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

On behalf of the Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Resources, I present the committee’s report entitled More than honey: the future of the Australian honey bee and pollination industries, together with the minutes of proceedings.

Ordered that the report be made a parliamentary paper.

On behalf of the Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Resources, I have the pleasure of presenting this report. This report addresses a matter of great importance to the future of Australia. The Australian honey bee industry is a small but vital component of the Australian economy. While the production of honey and other bee products represent only $8 million per annum in gross value of production, the value of honey bees as pollinators to agriculture production is reckoned in terms of billions of dollars. Clearly, therefore, the prospects of the honey bee industry, the producers of honey bee products and the providers of managed pollination services are of vital interest to other primary producers, governments of all levels and the Australian community as a whole. It might be an exaggeration to say ‘no bees, no food’, but the food security and economic welfare of the entire community depend to a considerable degree on the humble honey bee.

Yet the Australian honey bee industry faces a number of significant threats and challenges. A major challenge is resource security. The honey bee industry is dependent upon native forest for honey production and recovery from pollination operations. Without access to floral resources, the potential of the honey bee industry to grow to meet the demands for crop pollination is compromised. The committee has made a number of recommendations which, if implemented, will provide resource security for the honey bee industry and pollination dependent industries into the future.

This is especially important in the face of the biosecurity threats facing the industry. The potential for pests such as varroa destructor to annihilate feral bee populations and decimate managed bees is real. Keeping such pests and diseases from Australian shores should be a priority for governments and industry. Investment in border security measures and research is vital. The committee strongly recommends the creation of a new honey bee quarantine facility and increased funding for the National Sentinel Hive program.

The honey bee industry is also being challenged by declining profitability. The industry must modernise to provide paid pollination services. Yet, for paid pollination services to be viable, the honey production sector must also be viable. Import competition is having a significant impact upon returns to Australian honey producers, but much of this competition derives from low-cost countries with poor quality control regimes. Australian exporters on the other hand often face a range of tariff and non-tariff barriers in accessing overseas markets. Clearly, there is no level playing field. In addition, lax labelling laws have allowed foreign honey to be ‘re-badged’, with serious implications for the reputation of Australian honey.

Protecting the industry from biosecurity threats and preparing it for the future is a significant undertaking. In this vein, the committee acknowledges the work of government and industry in creating Pollination Australia, an organisation designed to provide funding and leadership for Australia’s pollination providers and users into the future. Nonetheless, the committee believes that there is greater scope still for the promotion of research extension and training for the Australian honey bee industry and related industries. With this in view, the committee has recommended that the Australian government commit $50 million per annum in pursuit of biosecurity measures and research in support of the honey bee industry.

I would like to express, on behalf of the committee, our gratitude to all those who participated in the inquiry and to the staff of the secretariat, Janet Holmes and Bill Pender, and also to the member for Hume, my deputy chair, Alby Schultz, for all the work that he put into this report. On behalf of the committee I commend the report to the House.

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

I rise to speak on the tabling of the report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Resources entitled More than honey: the future of the Australian honey bee and pollination industries. Under the previous government I was the chair of this committee in another form and I am pleased to advise that the work on this report has continued in the same spirit of bipartisanship under the current chairman, the member for Lyons. I wish to thank all former members of the committee and the staff of the secretariat for their considerable input into this important document. Without their dedication, this important issue may not have received the publicity it justifiably deserves.

During the hearings, the message we received from the industry and the scientific sectors was a chilling one. I will quote from the report:

Taking into account all plant based industries and wool, meat and dairy production, it is estimated that honey bees contribute directly to between $4 billion and $6 billion worth of agricultural production. In its submission to the inquiry, the Australian Honeybee Industry Council … noted that:

Honeybee pollination provides significant value to Australian horticulture and agriculture with services being valued at $3.8 billion per annum for the 35 most important honeybee dependent crops. When other crops, including pastures such as lucerne and clover, are added this estimate becomes even larger. If honeybee pollination were to stop completely, large losses would be felt in a horticulture sector. This is because approximately 65 per cent of horticultural and agricultural crops produced in Australia require pollination services from honeybees.

…            …            …

In its 2005 report, Future directions for the Australian honeybee industry, the Centre for International Economics (CIE) noted that the Australian honey bee industry has an overall gross value of production (GVP) of $65 million, with honey production contributing about $50 million, with other products, such as paid pollination services, beeswax production, queen bee and package bee sales and pollen production contributing the rest.

The report notes that given its gross value of production the industry should be classed as ‘a relatively small industry’, but that ‘its value to the rest of agriculture and the economy through pollination services and, potentially, the value of honey and honey products in medicinal uses, far exceeds the value based on GVP estimates’.

The CIE report said further:

A risk-impact analysis clearly points to the industry needing to address two key issues as a matter of priority. These are: first, to ensure that everything possible is being done to protect the industry from an exotic incursion of varroa mite or other serious exotic diseases; and second, to influence governments to ensure that access to native flora resources is not further restricted and hopefully reversed. The latter will require a concentrated effort by industry leaders to influence policy makers on sound, professional and well-presented arguments and will also require the industry to establish its own environmental credentials through the adoption of an EMS [Environmental Management System].’

And the committee report made the following points:

The Australian honey bee industry faces a range of threats and opportunities in the future. In 2005 the Centre for International Economics highlighted three major threats facing the industry which required immediate attention:

• The introduction of exotic pests and diseases, particularly the parasitic mite Varroa destructor;
• Access to natural resources; and
• Contamination and mislabelling of Australian honey bee products.

At worst, the world could run out of food within five years of the varroa mite reaching Australia, and the varroa mite will reach Australia. It is a question of when, not if! Australia’s physical separation from much of the rest of the world and its strict quarantine regime have worked to protect us for a long time. But the varroa mite has been in New Zealand for several years and it is only a matter of time before we see it here.

This report suggests how we might best prepare for the inevitability of this threat to the last of the world’s clean bee population. The issue is too important to become involved in a political battle. The current Prime Minister and his cabinet need to understand that the 26 recommendations of this report must be properly funded and fully implemented. The impact of the varroa mite and other threats to the honey bee industry will be profound. Government authorities are currently talking about the significant dangers of the resulting food shortages in Australia and across the rest of the world. The 26 recommendations in this report illustrate just how the food-bowl industries of Australia totally depend on pollination by honey bees.

One last point I need to make is that, while we are tabling this report in the hope that its recommendations will be promptly adopted and actively pursued, there is a history of reports being shelved or of only one or two recommendations being taken up by governments of all persuasions. It is vitally important to the biosecurity not just of the honey bee industry but of Australia that all 26 recommendations of this report be funded and implemented as soon as possible. We do not need another review or another committee. We need action.

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allocated for statements on this report has expired. Does the member for Lyons wish to move a motion in connection with the report to enable it to be debated on a later occasion?

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House take note of the report.

In accordance with standing order 39, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.