Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It was Yogi Berra, the famous American baseball catcher, who gave us the phrase, 'It's just like deja vu all over again.' It feels like that to me, because in 2011 I gave a number of speeches in this place urging the APVMA to register the new treatment for mouse plagues along with the deregistration of strychnine for farmers. I was pretty frustrated with their sluggishness at the time, but eventually we got there, and a product, zinc phosphide 25, was registered for use.

Over the years, some suspicions were raised amongst growers that the formulation was sublethal. Of course, the problem with the sublethal dose is that a mouse will eat one grain of wheat, get poisoned, get very sick, recover, and then not go near another grain of poisoned wheat. So the GRDC, the Grains Research and Development Corporation, commissioned the CSIRO to conduct trials on a higher rate of zinc phosphide—zinc phosphide 50.

At the height of the 2021 plague—and some of you might remember the pictures of it from central New South Wales—a temporary permit was granted for zinc phosphide 50 on the back of the research that GRDC and CSIRO had undertaken. Grain Producers Australia were the peak grains body that were entrusted with the coordinated rollout of the new treatment.

I was a farmer for a long time before I got here—30 years, in fact—and I can remember losing hundreds of hectares of crop to mice. It's a fascinating thing. You can't even see where the row is, but the mice know where the row is, and they'll go through and take grain after grain after grain, leaving hundreds of holes.

The zinc phosphide proved to be an improved mixture, and there has been no reported off-target damage. So it's a good thing. The permit was subsequently renewed on an annual basis until late last year. Then, suddenly, the answer from the APVMA was 'No'. Granted it's a slightly different permit, going from being an emergency permit to a minor use one, but the use is the same. As we've had no ill reports, it is a bit bemusing as to why they might have done that, as we're always only this far from a plague. A female mouse can deliver as many as 10 new mice every 20 days and become pregnant virtually as soon as she has given birth. They make rabbits look highly inefficient in this area.

The GRDC have ploughed more than $7½ million into research with the CSIRO and are confused as to why the application would be refused. Another bid has been lodged, with a quantity of extra information. I understand Grain Producers Australia, the applicant, have been informed that it will also be refused unless they can provide more information in a very short time. So I ask the question: what on earth is going on?

No-till farming has been a revolution. It's great for the soils. It's great for the environment. But it provides a natural habitat for mice—it provides feed and shelter in the paddock—so mouse plagues are much more common than they were in the past. So farmers need something on hand all the time to deal with rising mouse numbers.

Now, we have manufacturers who are not willing to produce the zinc 25 formulation. It's certainly not what farmers want, and the manufacturers fear that should the zinc 50 be approved they will be stuck with a truckload of it. I would be less than honest if I did not say that there are rumours around the industry that a certain manufacturer is holding considerable stocks of zinc phosphide 25 and is not keen on the registration of zinc phosphide 50. I state that these are rumours, and I haven't named anyone. But, given the rumours are about, I'm asking the minister for agriculture to take a direct interest in this situation and clear the air, and establish why it is that registration is being refused, given the views of the premier national science organisation, the CSIRO, who believe this is a fit and proper purpose for zinc 50.

We are in March. Farmers will start seeding next month. High-ish mouse numbers in the paddock need to be treated early. A single mouse can turn into about 400 in about two months or more. Early action is good action. I'm urging the APVMA to get on with this and the minister to take an interest.

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