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

I rise to take note of the ministerial statement tabled in relation to the import of New Zealand apples, in particular the risk of fire blight. This parliament has considered this issue for many years. It has been before rural and regional committees many times and we have spoken to people in the department very often on this subject. The fact of the matter is that several years ago officials before our committee accepted that fire blight would come to Australia. That was accepted—it will come here. Let us not pretend that we are having any discussion other than an acceptance of the fact that, whatever quality assurance processes are put in place, the reality is that one way or another fire blight will come to Australia.

The question then becomes: will it spread? That is the point over which there was considerable contention and discussion. My view is, if you import a disease of this kind, it is inevitable that it will spread. The officials, however, have argued that that will not be the case. Frankly, I cannot and do not accept that. We know this is a devastating disease to the apple and pear industry and we know that when you have it, it fundamentally changes things. It is not just the occasional tree that you might be able to excise; it means wipe out, gone, finish. You can lose virtually the entire orchard or the entire district that might have been dedicated to apple and pear growing. So we know what the consequences will be.

Australians must be asking themselves today: how is it that a nation with disease-free status, with an industry which trades on its disease-free status, would allow these products into Australia and risk that disease-free status? Why would Australia do it? Why would we go down this track? The answer is because of the World Trade Organisation rules. It is as simple as that. I am just so tired of the dedication in the Australian parliament to the extremes of the World Trade Organisation rules of free trade.

The Europeans must laugh at us every step of the way because, while they say they are committed to the WTO rules, never did a group of people subsidise and protect their agricultural product at every turn more than the Europeans. They say very clearly that their aim is to make sure that the European Union is self-sufficient across seasonal and latitudinal zones so that they can always be self-sufficient in food, that it is fundamental to their culture that they be able to grow their own food across their regions and they are sticking to the maintenance of small farms with massive subsidies. Australia can bleat its way around the Doha Round at every session of the world trade talks but the reality is that protectionism is there.

What has changed fundamentally is that with climate change and extreme weather events we are now seeing massive disruption to global food supply. The result has been that several countries have abandoned the world trade system. They have recognised that it does not matter how much money you have; if you have money but countries decide to withhold food, not to sell it, then you cannot buy it on the global market. That is why countries like China, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Qatar have now said: 'Right, that's it. We will trade when it suits us but more particularly we are going to outsource our food production so that when there is a global food crisis we can just grow for ourselves at our outsourced land and water and bring that food back to the domestic market and completely ignore the trade rules.' That is why China has gone out, why the Saudis have gone out and why Qatar has gone out. They are buying up hundreds of thousands of hectares across the planet and the water rights to go with them. In the case of the Pakistanis, not only have they sold the land and water but they have sold a security force which goes with it because they recognise that at the time these food shortages really start to bite there will be hungry people outside the fences who want that food. So those countries will want to make sure that they can get that food out and back to their own countries, where they need it to be.

The whole set of World Trade Organ­isation rules pertaining to trade around food are now under serious question in the context of global food security. How do you main­tain secure supplies of food in a global market and in an age of climate change in which outsourcing of food production is now becoming a fairly common thing for some of those countries?

People who are trying to protect Australia's disease-free status are auto­matically accused of trying to bring in protectionism. Minister Emerson is out there arguing, in every second speech he gives, that anyone who stands up and says that we need to protect our disease-free status and go strictly with science to get that disease-free status right is a protectionist and is using quarantine for protection—trying to protect Australian growers against competition. The reality here is that we have disease-free status and that is incredibly valuable. As a Tasmanian, I am more than aware of the significance of our environment in ensuring there is a significant premium, because we are disease free, for Tasmanian product going into all sorts of markets.

Australia is disease free. There are many countries who would, quite frankly, be very pleased if Australia got fire blight, because that would level up the playing field. Everyone would be very happy with that outcome, except the growers in Australia. You would say, 'This makes no sense; we do not want these apples from New Zealand.' The point is that Australia did say that we did not want the apples, but New Zealand took us to the WTO. We lost in the WTO. The appeal has been through, but we lost that as well. The situation is that, because of our commitment to WTO rules, Australia would, if it persisted in keeping the New Zealand apples out, run the risk of New Zealand taking retaliatory action against us big time. They could take retaliatory action against any other products—and Australia trades massively with New Zealand.

I am very aware that the coalition solution is to introduce a disallowable instrument which would enable the parliament to disallow any part of any free trade agreement in the future. That is a very interesting turn of events. It would make global news because it would mean that the coalition had abandoned the notion of the free trade system and was giving the parliament the ability to dismantle free trade agreements and any parts thereof. That is an interesting thing that shadow minister Cobb is talking about doing. It would certainly shake up the whole WTO process and where Australia sits in it.

From the Greens' point of view, it is essential that we not only maintain our disease-free status and use the best science we have to defend our disease-free status but also recognise that, as long as we have a slavish adherence to the WTO rules, we are always going to be in this situation and we are always going to be fighting. The reason is that the basis on which we export is 'negligible risk'. It is not 'no risk'; it is 'negligible risk'. We say we send our product overseas on the basis it is negligible risk and, as a result, the New Zealanders say, 'You have these apples—since it is negligible risk, it comes into the same category.'

The discussion we should be having in this parliament is about how we are going to respond to the changed global trade environment in an age of food security and insecurity. How are we going to produce enough food for our own people and meet our moral obligation to supply as much food as we possibly can into a global scenario where people are going to be desperate for food? That is the reality of where we are going on this planet and that is the conver­sation we need to be having. It needs to be a much bigger conversation than just this.

I recognise the stress we are under in relation to fire blight and I particularly recognise the stress that those apple growers and pear growers are under because of this decision. I ask the government: what are you going to do when, inevitably, fire blight gets to Australia? And who is going to be liable? Who is going to pay and compensate the farmers concerned when fire blight devastat­es orchards? I cannot believe we will be in a scenario where that is not going to happen.