Can pigs really fly, the Govt is worried that they can

Australia is worried a new variant of African swine fever will breach our island defences through the sending of gifts from overseas which contain pork products.

In the past two years, 42.8 tonnes of pork products have been intercepted on air travellers and 9.4 tonnes was intercepted in mail items at Australian borders.

Test results for samples of banned pork products seized in a two-week period during September in 2019 revealed swine fever virus fragments were found in almost half of the pork products seized.

Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said the next few weeks in particular were critical to keeping the deadly disease out.

"The reported emergence of new variants of the ASF virus in Asia is concerning," Mr Littleproud said.

"Variants are showing less obvious signs of the disease which increases the likelihood of it going undetected and uncontrolled.

"With Lunar Chinese New Year celebrations approaching, more gift items arriving and increased travel in the region, this is the perfect storm of risk."

The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation has issued a heightened African swine fever risk alert after the emergence of new variants of the virus were reportedly detected in Asia.

The Australian government is urging heightened biosecurity vigilance as a result.

Mr Littleproud said the government was "pulling out all stops" to make sure swine fever does not arrive in Australia which includes interventions at the border, targeted operations to detect fraudulently labelled imported product, and conducting more testing of pork products seized through international mail.

"Changes have been made to legislation to allow increased penalties for travellers who do not declare high risk goods at the border.

"Other legislation changes also allow the Australian Border Force to cancel certain visas and refuse entry to Australia for serious biosecurity breaches."