Seafood lovers across Queensland's southeast are being urged to buy local with white spot disease continuing to threaten the industry.
Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Bill Byrne dined on prawns and other Moreton Bay crustaceans on Friday in a bid to convince the public they were safe.
Just 24 hours earlier the state government announced it had banned the removal of uncooked prawns and other shellfish from parts of the southeast.
The movement control will be in effect for three months and encompasses all of Moreton Bay, Caloundra to the NSW border and west past Ipswich.
It followed the detection of 31 prawns infected with the white spot virus that causes the disease, in Moreton Bay near the Redcliffe Peninsula and Deception Bay.
Mr Byrne said for the second day in a row the disease posed "absolutely no risk" to humans because it died during cooking.
"This is the time that fishing businesses in the southeast need our support," he said.
"Go out and buy seafood, go out and buy crustaceans."
Mr Byrne said until a week ago the expert advice was that white spot disease was "unlikely to sustain itself in the wild".
"That's where there's been such a (policy) shift," he said.
"My level of confidence of course is shaken somewhat by the fact that this disease has materialised so far away from its original point."
Prawn farms along the Logan River were closed from December 2016 following an outbreak.
Mr Byrne said while he couldn't guarantee its eradication, that remained the goal.
Information leaflets, pamphlets and social media posts will be distributed to farmers and southeast Queenslanders over the coming weeks about the movement control order.
Mr Byrne said the government would do everything it could to provide assistance to farmers but it would take time to figure out what was appropriate.
Queensland biosecurity officials will conduct tests along the state's coastline to see if the disease has taken root anywhere else.
Mr Byrne said he wanted to know if there were any other incursions between the southeast and Cooktown.
Recreational fishers have been urged not to use imported prawns as bait following suspicions the virus made its way to Queensland from overseas.
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