Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Fire-blighted apples. Fire blight will end up helping to destroy the Tasmanian apple and pear industry. There is no fire blight in Tasmania. We do not have fruit fly in Tasmania. We are an island of the big island. This island, Australia, has fewer diseases and bugs and things that cause us problems than many other parts of the world. We are lucky because we are an island continent. But then we have that little island that hangs off the bottom, an island on the periphery of the big island. We on that little island have even fewer diseases and pests for the horticulture industry and other agricultural industries to deal with than are prevalent in other parts of the world. So we can say we are lucky, but we have to be very vigilant if we are going to keep them out. To let New Zealand apples come in will be a major step backwards and will destroy our apple industry. The state minister in Tasmania has said that he will propose legislation that will prohibit those apples being sold in Tasmania. I understand that he is moving that way.

The family of the President of the Senate, Senator Calvert, have been farming apples in Tasmania for many generations. The government have failed the growers in Tasmania and in the rest of the country. They have failed people in Victoria and New South Wales. I do not think they grow many apples in Queensland. We have a good pear industry. The pear industry will be destroyed by fire blight. I think the New Zealand industry still grows apples, but their cost of production is something like 30 per cent more to deal with fire blight. It would impose an enormous extra cost on a small area of production like Tasmania to have that within our industry.

Unfortunately, we cannot support this motion. We have pointed out the reasons why. We think that there is an opportunity to step forward, not back, but that the regulation is not what was promised. We promise growers that, when we win government, a Labor government will introduce the mandatory code that was promised in 2004.

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