Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to note the report as well and to note the bipartisan, tripartite or unanimous view of the committee in relation to the import of apples from New Zealand and the threat that is posed to Australian apple and pear growers by the very idea of fire blight. What we have to raise here and face up to is the fact that we are dealing with this through World Trade Organisation procedures and that, increasingly, Australian growers, in order to get access to overseas markets, are in turn having threats imposed upon them by a regime which determines a range of probabilities of risk. In this case, it has been determined on the basis of those World Trade Organisation processes and risk assessments that the risk is low to very low. But in fact the Greens have been working on this for a very long time. I would like to acknowledge the work of Christine Sharp, who is a Greens member in Western Australia and has worked very hard in relation to this matter, and also my colleague on that committee Senator Rachel Siewert, because it is our view that it is time common sense prevailed here.

We have had evidence from Biosecurity Australia that fire blight can travel on a mature apple and that chlorine dips are not effective in killing fire blight in the calyx of the fruit. Biosecurity also explained that its modelling suggests that a low proportion of apples could be carrying fire blight bacteria and there is some risk of contamination but there is a lower risk of the disease becoming established. However, Biosecurity agreed that, once established, the risk of spread of the disease is very high.

Whilst they argue that there is a low to very low risk of establishment, we have to make the point that, should it become established in Australia, it would be an absolute disaster and wipe-out for most of Australia’s apple and pear growers exposed in overseas markets. It would be a disaster for us if this occurred. That is why the Greens say it is time for common sense. If Biosecurity Australia tells us that we will be importing apples with fire blight from New Zealand, and we know that it could easily spread, the question, to me, is not a matter of whether it will become established; it is a matter of when it will become established.

You can go through process after process and, as has occurred, set up as many expert committees as you would like to. Again, the task of the eminent scientists was to determine whether the submissions had been adequately examined and not whether the science actually backed up the conclusions; so it was actually an administrative role rather than a scientific assessment role. The Greens are not satisfied at all with this process, because it just defies common sense. Day after day and week after week, we are told about our great biosecurity and quarantine procedures, yet we have been told that this very day common white snails have entered Tasmania through barley shipments from South Australia. Ten properties are now contaminated—and goodness knows what the compensation will be in that regard. This follows live fruit fly larvae only a couple of months ago coming into Tasmania from Queensland.

How can you be expected to have confidence in all these processes? We also know that, even though your apples can undergo a chlorine dip—which does not affect the calyx of the apple—as is required in the procedures and you can still have the inspection regimes in New Zealand, fire blight can still be brought into Australia. I just think that, as long as we have an understanding that we will be bringing fire blight into the country, the question then becomes whether it will become established, knowing that if it does become established it will wipe out large numbers of apple and pear growers. Our status in Tasmania is particularly important to us because of the ‘disease-free’ opportunities it offers us in global markets. Nevertheless, I return to my original point, which is that the World Trade Organisation’s procedures lock Australia in to a situation that I think is untenable in the long term.

Previously, Tasmania had to fight very hard on the same front over salmon; no doubt, we will be fighting it again in the longer term. But I do appreciate the fact that this committee is taking the issue extremely seriously. The Greens will continue to play a strong role in the committee, as we examine the protocol and the reasons behind it and, in fact, the information coming forward about the scientific basis on which the decision that the risk of establishment is ‘low to very low’ was made. I look forward to the ongoing deliberations of the committee. I certainly hope that the committee’s recommendation that no fruit be imported until the committee has had a chance to look at this further evidence is taken seriously. Tasmanian fruit growers, those in Western Australia and of course in Victoria—right around the country—are watching this very carefully, with the experience of constant breaches of biosecurity around the country. I commend the committee and my colleagues for this report.