Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Friday last week, I met with some stone fruit growers from a beautiful little rural community called Thirlmere, which is situated in the northern part of my electorate; a number of fruit growers from around the Sydney Basin also came to that meeting. These fruit growers have a very significant problem. Their problem is centred on fruit bats and their ever increasing number, caused by urban development along the coastlines, particularly in Queensland and northern New South Wales. These bats are creating havoc in this particular industry. Keep in mind that this industry used to grow cherries; it still grows apples, peaches and nectarines for the export trade. However, these bats affect this community by reducing this industry’s production to about 60 per cent of its capacity.

The cherry industry part of this region’s stone fruit growers is long gone, because cherries were the first crop that the bats attacked and the growers found that they could not sustain the loss of losing 100 per cent of the fruit on their trees. These fruit bats, which urban development has forced out of their natural habitat, strip the fruit trees down to about 1.3 metres above ground level. The annual crop loss for the export market is pretty significant. Not only do these animals strip the trees, creating a problem through the reduction in production, but also they contaminate what they do not eat. Sometimes, before the fruit is ripe, the bats come down and bite into the fruit, leaving their teeth marks on them. Those fruit then have to be rejected because they have been contaminated. As many of us know, these animals carry diseases which are contagious to human beings, which in itself is a significant problem as far as the flow-on health aspect of these protected animals is concerned.

The problem is that the growers themselves cannot afford the expensive netting which is needed to protect their crops. As members would know, the responsibility for these bat populations lies in the hands of the state governments. Whilst the growers recognise that, they understand that because of the intransigent attitude of the New South Wales Minister for Primary Industries, Mr Macdonald, there is absolutely no way in the world that they can expect to get any financial assistance to help them with their netting. They wanted to talk to me about whether I would ask the federal Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator Ian Campbell, who has a bit more of a compassionate approach to people in dire trouble in the agricultural industry, whether the Commonwealth would talk to the state ministers at COAG meetings in regard to both levels of government making a contribution—in company with a contribution from the growers themselves—towards a one-up grant to allow these growers to put this expensive netting over their trees in order to protect their fruit. The growers believe that, because they will be able to save 30 per cent to 40 per cent of their production loss—which is their profit level—that will enable them to put some money aside in every ensuing year and be able to renew the netting as it is required. I will be talking to the federal minister about that issue.

The point I want to make is this: the community has to take some responsibility for the problems that it is creating for our farmers out there in rural and regional Australia who are trying to make a living out of crops such as these stone fruit crops that I am talking about. We as a community have to understand that, if we are going to allow urban development to occur to the point where we are pushing these animals into the rural areas, we have to be responsible for the outcome, which is a negative impact on the profitability of farmers who are growing produce like stone fruit. I have undertaken to take the issue up with our minister. I hope the agricultural minister in New South Wales has the commonsense and decency to understand that the decisions by both his government and local government to allow development to occur are contributing to this massive problem. (Time expired).