Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I present the report of the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee on the administration by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry of the citrus canker outbreak, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee.

Ordered that the report be printed.

I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the report.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

The citrus canker outbreak, which the grows and flows committee—better known as the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee—investigated, came to our attention three years after the alleged illegal importation of, among other things, citrus cuttings into Emerald by a farming organisation up there which has refused to cooperate with the inquiry and the principals of which will probably never come back to Australia, and if they do they should get locked up.

This is a great wake-up call for Australia. It is a wake-up call for all the people who were given the supervision of not only the allegations of illegal importation but the consequent outbreak of citrus canker. The committee are pretty concerned about the way this was all handled—and that is not by any particular government but by all governments. Political persuasion should not be an issue in this. This is about protecting Australia’s clean, green and free image. This has been a serious breach of that process. When the first allegations of illegal importation were made, which was a red line call on 12 June 2001—three years before the citrus canker was discovered in Emerald—AQIS took six weeks to obtain a search warrant and to ask the Queensland state agency to be involved. We think that is pathetic.

Witnesses who had not spoken to AQIS—sometimes, we think, because AQIS did not make a concerted effort to speak to them—made information available to this committee. I heard about this and thought, ‘Shivers’—I suppose that would be a better word to use in this chamber—‘we ought to have a look at this.’ There was some resistance to our having a look at what happened in 2001 as opposed to the outbreak in subsequent years. So I thought, ‘What would be the first thing you would do if you wanted to investigate what happened in 2001?’ I thought the first bloke you would ring would be the farm manager, so I rang the farm manager and, lo and behold, he had not been formally interviewed by the investigating authorities. I thought that was pretty peculiar. So I thought perhaps I should talk to the chief compliance officer, who was supposed to do the investigation. I rang him directly and got into a bit of trouble for doing it, because I did not go through the various official channels.

Then the committee raised a few questions in estimates—as I recall, Senator O’Brien—and we pulled on this investigation. The further we went into the investigation the more disappointed the committee became. If ever there was a wake-up call needed for Australia, AQIS and the intergovernmental arrangements it is this. This was a serious Dad-and-Dave operation, and the consequences are the complete devastation of the district.

Perhaps the biggest single failure was that AQIS did not execute the search warrant. AQIS officers failed to investigate what was in a locked room. Everyone could give us evidence about this locked room, and everyone on the farm gave evidence that the dodgy material that was allegedly imported was kept in this room. When the investigators from AQIS got there they were told the door was locked, but instead of doing what I would have done, which is kick the door down—they said there was no key available—they just left it. They went away. They said, ‘There’s no key; we won’t bother having a look.’ Had something being done at that early stage—and there is no evidence that citrus canker was then present—the disease may never have been brought into Emerald.

The committee is equally concerned that the AQIS plant inspectors were given the task during the period of quarantine of inspecting the property of 20,000 acres. The lady concerned gave evidence to the committee. I think I said to her, ‘You were given a mission impossible,’ and she agreed. How can two people in one day inspect 20,000 acres for citrus canker? Also not helping was the fact that the manager of the property said he did not even know what citrus canker looked like until he was in a plane one day and saw a pamphlet in the pocket of the seat in front of him and thought, ‘Oh my God, that’s what we’ve got back at home on the farm.’

I am pretty unimpressed with all of this. I appreciate the cooperation we have had from the Queensland government et cetera since this all happened, but it is a bit late after the event. The committee has made some recommendations, and I am sure other members of the committee are anxious to speak on this report, so I had better not take too much time. The committee urges AQIS to bring more resources to bear early in the piece, to make sure that quarantine measures can be taken before a disease such as this spreads. For the record, the impact of the citrus canker outbreak was not limited to a few citrus growers in Emerald; 490,000 citrus trees had to be destroyed in the area. Every citrus tree, including every backyard, orchard and local tree, had to go under. An area that was generating revenue of up to $70.8 million per year was virtually wiped out overnight.

In my view, AQIS’s conduct of the investigation was not up to standard, to say the least, and those responsible for importing the disease into Australia have never been identified. We have a better than 90 per cent idea of who we are talking about and how they did it. We took some evidence and there was some influencing of witnesses, but whether it was incorrectly influencing or not we will never know. But it seems pretty certain how it all happened, and what gives me and the committee the heebie-jeebies is that they appear to have gotten away with it. The committee is very concerned that, based on AQIS’s performance, this is a sad episode. We think there are some serious lessons to be learnt from this.

There is also the issue of whistleblowers being protected. Mr Wayne Gillies was one of the people who were poorly handled. There was another witness, who gave evidence in camera, who had a nervous breakdown because he felt that he had to do the right thing by the country and ruin his own career in doing so. There is a lot of pressure in small places to shut your mouth and turn the other way. We think that a lot of work has got to be done to protect whistleblowers so we can protect Australia’s clean, green and free image. The whole thing was a disgrace, and I am very saddened by it.