Canberra Airport biosecurity operations ready to protect Australia

These are their stories.

According to Nico Padovan, people have attempted to bring in a lot of items through Canberra Airport that you wouldn't normally find in a passenger's luggage.

"We had someone try to bring in donkey meat a little while ago," he says.

Padovan has been the man overseeing biosecurity operations in the national capital since the international terminal opened in September 2016.

While Canberra's international terminal may be one of the smallest in the country, operations at the biosecurity unit are set to step up, with Qatar Airways operating flights out of the capital from February.

"Sydney on a busy day will have as many passengers as Canberra in a year, but the important thing is that Canberra is a growing airport, and it will be much bigger over time," Padovan says.

Despite the announcement earlier this week from Singapore Airlines that the carrier will no longer fly between Canberra and Wellington, instead flying between Singapore and Canberra via Sydney, biosecurity operations in the capital will be unaffected by the changes.

Passengers flying internationally into Canberra via Sydney will still have their bags and goods checked before coming into the country.

In the little more than a year since biosecurity operations began at Canberra Airport, more than 2500 items of illegal food, plant or animal matter have been seized by biosecurity officers, with more than 700 of them undeclared.

The seized items are then taken to a storage room, deep within the bowels of the international terminal and far out of reach of most passengers. From there, the items are then stored for 30 days where they are tested and, if the owners are willing to pay a fee, kept until they have been fully treated.

In most cases, however, the items brought into the country are destroyed.

On the day The Canberra Times visited Canberra's biosecurity operations following the arrival of flight SQ291 from Singapore, among the items in storage were several plastic containers of dried food, a bag of black rice brought in from China as well as a large bag of small, green leaves.

Items from mysterious backgrounds, such as the bag of leaves, are sent to a nearby treatment room, where they are sterilised and cleaned of any contaminants.

When it comes to checking whether an item is safe, one biosecurity officer says the key is to look for any signs of movement. The officer says insects are a common occurrence in plant matter brought in from overseas.

Should that happen, the insect is placed a vial of methylated spirits and sent to an entomologist in Sydney for testing. While a large majority of testing facilities are based at Sydney Airport, some testing is carried out in Canberra.

Padovan says some of the most common items seen through biosecurity were wooden objects, and while those and other food items may seem harmless, they represent a serious threat to many Australian industries.

"The tropical fruit fly, for instance, can be brought in with fresh fruit and vegetables, and they could be harbouring diseases. If they get into the country, they could have a devastating effect on the nearby apple industry," he says.

"Foot and mouth disease can also be brought in from footwear [that have walked over foreign soil] or meat, which can impact fairly sizeable industries."

While a large portion of biosecurity work involves the inspection of bags, work for biosecurity staff begins before passengers have even stepped off the plane.

The plane undergoes a disinfection process, where the plane is cleaned of any insects that may have survived the journey on the outside of the plane.

"We also check if there's any health issues onboard the plane itself," Padovan says. "If there are sick passengers onboard we go in and assess the passengers before we let anyone off."

Biosecurity offices in Canberra operate two out of the four inspection areas in customs at the international terminal. The other two are occupied by staff at Australian Border Force, who are charged with searching for illegal items that aren't plant or animal material.

Before passengers are able to officially step onto Australian soil, officers still inspect most of the luggage manually, undergoing a search from many pairs of keen eyes and methodical hands going over ever conceivable nook and cranny.

Among some of the items coming off the flight being looked over by biosecurity were large bags of basmati rice, almost taking up an entire suitcase. One suitcase, both the main section and front pocket, were filled to the brim with packaged food from Asia.

After one passenger was made to undo a multitude of locks around their bag, officers looked over a wooden boat wrapped in plastic, before determining it was safe to come in.

Out of the hundreds of passengers who made their way through the biosecurity checkpoint during the visit from The Canberra Times, just one item was seized: an entire box of cherries, which was then unceremoniously placed in a biosecurity bin.

In most of the cases of seizures by officers, Padovan says a large majority of people declare the items upon arrival, the others being innocent mistakes. He says it's very rare for charges to be laid.

"It's when they deliberately conceal items, or deceive biosecurity officers that we go down the path of infringement," he says. "It's also the case of whether there's any commercial gain to be had."

Currently, the Canberra biosecurity workforce is largely casual, with staff also coming down from Sydney on occasion to help with the large operations.

As more international flights are set to fly out from the capital, Padovan says the unit is only going to expand.

"Certainly at the moment, passenger volumes are a lot lower than other airports, and that gives us more time and capacity to deal with passengers," he says.

"The airport has been designed from the outset for a much bigger volume."