph 4.18)

BA should provide appropriate secretarial support to ensure that IRA panels keep adequate records of proceedings.

Recommendation 5 (paragraph 4.33)

The IRA handbook should have a procedure for handling minority or dissenting opinions on panels and reflecting them appropriately in IRA reports and draft reports.

Note to Readers

The Committee draws readers' attention to another of its reports -

Administration of Biosecurity Australia – revised draft import risk analysis for apples from New Zealand.

The two inquiries were conducted at the same time. There are some issues that arose in relation to both inquiries and the risk modelling recommendations in both reports are applicable to both inquiries.