CBIS/CSP sensitivity: incorporating pre-border information analysis

The Commonwealth Government Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment’s (department’s) ability to implement intervention protocols has often hampered by a limited understanding of import supply chain characteristics that may increase or decrease biosecurity risks, compliance rates, and thus approach rates at the Australian border. Characteristics that may influence biosecurity risks and the approach rate of biosecurity risk material include, for example:

• whether offshore certification has taken place;
• the level and type of processing that has occurred; and
• the production standards in the country of origin.

The overarching aim of this project is to investigate how these diverse types of information and other pathway-specific knowledge, such as biosecurity-related costs and their potential influence on stakeholder compliance, could improve border inspection protocols, particularly the roll-out of the department’s Compliance-Based Intervention Scheme (CBIS). CBIS seeks to apply resources associated with inspections and other assurance methods at differentiated levels according to the likely risks posed to Australia’s biosecurity status for selected plant-products. The department’s current approach to identifying suitable rule parameters has relied upon analysing historical pathway data using simulation techniques; it has not considered how the rules map to the biosecurity risks on pathways.