Dear Mrs Irwin

Thank you for the letter of 28 June 2010 from the former Chair of the Standing Committee on Petitions to the Hon. Tony Burke MP, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, about a petition on the weed, wandering trad (Tradescantia albiflora). This petition was presented by the Member for La Trobe on 24 June 2010. Minister Burke has asked me to reply on his behalf. I regret the delay in responding.

The Australian Government recognises that weeds are a significant problem for farmers, the community and the environment and works closely with stakeholders to improve and support national solutions to manage their impact.

The petitioners’ request that the House of Representatives restore government funding for wandering trad control relates to the previous government’s commitment in late 2007 to fund a three-year CSIRO biological control project targeting this weed through the Defeating the Weed Menace program. The Defeating the Weed Menace program ended in June 2008. The government has established a National Weeds and Productivity Research program, administered by the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation. More information is available at www.rirdc.gov.au.

On the petitioners’ request that the House of Representatives implement an Australia-wide strategy to combat wandering trad, Minister Burke recently announced $6 million in funding to support the Australian Weeds Strategy over the next three years. One of the objectives of this strategy is to prevent the spread of weeds.

I enclose more information on the government’s role in weed management.

Thank you for raising the Member for La Trobe’s concerns. I trust this information is of assistance.

Australian Government responsibilities for weed management and research in relation to wandering trad

Australian Government responsibilities for weed management include international border protection, import and export of plant material, and management of Commonwealth lands such as defence establishments and Commonwealth national parks. Across the country, the day-to-day management of weeds is primarily the responsibility of state and territory governments and individual landholders.

The Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council and the Primary Industries Ministerial Council and their subordinate committees the National Biosecurity Committee and the Australian Weeds Committee provide the practical mechanism for federal agreement on responsibilities and funding for better weed management. The Australian Weeds Strategy (2007)—developed by the Australian Weeds Committee for the Natural Resource Ministerial Council—provides a framework to establish consistent weed guidelines and priorities across Australia.

In the area of weeds research, the government has delivered on its election commitment to provide $15.3 million over four years from July 2008 to establish a National Weeds and Productivity Research program. Through the first funding round of the program in 2008, the government identified biological control as one of its priority investment areas. Thirty-nine national weed research projects, worth $3.6 million in total, were funded including eleven CSIRO research projects and a variety of biological control projects; however, no proposals addressing wandering trad were received.

The Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation is consulting widely as it develops guidelines for the next stage of the research program. This will provide further opportunity for consideration of the merit of research into control of wandering trad over the next two years.

To support the Australian Weeds Strategy the government has recently announced $6 million over the next three years for coordination of priority actions including the Weeds of National Significance (WoNS) program. The WoNS are twenty weeds agreed in early 2000 by the Australian and all state and territory governments as the priority species for nationally coordinated action.

A national strategy for each WoNS species sets out best practice actions to manage the weed. WoNS coordinators champion the on-ground adoption and continued improvement of each national strategy across the country. The Australian Weeds Committee called for nominations of weeds to add to the list of WoNS in 2011 and beyond. This will provide an opportunity for consideration by all states and territories of nominating wandering trad as a candidate species for WoNS coordination.

from the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Senator Ludwig