Traveller found with holy water from the Ganges river, among thousands fined for import breaches at airports

More than 7 million travellers arriving in Australia last year underwent biosecuirty screening. (ABC News: Emma Machan)

An aphrodisiac made from donkeys, holy water from the Ganges river and a live toad are among the more unusual items retrieved by biosecurity officials at Australian airports and mail centres last year.

Biosecurity services, including 50 sniffer dogs and a number of X-ray detectors, are used to keep pests and disease out of the country and protect ‘Australia’s way of life’.

Last year almost 400,000 items considered a threat to Australia’s environment, tourism and farm industry were intercepted at airports and a further 50,000 at mail centres.

A further 76 tonnes was intercepted at mail centres, from more than 12 million mail items received.

The interceptions recovered via the post included turtles and snakes in Sydney, hatching eggs, donkey glue powder and alligator paws in Melbourne and dried frogs in Perth.

Holy water from the Ganges river was detected at Canberra’s airport, while dried duck kidneys were picked up at Adelaide’s airport.

A whole banana tree was intercepted at Perth’s airport and a live toad detected at Sydney’s airport.

A spokeswoman from the federal Agriculture Department said media campaigns and the reality TV program Border Security have helped travellers learn about their obligations, but officials can be met with tantrums or violence when recovering material that could jeopardise Australia’s environment and food safety.

“The reactions range from people saying, ‘well I’m very sorry, I didn’t realise you caught me out, no worries I’ll pay my fine here and now’ right back to bursting into tears falling on the floor, and then to the worst, when we have people trying to hit officers or being extremely disrespectful.

“Sometimes we need to get AFP involved,” said Vikki Fischer, assistant secretary of the traveller, policy and operations, human health, and response team.

“We do get the whole spectrum at the airport.”

With 19 million travellers arriving at Australian airports in 2023, more than 7 million people underwent biosecurity screening and 500 tonnes of “at-risk” material was intercepted.

Among the more common material confiscated by biosecurity officials were plants, meat, grains, nuts and spices.

In 2023, more than 5,500 infringement notices, which can carry fines from $626 to $6260 were issued for breaching Australia’s biosecurity rules.

But Ms Fischer said not all items that were intercepted, were confiscated or disposed of.

“There are provisions that you can get your goods treated, they might need to be fumigated or cleaned in some way, so yes there are ways for people to get things through the borders.

“It might only be that we need to, you know, we need phytosanitary certificate from the country where the plant product has come from or something like that as well so there are ways to bring them bring items through the border legitimately.”

Ms Fischer said the department had worked hard to promote the rules for travellers entering the country through various campaigns.

“I know, sort of completely ad hoc, we’ve had (TV program) Border Security filming going on and there’s a little bit of a disappointment in that we haven’t had a lot of good stories if you like to put on the TV, so I know that’s not an exact KPI that you normally point to, but it does indicate that perhaps the message is getting out there that we do have a very serious biosecurity system and that we are quite strong regulators,” Ms Fischer said.