Viral fragments of foot and mouth disease have been detected in Melbourne’s CBD, prompting calls for tougher biosecurity measures from the Nationals.

It was found during a routine inspection.

The virus threatens to devastate Australia’s livestock industry.

It was found in pork products that had been imported from China, Agriculture Minister Murray Watt revealed.

The items have been seized.

In a separate detection, a passenger who recently returned from Indonesia was found with an undeclared beef product that also tested positive for foot and mouth viral fragments.

Nationals Leader and Shadow Agriculture Minister David Littleproud has hit out at the government for failing to move quicker.

“They weren’t looking at where the vulnerabilities were,” he told Sofie Formica on Brisbane Live.

“Today Murray Watt, the Minister, says he is going to introduce foot mats and disinfectant, we called for that 2 weeks ago.

“There’s been nearly 15,000 people come back from Indonesia over those two weeks,  he called the idea “absolute crap” at the time.

“This government has got to get serious about this – this is really creating a lot of anxiety in the agricultural sector.”

He says it has “disaster written all over it” if the government fails to take it seriously, and the government can’t be shut off to border closures when it comes to biosecurity.

Press PLAY below to hear what he says it needs to happen now