Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too wish to stand to make a contribution to the debate on the Customs Amendment (New Zealand Rules of Origin) Bill 2011. The bill amends the Customs Act 1901, which addresses the rules of origin requirements under the Australia-New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement, which came into force in 1983. The requirements are outlined in article 3 and annex G to the agreement. There are a number of specific amendments to division 1E of part VIII of the Customs Act which insert new definitions of, for example, 'aquaculture', 'manufacture' and 'produce' as well as amend provisions for wholly obtained goods. Although aquacult­ure was included in the agreement from 2007, there was no specific definition of what was meant by the term. While 'manufacture' was defined, a number of exclusions, such as restoration or renovation processes, have now been included.

The bill also amends the provision dealing with eligibility based on the last process of manufacture. It is of course very important that we sort this issue out. The modifications to the agreement are expected to lessen the administrative burden on businesses and assist the eligibility for duty-free entry of goods into both markets. It is interesting, I have to say, that we very often quote that something we do is to lessen the administrative burden, but in fact each time we say that it would seem there is an incremental increase in the number of public servants we have in this country, both state and federal.

The amendments will also provide greater consistency between the rules of origin in the agreement and those in other free trade agreements entered into by Australia. A review was commenced in late 2008 and completed in March 2010, resulting in amendments to the text of article 3, on rules of origin, and the related product-specific rules in annex G to the agreement. In particular, the rules for determining whether the goods originate in New Zealand have been clarified. New Zealand-originating goods are eligible for a preferred rate of customs duty. In most cases this is a free rate. And there are now defined non-qualifying operations listed which will exclude items from the preferential treatment.

So this is a very important bill, and the coalition is supportive of making sure all of those definitions are refined and the smooth operation of the closer economic relationship occurs. But there are very serious concerns about our interactions now and the trade between the two countries, Australia and New Zealand. One of these is very close to my interests, for example the announcement the other day that the Heinz tomato sauce factory at Girgarre is closing and will go to New Zealand. It will go there and work out of a factory it already owns, but it is going to produce tomato sauce and tomato ketchup in New Zealand, despite that country not growing the tomatoes which are required for their manufacture. So it is going to be interesting to see just how the country-of-origin labelling will work. Wherever the tomato paste is imported from into New Zealand for their tomato sauce manufacture in the future—whether it comes from China, South Africa, Chile or wherever the cheapest going rate for the commodity is for the year—it will be very important that our country-of-origin information on those labels reflects absolutely and accurately all of the realities about that Big Red Tomato Sauce bottle sitting on the barbecue. Clearly, there are all sorts of interesting ways that one could understand a marketing advantage, if there is in fact a label which simply says 'Product of New Zealand'.

We also have a major concern in Australia right now about how our closer economic relationship is working and how, despite us having this extraordinarily close relationship with New Zealand, both countries still must be guardians of their quarantine status. In the case of Australia we are an island nation—as is New Zealand—but our quarantine services have managed to guard us from so many diseases which sadly, indeed tragically for New Zealand, has not been their experience. For example, New Zealand almost a century ago had the dreaded apple fire blight come into their country—probably from plant stock from the United States. The disease is one of the serious problems for pome fruit, and it also affects rosaceae species—and in Australia that includes a number of native species besides your good old-fashioned rose bush growing in your garden. Plants like cotoneaster are also vulnerable to fire blight. We had an extraordinary situation in Australia some 12 or 13 years ago, so we know what it feels like to have an incursion of fire blight, in Victoria at least. We know the costs to the industry. We know the damage it does to the reputation of apple and pear producers.

I stress the word 'pear' because unfortunately fire blight does not simply affect apples. We know that you can have an apple industry with fire blight—obviously New Zealand is an example of this. Fire blight affects the apple orchards of lots of countries around the world, and those countries continue to have a viable industry. But you do not have viable pear industries where you have fire blight. With apples, you can just keep chainsawing off the dead and dying limbs that have been affected by the bacteria, but when it comes to pears the tree is killed.

In my electorate of Murray we grow 80 per cent of Australia's pears. We also grow a substantial proportion of the apples of the nation. The pears are vital for our fruit manufacturing. They are the equivalent of the building block of much of our manufactured food product, whether it is baby foods, sauces or preserved fruits. If we have our pear trees, our pear orchards, wiped out by this disease, there are serious implications for fruit and food manufacturing in the 23 food factories in my electorate. We employ thousands of people, not just directly as they move a product from farm to factory but also in transporting that product to the markets around Australia and indeed to the rest of the world.

Pears are vital to the continuing viability of Australia's food manufacturing. Pears are killed by the apple fire blight disease. It is not just a case of getting out the chainsaw and regularly cutting your trees where the fire blight affects them. It is not a case either of saturating the trees with streptomycin sprays, which is what New Zealand does. In Australia we are very fussy about the chemicals that we put on our plants and that we might inoculate our animals with and we do not want to have to use streptomycin, currently a prohibited substance in our orchards on our food products. But that is what the New Zealanders are forced to do to try and keep their disease in check.

Also, it is not just a case of our orchards being vulnerable. We have a Mediterranean climate in northern Victoria—and in places like Harcourt, in the seat of Bendigo, where of course those apple orchardists are absolutely beside themselves about the decision of this government to allow imports of fresh apples to Australia. We also have a huge threat to crop pollination through the demise of our bee industry. The apiculture industry is at risk from fire blight. Any outbreak would potentially devastate the livelihood of the hundreds of commercial beekeepers in Australia. Worse than that, it would wipe out our capacity to naturally pollinate our commercial and non-commercial species throughout Australia.

Honey bees are the major vector for fire blight bacteria spores. Just as pollen grains adhere to the bees' bodies, so too do the fire blight bacterial spores. They are spread from flower to flower, from orchard to orchard and from bee to bee. There is a fire blight contingency plan in Australia. It was developed prior to the 1997 scare, which I have referred to. The fire blight contingency plan for Australia calls for the destruction of all beehives in a declared fire blight quarantine area.

Honey bees, as I am sure most of us in this chamber know, are the efficient pollinators of food crops for Australia. Currently there are over 40,000 managed beehives engaged in contract pollination across Victoria. That includes crops of apples, pears, almonds, cherries, kiwifruit and a whole range of small seeds and nuts. The almond industry in particular is totally dependent on bee pollination. We had a major disaster recently with beehive popul­ations being killed by the floods, and we are already suffering the consequences of that as we wait for those hives to be rebuilt. Imagine the disaster: fire blight in Australia equals the destruction of beehives in the pome fruit areas.

The apiculture industry is extraordinarily exercised and concerned about this problem. Streptomycin—which is, as I have said, an accepted form of antibiotic control for fire blight in New Zealand—also poses a major risk to the apiculture, or beekeeping, industry. This antibiotic control, if it were to be allowed into Australia, would be a major problem for the bee industry. This antibiotic has been banned in Australia for the treatment of bee diseases for many years. Streptomycin does not break down. If sprayed on fruit blossoms it would be collected by honey bees in the nectar secreted by the plant and become a chemical contaminant in the honey. In addition to the negative impact of fire blight on beekeepers' livelihoods, which is one thing, this contaminant would also damage the clean image of Australia's honey in both domestic and export markets.

Fire blight is not just a problem for the pome fruit industry of Australia, particularly pears but, of course, also apples. It is a problem because fresh fruit imports from New Zealand also carry other pest species. They were well understood and explained in the WTO investigations, plus the appeals which the Australian government brought when we lost the case initially for trying to ban fresh apple imports from New Zealand. Those other pest species, if they got out of control, would affect not just the pome fruit industry but also cereals and other horticultural crops—a serious problem for us.

We are devastated by the idea that we should have MAF, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in New Zealand, in charge of the process—apparently—of oversighting merely the domestic protocols that are to be put into force in New Zealand. Whatever the orchards have to do to sell their boxes of apples from Auckland to Wellington, apparently those same rules and procedures will be okay when the product is sent across to Australia. We find this a complete abrogation of the responsibility of a country. Never before has the Australian government allowed the domestic protocols existing in a country to be used as the export protocol equivalency.

We just wonder: was it to do with that speech the Prime Minister made and got the standing ovation for in the parliament of New Zealand a few months ago? Is that why this government has capitulated and allowed the local primary producers of apples in New Zealand to simply stick the fruit in a box, with a bit of trash if it happens to be there, plonk it on a truck and then into a container to send it across the sea with the fresh apple and accompanying bacterial spores ready for release into the Australian environment? It is a shocking dilemma for Australian primary producers. I have recommendations from the Turnbull Brothers Orchards, particularly Chris Turnbull. His recommendations are about the quarantine practices that would replace the domestic protocols which this government has said it does not really care about or is not fussed about—'They will do.' He says there must be more inspections of New Zealand orchards, increasing inspect­ions from one to three between flowering and harvesting to ensure there are no outbreaks of fire blight or european canker in the months before Biosecurity Australia's proposed single inspection. Blocks where there are symptoms of fire blight or evidence of fire blight being removed should be excluded from export to Australia. Blocks where there has been an outbreak of fire blight should be excluded from the Australian market for two years. Packing lines should be fully disinfected by steam cleaning before being used to pack fruit for Australia. He recommends more rigorous inspections for potentially bacteria-carrying plant trash, an increase in the rate of inspections from 600 apples to 600 cartons, and scientific investigation to determine the actual risks of fire blight and european canker in areas of New Zealand where Biosecurity Australia currently guesses the risk.

The Turnbull Brothers have been established since 1892 with orchards in the Goulburn Valley. They know their business. They are committed to intergenerational growing of fruit which is healthy with a clean green image and where the orchard can be sustained year after year because it is healthy and does not require the use of currently condemned chemicals. So we have here Mr Chris Turnbull proposing other measures.

Today in this parliament we have had the Quarantine Legislation Amendment (Apples) Bill put forward by the shadow agriculture minister calling for a disallowable instrument in a desperate move to try and get this government to see reason, not to expose our country to a disease which is incurable, has never been cured in any country where it has taken hold. We have fresh apple imports from China. It is not the issue of fresh apple imports that is the problem; it is the importation of fruit which is a known carrier of an incurable disease and a bacteria which will feel very at home once it is able to get loose into our Australian Mediterranean climate.

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