'A hydra with many heads': Australia needs better protection from bio-invasion

Politicians face repeated calls to reduce emissions and stop land clearing, but there isn't much public pressure for better biosecurity

In November 2018 the owners of the huge Ocean Monarch oil rig, towed into Hobart waters for maintenance, refused to let the Tasmanian Environment Protection Authority (EPA) inspect the hull for marine pests. One of the EPA's concerns was a foreign sea squirt that had appeared in Western Australia in 2010, invading seagrass meadows in Perth's Swan River.

In January the rig's owners, Diamond Offshore, said they would inspect the rig themselves and submit their findings. The EPA's impotence in this incident prompted calls for reform of biosecurity laws.