Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to take a few minutes to look at this issue from a Western Australian perspective and to support the referral of this issue to the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee. I think there are a number of problems with the current situation both in terms of the structures and the implementation of biosecurity in Australia, particularly as it relates to Western Australia. In Western Australia, our agricultural industry is relatively free from pests and diseases. In fact, our agricultural industry is one of the cleanest industries in the world. In Western Australia we take quarantine very seriously.

I understand the issues of sensitivity around maintaining our high standards and our international trade relationships. However, the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures and the International Plant Protection Convention provide that countries may exercise their sovereign right to impose appropriate sanitary and phytosanitary measures. The SPS agreement, as it is commonly known, recognises that risk may not be evenly distributed across the country. This is very important in Australia, as there are a lot of regional differences across this huge country.

When Australia joined the WTO an MOU was entered into between the Commonwealth and state governments. However, this is a relatively small document and it does not give any consideration to the necessary working principles used in the new and now standard practice of the so-called scientific import risk analysis determined by Biosecurity Australia. Of particular concern is the lack of adequate recognition of the significant variation throughout Australia—that is, the freedom from particular pests and diseases and the different level of risk depending on whether important regional agricultural produce is involved.

I will turn to how this applies specifically to Western Australia and Western Australian apples. In Western Australia we are free from three of the most major pests and diseases affecting apples—those being codling moth, fire blight and apple scab. It is said that we in Western Australia have the cleanest apples in the world. Because we have the cleanest apples in the world, we need stronger quarantine protocols than, for example, other eastern states. This is in fact permissible under WTO rules in general and, in particular, the SPS rules.

In Australia, as Senator Milne outlined, we are up to the third import risk assessment on apples. It has been a very frustrating process for us all, with the first and second IRAs missing and ignoring regional differences or not dealing properly with regional differences. We are dealing with an irreversible biological threat to the cleanest apples in the world. We believe that the precedents being set under the new system will probably determine the outcome with regard to countless pests and diseases from which we are currently free.

The first IRA was torn up, basically, after a nationwide uproar in regional communities because of its inadequacies on the problem of fire blight, which is often referred to as the worst apple problem in the world. In the second IRA the additional biosecurity problems faced in WA from New Zealand apples in particular at the time—and we are talking about codling moth and apple scab, which are already present in the east—were ignored to all intents and purposes. Our triple freedom in Western Australia was at risk of being lost. It was the most extraordinary denial of WA’s regional difference. And that was just several weeks after WA had signed an agreement with the Commonwealth on quarantine controls and handed over 230 quarantine controls to the Commonwealth. I understand that, at the time, WA agencies had not even been consulted prior to the release of the second IRA.

Now, of course, we are on the third one. That, as Senator Milne pointed out, is just being assessed. The point here is that this was after we ran a huge campaign across the country and in Western Australia to get regional differences considered. From my point of view, the protection of our quarantine standards in Australia should not be dependent on us—the community—having to run such a strong campaign.

There is a tension between science based quarantine arrangements and the least restrictive trade measures, and this is of concern to growers. Growers are concerned that the science based quarantine decisions may be subordinated to the requirement to resolve trade related quarantine disputes. Growers are concerned that, in effect, reports are being written so that they will not be challenged. The concern is that perhaps they are being too cautious in the application of our quarantine rules.

As I said at the start, this points to some concerns about our current structures and the way they are being implemented. That is why from a Western Australian perspective we strongly support a review of the way that our quarantine measures are being implemented and of the structures which support them in order to ensure that they are protecting the cleanest agriculture in the world.